Winning Over Students With Popcorn
Today's post comes from Elizabeth Lowery, our Assistant Director of Career Placement for the Welch College of Business, and contains some great advice for students about to embark on their summer internships!
Most students think that internships were designed just for them. Companies, out of the kindness of their corporate hearts wanted to develop various programs to help the student gain meaningful experience so they can build their resume and then bring that experience somewhere else after they graduate. How sweet of them!
THINK AGAIN!
Companies, for the most part, have their own interests in mind when it comes to interns. The goal of a company with a well organized internship program is to have that student return to them upon graduation. Hiring a student still in college as an intern and training them, grooming them and showing them the ropes will not just give the student the opportunity to check out a company, but vice versa as well. Think about it! With the sky high costs of training new employees (approximately 30% of a salary) this is a win-win situation: The new grad might secure a FT offer from their internship in this “iffy” job market, and the company will have their new FT employee hit the ground running from day one.
A company I used to recruit for would relentlessly hire interns year round. During interviews, we would look not just for a summer employee, but for someone who might stay with us for the long term, that we could turn into great employees and build relationships with. When they left us at summer’s end to return to school, we would send them care packages full of goodies, print ads in their school newspapers praising them for their service, and continue to invite them to fun company outings throughout the year. Sure, we wanted them to enjoy these perks, but even more than that, we wanted to instill in them a feeling of loyalty to our company and win them over through Red Sox games and packages of microwave popcorn.
HOW DO YOU TURN YOUR INTERNSHIP INTO A FULL-TIME OFFER?
Simple. Do your best—your very best. Make sure to outshine other interns (without making them look badly, of course). Anticipate the needs of your manager and get things done before you are asked. Go above and beyond to volunteer for extra projects. Who knows? You may learn something new, too! Don’t believe me? Here is a recent article from BusinessWeek Magazine on the topic. Make sure to check out the “Slide Show” to view profiles of 17 interns who have turned their internship opportunity into full time offers, and specifics on how they got there.
I just read about a new service that matches a job seekers unique set of skills with open positions free:
http://venturebeat.com/2008/05/13/realmatch-offers-a-fresh-take-on-job-sites
Maybe it helps...maybe not.
Posted by:Jennifer | May 16, 2008 at 12:35 PM