What does an Internship mean to you ?

Piliger

I hope it is ok to post this question here. It is not intended as a business research thing, but to resolve an argument with a colleague in the intern/training sector.

What does an "Internship" for graduates in a company mean to you in this economic climate ?

Does it mean:

a) A period of maybe 3-6 months where you just get some work experience on misc projects around the company. Sometimes paid or unpaid ? or ...

b) A supervised highly structured period, where there would be a pre planned 'course' of activities - including seminars, training, specially designed work experience, specially designed work projects, personal development, etc etc. ?

(Yes I know, b. would be better, but is it what you would 'expect' if you saw an internship advertised in Dublin ?)

Tks !

djpbarry

Moved from Postgraduates.

sarkozy

I think you're too much defining an internship as a set of activities rather than what it is: work.

The first thing to figure out is for what purpose and in whose interests this work is. To me, a real internship is one in which it is the intern who is benefiting (through learning/gaining concrete experience) and the employer is gaining cheap labour and contributing to their sector's skills levels.

In other words, an internship is only an internship when there is genuine and fair mutual benefit. This, to me, also means there is a burden of responsibility on the employer not to exploit the intern by offering real and meaningful work which the company itself values.

Based on these principles, I would then look at how to go about structuring an internship.

DidYouSquirt?

I would expect b

b) A supervised highly structured period, where there would be a pre planned 'course' of activities - including seminars, training, specially designed work experience, specially designed work projects, personal development.

lau1247

Piliger wrote: »

Does it mean:

a) A period of maybe 3-6 months where you just get some work experience on misc projects around the company. Sometimes paid or unpaid ? or ...

b) A supervised highly structured period, where there would be a pre planned 'course' of activities - including seminars, training, specially designed work experience, specially designed work projects, personal development, etc etc. ?

I think it's a bit of both.. it wouldn't be completely pre-planned but they will likely to have some form of training structure to give you the basic knowledge to start working on work and build up the experience..

work wise i don't think it will be specially designed work experience, in reality it will probably be the extra work that the company don't have resources for.. so your work would be like any other employee.. maybe at the start it will be menial job, but it'll slowly build up to full time employee kind of work

majority of the time you can truly learn when you are actually working on it so i don't think they'll dwell on 'full month' training course type either

pow wow

In Ireland they seem to be marketed as B (now they're so popular :rolleyes:), but a traditional understanding of them would very much be A. That's coming from the US where they have been par for the course for decades really and not a half-hearted attempt to massage unemployment figures.

Piliger

My own perception of Internship is mainly 'work experience' with a certain amount of training but that training is basically training for how to do the job in question. Usually an intern would be moved around within the company to experience a variety of roles and be trained in to each.

Is that not what graduates are being sold when they attend all of these Job Fairs ?

It has been put to me (by a couple of people in the industry) that Graduates are being told that b) is the model that should be expected.

I find this very dubious. I know that Internships may be being 'oversold' by a few, but is this really the perception of today's graduate ?

CatFromHue

Option b) is what companies like Airbus or Rolls Royce (engines) offer as their graduate entry scheme. This scheme lasts for 2 years, is not an internship but an actual job, and you get a good wage. This is very much the top end of the scale.

If a company is taking on an unpaid intern I think they should be modelling the internship on option b). Mainly the training, specially designed work experience, and specially designed work projects sections. Seminars and personal development wouldn't be applicable.

Piliger

CatFromHue wrote: »

I think they should

Yes ... but is that the perception of most Grads ? Is that your perception of what Internships mostly offer ?