GettyWhen University of Maryland rising junior Zohneseh Fopenawoh was applying to internships, she says she sent an “uncountable” number of applications—likely over 100 in four months to various companies, nonprofits and organizations—but got few responses. “Any internship opportunity I saw that I thought I might even be a little bit interested in, I sent an application out,” says Fopenawoh, who is studying criminal justice, politics and economics.
Add in the pressure of an internship being required by her school, and Fopenawoh was feeling the heat. Finally, she landed two—one at Teach For America and another at the ACLU of Maryland—but none at the big law firms or companies she applied to. Still, she considers herself lucky: “Getting an internship you are genuinely interested in these days is like winning a raffle or the lottery.”
Fopenawoh isn’t the only one who felt the crunch of 2023’s internship search. Fifty-seven percent of jobseekers now say they are not confident they will find an internship or job that meets their standards, much higher than the 15% who were concerned about their chances in the fall, according to a survey of more than 3,000 Gen Zers conducted by college recruiting startup RippleMatch.
Nearly half (49%) of Gen Z job and internship seekers are submitting more than 50 applications during their search, a higher proportion of candidates that submitted that many applications last year, according to RippleMatch’s survey. Companies are also reporting more competition: ServiceNow says it saw a 50% increase in internship applications this year, while Citadel said applications were up 65% from last year, and that it accepted less than 1%, or about 300 of the 69,000 applications it received, to this summer’s program.
After three years of a global pandemic—which canceled internships, sent college students home to work remotely from their childhood bedrooms and finally, returned them to more than half-empty hybrid offices last year—2023 might have marked the summer internship’s big return. Instead, it’s been a year of continued change, as an unstable economy and a rash of layoffs have slowed the hiring of summer interns, sparking greater competition and higher uncertainty for those undertaking this white-collar rite of passage.
Source: Getting An Internship Is More Competitive Than Ever—But The Experience Has ‘Really Eroded’
Critics:
Internships exist in a wide variety of industries and settings. An internship can be paid, unpaid, or partially paid (in the form of a stipend). Internships may be part-time or full-time and are usually flexible with students’ schedules. A typical internship lasts between one and four months, but can be shorter or longer, depending on the organization involved. The act of job shadowing may also constitute interning.
- Insights: Many large corporations, particularly investment banks, have “insights” programs that serve as a pre-internship event numbering a day to a week, either in person or virtually.
- Paid internships are common in professional fields including medicine, architecture, science, engineering, law, business (especially accounting and finance), technology, and advertising.
- Work experience internships usually occur during the second or third year of schooling. This type of internship is to expand an intern’s knowledge both in their school studies and also at the company. The intern is expected to bring ideas and knowledge from school into the company.
- Work research, virtual research (graduation) or dissertation: This is mostly done by students who are in their final year of school. With this kind of internship, a student does research for a particular company.The company can have something that they feel they need to improve, or the student can choose a topic in the company themselves. The results of the research study will be put in a report and often will have to be presented.
- Unpaid internships are typically through non-profit charities and think tanks which often have unpaid or volunteer positions. State law and state enforcement agencies may impose requirements on unpaid internship programs under Minimum Wage Act. A program must meet criteria to be properly classified as an unpaid internship. Part of this requirement is proving that the intern is the primary beneficiary of the relationship. Unpaid interns perform work that is not routine and work that company doesn’t depend upon.
- Partially-paid internships is when students are paid in the form of a stipend. Stipends are typically a fixed amount of money that is paid out on a regular basis. Usually, interns that are paid with stipends are paid on a set schedule associated with the organization.
- Virtual Internship are internships that are done remotely on email, phone, and web communication. This offers flexibility as physical presence isn’t required. It still provides the capacity to gain job experience without the conventional requirement of being physically present in an office. Virtual interns generally have the opportunity to work at their own pace.
- International Internships are internships done in a country other than the one that the country of residence. These internships can either be in person or done remotely. Van Mol analyzed employer perspectives on study abroad versus international internships in 31 European countries, finding that employers value international internships more than international study, while Predovic, Dennis and Jones found that international internships developed cognitive skills like how new information is learned and the motivation to learn.
- Returnship are internships for experienced workers who are looking to return to the workforce after taking time away to care for parents or children.
Companies in search of interns often find and place students in mostly unpaid internships, for a fee. These companies charge students to assist with research, promising to refund the fee if no internship is found. The programs vary and aim to provide internship placements at reputable companies.
Some companies may also provide controlled housing in a new city, mentorship, support, networking, weekend activities or academic credit.Some programs offer extra add-ons such as language classes, networking events, local excursions, and other academic options.
Some companies specifically fund scholarships and grants for low-income applicants. Critics of internships criticize the practice of requiring certain college credits to be obtained only through unpaid internships. Depending on the cost of the school, this is often seen as an unethical practice, as it requires students to exchange paid-for and often limited tuition credits to work an uncompensated job.
Paying for academic credits is a way to ensure students complete the duration of the internship, since they can be held accountable by their academic institution. For example, a student may be awarded academic credit only after their university receives a positive review from the intern’s supervisor at the sponsoring organization.
Related contents:
- Definition of Internship (as set forth in the Ohio State University Department of Political Science, accessed January 22, 2013
- “What Happens Before Full-Time Employment? Internships as a Mechanism of Anticipatory Socialization” (PDF).
- “Unpaid internships face legal, ethical scrutiny” Archived 2012-04-06 at the Wayback Machine,
- “Job Shadow”. FVHCA. Retrieved 2017-11-30.
- “Insight Programs”. Morgan Stanley. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
- “Goldman Sachs | Student Programs – Insight Series”. Goldman Sachs. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
- “Internship Expectations: What an Internship Is and Is Not – Current Students and Alumni – Career Center – University of Evansville”. http://www.evansville.edu. Retrieved 2017-11-30.
- “Five principles for research ethics”. American Psychological Association. Retrieved 2017-11-30.
- “Unpaid Internship Rules”. Findlaw. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
- “How Virtual Internships Work—and Sometimes Don’t Work”. The Balance Careers. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
- “Do You Want An Internship? It’ll Cost You”. The Wall Street Journal.
- “Opportunity for Sale; Psst! Wanna buy an internship?”.
- “Fee-based Programs”. International Internship Program. Retrieved 2021-04-26.
- “Two Cheers for Unpaid Internships”. Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2017-11-30.
- “Unpaid Internships: Unfair and Unethical | The Bottom Line”. The Bottom Line. 2017-02-28. Retrieved 2017-11-30.
- A Wolf, Review of Vocational Education, 2011 recommendation 21 p.17 accessed 3 August 2011Oxfordshire Education Business Partnership – (OEBP)
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