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Back to School, Part 2/3: Internships – Creating an Internship Experience That Benefits Both Parties

Written by: Jennifer Loftus

Article Overview: Part 2 of 3 of the Back to School series shows us what internships can do for both the intern and the employer.

Back to School, Part 2/3: Internships – Creating an Internship Experience That Benefits Both Parties

As August closes and September brings in a new school year, a popular topic amongst some organizations is the excitement of possible new interns. Internships can fair extremely well or poor, depending on the work provided and consideration put in by both the organization and the intern.

Many organizations view internships as a head start in recruiting college graduates (http://www.hr.com/SITEFORUM?&t=/Default/gateway&i=1116423256281&b=1116423256281&application=story&active=no&ParentID=1119278002800&StoryID=1163038203954&xref=http://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+create+a+sucessful+internship+program&ie=utf-8&). As the intern becomes acquainted with the organization, professional relationships build. Both parties experience many benefits, which include increased productivity and valuable hands-on experience within the career the student has been studying in school.


What Can Organizations Do to Ensure a Successful Internship?

In order to make sure organizations benefit from hired interns, many organizations may turn to colleges with internship program requirements already in place. Joining a school’s internship program will allow perspective students to come to the organization on a semester-based routine. This approach could also possibly permit the student to gain school credit. With a formal internship program like this, the student will have an allotted amount of hours to be used for the work experience.

Other organizations may want to invest in creating an internship program supported by the organization alone. Resources such as the Internship Institute’s Internship Kit (http://www.internshipinstitute.org/index.asp) offer to help organizations to build their own in-house successful internship programs. Some other things employers need to keep in mind when developing their own internship programs include (http://www.columbusinternships.com/search/resource/2):

• Have an internship job description available. There should be details entailing what the intern should be expected to do. Making things clear in the beginning will allow perspective interns to decide if they can fully commit to what the organization needs from them.

• Make sure within the job description to mention what the possible end dates are, and what type of monetary compensation the intern may receive. Creating a written agreement listing these factors should help make things clear between both the intern and the organization.

• Utilize mentoring. Having someone in the organization to guide and mentor the intern(s) will serve as a resource for interns to raise any possible issues or concerns.

• Include intern(s) in meetings, organizational gatherings, and projects to provide additional hands-on experience within their chosen field. Having interns only working in the mailroom and / or research is helpful from a productivity standpoint, but interns seek a “real-life” work experience. Involving the intern in one or two big projects, or several small projects, can help him or her to decide if this career is “the one” for them. Including interns in organizational lunches helps with practicing networking skills.


It’s Not all the Organization – What the Intern Should Do to Ensure Success

Internships are a two-way street. It is not only an organization’s responsibility to make an internship experience work. There are many things an intern can do to impress the organization, and help make a difference. For instance (http://gradpsych.apags.org/webexclusives/sixtips.html):

• Goal Setting: Whether it’s long-term (i.e. working after graduation) or short-term (i.e. creating a personal deadline for a project), setting a goal allows an intern to become motivated to achieve. Organizations can help in goal achievement by having the intern list some goals they wish to achieve while interning. After the internship is over, they can go back and see for themselves what goals they have achieved, and the experience they’ve received.

• Pacing and Time Management: Interns need to make sure they have the time to dedicate to the organization. Overextending oneself with work and school does not always work out for the best. Organizations can help an intern to recognize this potential for burnout by asking pointed questions about school during the interview process. Getting a good feel for what type of a workload the perspective intern may have during the internship can help when deciding if the person is the right fit for the organization and for the job.

• Networking: Branching out in an organization of any size can help an intern to find his / her place. Additionally, by meeting new people interns can find guidance from all areas within an organization. They also become exposed to different facets within an organization, and may discover a new career avenue in the process.

Internships can be a wonderful thing. Not only does an organization gain a helping hand in functioning at its best, but organizations also get a head start on potential new recruits. Internships also allows an organization to give a select number of people the chance of a lifetime…the chance to peek into the future, vision themselves after graduation, and reach for their dreams.

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  Secrets of Internship Success
  How to Reinforce Your Successful Teambuilding Efforts with Summer Interns

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secure my connection - I agree with Link's second post. Security is a personal sticky issue and possibly not the first service you should introduce yourself at the door. I'd suggest also the Back to School "In-Home" Computer tuneup (it's such a pain to take your computer in for servicing) and promise that they would see a smoother and faster computer. You can hand them a 2 page report on the benefits of having a computer tuneup -> this is critical. After you are gone this is the only piece of information that they will have to begin trusting you and want to have you in their home. You can sneak at the bottom of the report the benefits of having a wireless connection and the importance of Securing it. finish off the report with two dotted rounded rectangle boxes beside each other. One has a free Computer tune up assessment and the other a free wireless network security test. If they take you up on either you can test for the other. You now have two sources of possible income.
Re: Can someone explain Search engine optimization to me? - Search Engine Optimization (SEO) could be compared to a big popularity contest: A High School Computer Geek and a High School Football Captain who are trying to promote a party. The computer geek tells everyone in school & even hands out 100's of flyers about his party Friday night...what happens? his friends end up showing up and a few new people...even the new people leave right away because it is not what they are looking for. The High School Football Captain ends up just telling a few good buddies, and within hours the entire school not only knows about it, but everyone wants to come, and everyone does come & stay. One defenition of "optimize is "To make as perfect or effective as possibe." How effective are your article marketing campaigns? Could you be distributing content (that is what search engines index) more effectively? In a perfect world, who would you want promoting your website, web pages, and web content? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is determining this perfect & effective way to do this. Jeff
Re: Can you outsource your product launch? - Yes that what I am talking about. Creating a buzz for your online product launch basically. Is this part of what you do?
Patent information - I'm also interested in Part 2. Thanks.
Re: I'm Back - Welcome Back! Hope you are doing great and looking forward to hearing from you.. Jude


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