The business world we know today is vastly different from the one we knew just a few years ago. In this rapidly changing work scenario, young graduates are the ones who have to work harder than ever before to secure a good job. With today’s enormous talent pool, organisations, and, even universities, are spoilt for choice when it comes to hiring/accepting vibrant, innovative and capable young professionals. When searching for the right job, especially in the early stages of one’s career, having a distinctive edge over other applicants is absolutely crucial.
The new generation of millennials has led to the existence of a fresh breed of high-achieving, competitive professionals characterised by the aspiration to excel and be the best in their respective fields. That being said, while having a quality educational degree was all you needed to get employed in the past, a notable educational qualification is almost a given these days. What young individuals rely on in order to stand out amidst a sea of gifted peers are the extracurricular activities they supplement their degrees with. One of the most valuable and effective of these extracurricular activities is internships.
Having internships on your resume not only showcases an eagerness to excel, learn more and self-improve, but also helps you gain self-confidence, develop your personality and mould your professional aspirations. In this constantly evolving, competitive landscape, students are doing not just one, but multiple internships. It is very common for students to start researching various career options in order to carve out a professional path for themselves while still in college. However, on entering the real world, they realise that this particular job or industry is not what they had expected it to be. People spend years trying to find a job that best suits their personalities and goals. Internships have a remarkable benefit, in that they enable you to test the waters and find out what working for a particular industry or organisation is really like. By starting to intern early on, students will have a chance to work in not one, but several different business environments — from multinationals to start-ups, from the banking industry to the entertainment industry or even different roles within departments of a company — and find what they truly want for their future.
Besides their innumerable personal advantages, internships have several professional benefits that cannot be ignored. For starters, the first impression any individual makes on an employer is through his/her resume. What makes a robust, dynamic resume is the relevant work experience and exposure an individual has received. While interning, one gets an opportunity to cultivate his/her skills and expertise in a particular field. Internships also serve as an incredible networking platform, which proves beneficial when searching for a permanent job. Internships give you a chance to learn, gain knowledge, build relationships and prove yourself professionally. This comes in handy when you finally graduate and are faced with the overwhelming task of seeking a full-time job. It is then that you can rely on reference letters from some of the valuable relationships you built and mentors you gained through your past internships.
Very often, companies re-hire past interns as full-time employees once they have graduated as this has its benefits for the organisation as well. Rather than sifting through a bunch of resumes and depending partly on intuition to select a suitable candidate, employers prefer hiring an ex-intern whose work they have experienced first-hand and who they already know will be a cultural fit within the organisation.
Statistics show that over 50 per cent college interns are offered a full-time job at the same organisation after graduation. In India, where talent-crunch is affecting corporate business plans, smart and intelligent interns are proving to be assets for companies. They augment their existing resources, by using interns to work on short-term assignments, field surveys, deadline-driven projects and crack tasks.
The greatest struggle for recent graduates and the utmost concern for employers in the process of hiring is the candidate’s lack of experience. An individual with one or many internships under his/her belt will always be a more appealing applicant in the eyes of an employer. A study shows that around 42 per cent of employers offer higher starting salaries to new college graduates who have interned.
All in all, it is becoming increasingly difficult for fresh graduates with no previous work experience to get noticed and subsequently hired. The sooner you start interning, the more time you get to explore your own aims and preferences and the better are your chances of getting hired exactly where you belong!
The writer is chairperson and managing director, Dale Carnegie Training India.
