Finding the Perfect Internship

Internships, placements and work experience are the way forward in winning the race for your ideal job. With the right kind of exposure, a placement or internship can be your ticket to a career of your choosing.

With the 1992 reclassification of UK polytechnics to become universities and the current government initiative to drive university attendance up to 50% of the population, a degree, however good, is no longer sufficient to set one graduate apart from another. Whilst everybody is working hard to compile a competitive CV, high quality work experience is becoming increasingly essential, particularly if a graduate hopes to be selective regarding the career path he or she follows.

Taking up a placement in a company or industry for the summer or for a year is no guarantee that you will land a job there, but conversely you are not expected to promise your future to that company either. In most cases, there is not even an obligation. There is a question then, as to why companies invest in internship programmes if there is no guaranteed return on that investment. There is nobody better placed to answer that than the companies themselves. Juliet Hall, Personnal Manager at Buro Happold, acknowledges that internships spread positive knowledge by word of mouth - a good internship leads to that individual speaking highly of the company regardless of whether he or she ends up working there. Juliet concludes, "Buro Happold looks for people who have completed an internship because they show a commitment to the industry. It also provides students with experience of the working environment."

Get the competitive edge

In today's global business environment, competition is not limited to the next street or the next town and, as such, companies have become much more focused on core value added. This has resulted in a key criterion for recruitment being "work-readiness". Increasingly, a swift return is expected on the additional investment required to hire a graduate. Companies like Buro Happold believe that experience prior to employment furnishes graduates with the level of maturity required to integrate more rapidly into the working environment and thus become effective more quickly. Mott MacDonald strongly supports the notion of gaining relevant work experience, as Graduate Recruitment officer Charles Statham states: "On a CV, practical experience in a relevant field shows that the student has used his or her initiative to gain an insight in to the industry outside of academic studies."

An increasing number of companies are more tentative in offering permanent graduate jobs even to the most impressive of their graduate intake. Carillion, for example, demands a complete application and assessment process for its graduate positions regardless of whether a candidate has successfully passed the equally taxing version necessary to take up one of the 40 annual placements. Yet the enhanced understanding of the candidate does help. Graduate Recruitment Officer Alison Kay confirms that an internship "can help someone decide in which area he or she wants to specialize, ready for returning to Carillion on the Graduate Programme."

The real thing

It is important to clarify the contrast between the kind of experience most sought after and that provided by a "summer job" at a supermarket or fast-food joint. Whilst these are better than watching daytime TV for the entire summer, there is a difference between work experience and simply "working", Carl Gilleard, Chief Executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters summarises the thoughts of many recruitment professionals, "Any work experience is valuable if the graduate shows that he or she has gained from it." Many internship programmes are set up to provide participants with a broad range of experiences over a short period of time and some are designed with learning support and tracking. They are put together specifically to help participants undergo self-reflection and strengthen their direction.

Even in times of reduced graduate recruitment numbers, many companies have maintained their internship recruitment, aware that it is essential to keep young people interested in their industry and to sustain the provision of practical skills education to complement academic study. If, however, you cannot find a placement directly within a company there are still options through organised programmes such as the Shell endorsed STEP programme or, as an exciting alternative, there are opportunities abroad with the likes of AIESEC or IAESTE.

How better to assess whether a career, company or industry is best for you than to do it on a trial? An internship is not only about enhancing your CV - it is also about discovering yourself and where you want to go. Practice makes perfect.