In my last article, I wrote about how Extern is helping anyone discover and build professional experience at any time, no matter where they live or study. Here's where the inspiration for my company came from, and why I believe the market really needs an entirely new form of work experience.
When I was in college competing for work experience opportunities and hustling to catch the eye of a recruiter, I wasn't always happy with the amount of mentorship I received at my internships. It seemed to me to be largely a matter of luck whether I ended up with a manager who took a shine to me, or one that was just too busy to babysit me as I learned the ropes.
It was only after I landed the perennially coveted job as an investment banking analyst after graduation that I saw the employee side of the equation.
Because of the round-the-clock grinding I received at Morgan Stanley from fire drills and little sleep, coupled with the lack of attention I gave to my health, the tension built up into a form of tendonitis that no doctor could fix. The only solution was to rest my hands from typing. And given the severity of my situation (carpal tunnel is a repetitive strain injury curable with surgery, but tendonitis is not), that meant for quite a long time. Almost a year in fact.
I thought my career was over before it began. What good is an analyst who can’t type?
My Vice President had the clever idea of asking me to coach and mentor the summer interns. The interns were green and everyone was far too busy to figure out why their spreadsheets were busted. I finally had a purpose, and the interns had a full-time analyst with nothing else to do but sit next to them and help them fix their Excel models and make sure the footnotes were correct before their pitch books had to go up the chain of command. Because of this secret weapon the interns had at their disposal, they learned at a far faster rate than the typical intern elsewhere in the bank. In our sink-or-swim environment, every intern not only managed to swim, but also began to resemble Olympic swimmers in training.
ALL of them got offers to come back to the group full time, a rare occurrence.
Professional experience is what matters to employers looking for talent to grow their teams. In fact, experience is critical to young people’s professional direction and development, and ultimately to the success of an economy that wishes to rapidly produce skilled labor and innovate quickly in an era where nobody can predict what the next 5 years will look like.
But employees, the ones who have the specialized knowledge to pass onto young students, are generally not in the situation I found myself in as an analyst. They are busy with their jobs they were hired to perform.
Busy professionals often lack the time to properly guide interns. This leads to trainees struggling with tasks they're inexperienced in, asking too many questions, or asking none at all due to fear of seeming “dumb,” resulting in overstretched managers or subpar work.
This situation raises questions about the benefit of the experience for the supervising employee. Maybe they’ll pass on taking on an intern next time. It just isn’t worth the hassle they think. Thus, often these opportunities are scarce and, when they are available, they are limited to a privileged few who went to a fancy school and were selected for a corporate internship program, or have connections through family.
I’ll recap the 8 key barriers preventing the availability of more meaningful internship, externship, co-op, and apprenticeship opportunities for students and career switchers:
Hosting interns can be costly for companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises that might not have the budget to support unpaid internships, let alone paid ones. Cost matters when assessing the ROI of unproven talent which could potentially be negative to a company in the short term.
Internships require a significant investment in time and resources to train, onboard, mentor, and project manage interns effectively. Some organizations may not have the capacity or staff to provide a meaningful internship experience.
In certain industries, the demand for internships far exceeds the supply. Highly competitive fields such as software engineering, Wall Street finance, and management consulting may have limited openings due to the number of students vying for a relatively small number of positions.
Companies facing immediate hiring needs might prefer to hire experienced workers rather than invest in the longer-term development of students through internships or apprenticeships. Other companies may still prioritize internships for students and career switchers who are further along in their education or who already have some level of professional experience via other internships, limiting opportunities for those without prior experience such as first and second-year college students.
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Some industries or companies may not prioritize the creation of these opportunities due to a lack of awareness about the benefits they offer or other priorities taking precedence.
Economic downturns or uncertain market conditions can lead to companies cutting back on internship programs to focus on core business operations and retaining full-time staff.
There are legal considerations around internships, especially unpaid ones, that can deter companies from offering these opportunities. Compliance with labor laws and regulations to ensure unpaid internships meet educational and training objectives so that interns are the primary beneficiaries can be complex and challenging for businesses to navigate.
The development and maintenance of these programs often require strong partnerships between educational institutions and companies. Establishing and sustaining these relationships can be challenging, especially for companies or schools with limited budget and resources.
In my next article, I explore why the value of a college degree is being increasingly questioned and asak the all-important question: Isn't getting a job what college is for?
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