Two challenges facing internships
December 4, 2008 by Gary Schlee
If an internship is part of the PR curriculum, it becomes a primary preoccupation for students, whether the program is six months or six years. And that’s the nub of one of the challenges posed by work placements. Students feel a great deal is riding on landing exactly the right internship. This becomes so important that the process of finding a rewarding placement is often compromised.
Please understand that I’m generalizing here, but the observations are based on nearly three decades of placing students in communication departments and agencies.
It’s gratifying to hear graduates come in and tell students not to obsess about finding the perfect internship. But the message usually falls on deaf ears. Instead, the student agonizes over bagging a holy-grail placement. The student isn’t sure what that is, but he or she knows what it isn’t. It isn’t that internship promising plenty of relevant work, a veteran mentor or uplifting working conditions. Sure, those sound fine, but there may be an even better placement out there. So, the student hangs tough, holding out for an internship that probably won’t materialize because it probably doesn’t even exist. This pickiness — a phenomenon that seems to be increasing — often means the student starts the internship later, usually in an organization not as fullfilling as some of those previously snubbed.
Perhaps this fussiness is some of the fallout from Generation Y (see 10 Characteristics of Generation Me) where a sense of entitlement clashes with the concept of ‘paying your dues’ or ‘working your way up’. Whatever the cause, it seems to result in students working much harder to find a less rewarding experience. And it certainly adds to the burden of internship directors trying to match new practitioners to organizations.
The other challenge is raised by organizations offering no remuneration to interns. In today’s workplace, the idea of offering no money to someone bringing value to the organization is, quite simply, inexcusable. Why does it happen? In some cases (many entertainment and sports organizations, for example), it’s a sense that if the student isn’t prepared to work for nothing, they can probably find someone else who will. They milk it because they can.
In other cases, they just don’t have the money to offer. (In many of these situations, it’s interesting to note that although they want an intern again the following year, they still haven’t budgeted for it — nor the year after that.)
Truly successful internships are helped along by students who approach them with realistic expectations, and organziations prepared to reward the work being done.
6 Responses to “Two challenges facing internships”
To add to your first point, inexperienced students should be discouraged from applying for their ideal placement early on in the course. That less than literate letter could seriously damage their reputation with that employer as could any signs of naivety or inexperience.
Nice to hear from you Richard (and congrats on your new job with the University of Gloucestershire). Another difficulty with keen students who start lining up internships months and years in advance is that their contacts and the workload may very well have moved on by the time the placement is to start.
I share your pain and some of your perceptions, Gary.
It perplexes me–and many organizations eager to have a student join them for eight weeks–why students reject offerings that clearly are full of opportunity–whether paid or unpaid.
But, I wonder if it’s just a case of “they don’t know what they don’t know.” We’ve had far more experience in the world of fulltime work and managing a career. They haven’t. So, they’re less certain of what awaits them.
I think you’ve captured it quite nicely, Christine.
You know, Gary, this is something that drove me up the wall as a student; I called it “agency syndrome” because, again generalizing, a good 3/4 of the class was dead-set on an internship in one of the big agencies (H&K, Thornley Fallis, etc).
The public knows very little about our profession;what IS known is largely glamourized. And this is why entertainment and sports organizations can get away with paying their long-line of interns next-to-nothing.
I chose an internship that paid less than minimum wage and less than a year after graduation, I’m working for one of the largest and most profitable organizations in Canada. The most valuable thing I got out of my internship? A great mentor and vast network of connections.
My advice to students is this: in the race to separate yourself from the pack (and with three post-grad PR programs in the GTA alone, it’s quite a pack), a list of exceptional references, being interwoven with your network and being part of an organization that supports the development of your niche is a hell of a lot more important than having an eight-week internship at a big agency on your resume. Stand out or get stepped on.
I often find that students don’t really know what they want from an internship and are attracted by what they perceive to be glamourous organisations. What they need very early on in their studies is access to a wide variety of practitioners who can help them understand the function and what is expected from interns. Meet the Professional events are great for this.
My own industry is automotive and I’ve found that initially PR students (who are primarily female in UK) aren’t attracted to placements in this area. Once they get to hear more about what they would be involved with, the skills and competencies they develop, the career potential and so on, they can realise that an internship offers a good learning opportunity that will convert to added value on the CV/resume.
I’ve also often spoken with students about placements in even less “exciting” organisations and helped them to understand what is most important in an internship is what you put into the experience – and hence what you get out of it.
I always say that one skill of a really good PR person is to be interested in anything – and that is never more true than when you are looking to maximise your internship.