Feel the benefits of employing a graduate intern
Release Date: 21 April 2010
The National Council for Work Experience recently held an awards ceremony with the aim of recognising companies who offer fulfilling work experience placements to graduates and students.
There were more companies taking part in the awards this year than ever before, perhaps highlighting that providing beneficial internships is becoming more commonplace in the business world.
The benefits to a student or graduate of completing an internship or work experience placement are quite obvious. An internship can offer a chance to develop skills, accumulate more knowledge about an industry and experience real working life or even offer a ‘foot in the door’, if not simply some good experience to write on a CV. These things all increase job prospects and offer an individual clarity on where they want to take the next step of their job hunt.
Offering internships can also be hugely beneficial to the organisation. A new employee can bring a valuable fresh approach to projects that they may be involved in within the business. Candidates with little existing experience or exposure to the corporate world can be somewhat of a “blank canvas” in terms of bad habits and can therefore be moulded more easily into the image of the company, whilst also bringing new ideas.
Employing a student or graduate on a temporary placement basis gives the employer a chance to see the intern in action. Offering an internship provides an opportunity to “try before you buy” as if the candidate excels in the position perhaps their contract could be extended or they could even be considered for a permanent role in future.
Offering work experience placements to students as well as graduate schemes or specific roles provides earlier access to the graduate talent pool. Whilst a lot of companies are becoming well-known for being big graduate recruiters there are not so many big names in the world of internships and work placements, so this is a chance for SME’s as well as larger organisations to market themselves to the student and graduate population.
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