Internships - Valuable On The Job Training
By Reid Forgrave
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Once upon a time, a piece of paper emblazoned with the words ?Master of Business Administration? was the golden ticket to coast up the corporate ladder. Companies flooded business schools with recruiters, often hiring for full-time positions solely based on a perfunctory interview.
Top business schools reported graduates? entry-level salaries averaging between $130,000 and $140,000 annually. Summer internships often were seen as a time to experiment, to try a new career path. The recent graduates had all the bargaining power in the world.
Internships Today
But now the fairy tale - called ?The 1990s? - is over, and along with a leaner, tougher business world comes a fresh look at internships, which many companies see as more important than ever. ?Everything old is new again,? said Jackie Wilbur, director of career development at the MIT Sloan School of Management. ?It really depends on the economic cycle. When I started in the business in the 1980s, internships were incredibly important. But the acceleration of the recruiting process changed the value of internships. For some companies now, though, having an internship is the only way to get a full-time job.?
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?With the current business climate, internships are more important than ever.?
Bill Presutti
Associate Dean and Director of the MBA program at Duquesne University?s John S. Donahue Graduate School of Business |  |
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MBA students should look at the summer gigs as an extended summer interview and hope they can impress summer employers enough to land a full-time job after graduation. At many business schools, the internship process begins long before the first MBA class.
At MIT, the Sloan School devotes the second and third days of student orientation to career services and landing internships. When recruiters visit, that?s the first thing they look for: whether students sought internships.
As Bill Presutti, associate dean and director of the MBA program at the John S. Donahue Graduate School of Business at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, said: ?Recruiters just zero in on that like a laser beam. With the current business climate, internships are more important than ever,? Presutti continued. ?When companies make a hire, they want the person to make a difference right away. They?re not interested in training mode all that much.?
More than ever, MBA students take jobs with the company where they interned. Harvard?s most recent graduating class saw more than one-third of the graduates take jobs with their summer employer - now a typical number for business schools.
As the business climate sunk in recent years and funds available for recruiting declined, companies focused more on internship recruiting than full-time recruiting, using the internship as a testing ground for full-time hiring.
?Companies have become more and more attracted to the idea of a summer as a long-term interview, where they can invest in first-year students,? said Matt Merrick, director of MBA career services for the 900 students at the Harvard Business School. ?They can get away with it right now because the economy isn?t what it once was. These companies don?t come and just hire people on the spot anymore.?
Practical Experience
Companies value relevant real-world experience, according to Joel Heckart, controller at PCS Technical Service, a technology staffing firm near Cincinnati that seeks employment for clients in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Though it depends on the field, Heckart said companies believe real-world experience often trumps a graduate degree, and combining the two can only help a job candidate. Human resources jobs tend to value master?s degrees more than tech companies, he said.
Career counselors lament the days when a student had more flexibility over the summer to experiment with a new career path and have a bit of room for error. But a three-month stay at a company has its advantages for students, as well as companies.
?It?s a real plus to do an internship at a company you?re interested in working for so you can get a chance to see if it?s a place where you?re comfortable,? said Regina Resnick, assistant dean and director of MBA career services at Columbia Business School in New York City, which sends 650 MBA graduates into the business world yearly. ?And that way the company is invested in you a bit, so if they decide they?re impressed with what you can do, you can seal the deal.?
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Alejandro Roman
NSHMBA Connecticut Chapter President
Internship Benefits
?My internship proved to me that I had skills that were transferable from one industry to another. It also allowed me to discuss with my boss what the best role for me would be in the organization. I came into an area that exposed me to multiple lines of business and provided me with the opportunity to make a contribution immediately.
?An internship is also extremely important in helping you get a job, especially if you are changing careers. Some companies will not hire you if you did not intern with them. While you?re participating in an internship, make sure you align yourself with the goals of your boss so you both succeed. Take on an extra assignment to acquire a new skill set. An internship is as much your interviewing the company as it is the company interviewing you.?
Finding an Internship
?If you?re in the process of looking for an internship, evaluate the job, company, industry, and location. Ask yourself the following questions: Do you want to work at a large or small company? Do you want to be one of 50 interns or one of three interns? Where do you want to be?
?Network with people throughout the company to understand what makes a person successful at the company. Do your homework so that you are not left out in the cold for a full-time job. Some interns do not go back to the same company, so make sure you keep in touch with the recruiters you might be interested in working for when you graduate with your MBA. Keep in touch with your classmates; they will have the inside scoop on other companies and jobs.? | |
About the writer
Reid Forgrave is a reporter and writer for The Des Moines Register in Des Moines, Iowa.
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