Why bother with a work placement or internship?
There’s little doubt that in the last decade the pressures of going to university have become greater. Once upon a time, going to university meant three years of getting drunk, waving placards and joining daft societies. These days though, with university costing students in excess of £30,000 and with increasing graduate unemployment (up to 6% and expected to rise further this year), students are aware that they need to not only get a degree and squeeze some fun into their three years but also work hard to improve their employability.
With all that in mind it’s surprising then that some students still ask why they should bother with a placement or internship. We asked some employers and placement officers to say why they think placements and internships are now an essential part of the university experience.
It Improves Your Employability
The bottom line is that for many employers work experience is more important than a degree. After years of being brainwashed into thinking that a good degree will have employers throwing themselves at you, a higher number of graduates means the value of a degree has decreased, so employers need something extra.
“In many cases a placement is the one thing that will set you apart from your peers and that can be the difference in getting you the job at the end of your degree,” says Donna Miller, Graduate Recruitment Manager from Enterprise Rent-A-Car. “My advice is that you will find it hard to get graduate employment if you have had no work experience. I would much rather see someone who has a 2:2 and has work experience than someone who didn’t have time for anything else.
“Some students just concentrate on getting a 2:1 at university and think they’ll be able to walk into a job at the end and that’s not true,” says John Morewood Senior Graduate Recruitment Manager at HSBC. “A 2:1 or 2:2 is a key to a door. What are really important are the interpersonal skills you display and what you are getting from a placement is experience and an ability to acquire those skills that are so essential.”
It Gives You A Great Chance To Develop Your Skills
The stereotype of the work experience student making cups of tea won’t apply to you as long as you make sure you apply for properly organised placements and internships and approach them correctly (see our articles on making a success of your placements for some great advice.
Most employers use internships and placements expressly to make the most of your specialised degree skills and programmes like Shell STEP are built around you undertaking a high-level project. So, approach your placement or internship right and you’re more likely to be co-ordinating a marketing campaign or using your technical knowledge than photocopying.
It Is Essential Research for What A Career Is Really Like
You can read all the recruitment brochures and listen to as many company presentations as you want, but until you’ve actually spent time working in a company and doing a job, it’s impossible to know whether you’ll like a particular career or not.
“I think the jargon is try before you buy,” says Richard Hough, from law firm Allen & Overy. “One of the most useful things about placements is for students to make sure it’s a profession they want to embrace. To demystify the profession you need to go to the source and find out for yourself. It’s so important for students to work out what they want to do because they may love the law, but when they get there they may find that it is different than they expected and possibly decide that it’s not for them.”
If you are currently undertaking your career research and want a first-hand account of what it’s like to actually do a placement or internship within a particular company then look no further than the thousands of reviews on our site. These cover every company and industry you can think of and give you an important insight into what it’s like beyond the glossy recruitment brochure.
It Is Your Best Chance To Build A Network
There’s a cliché that “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” and developing a successful network of contacts is a vital step in finding your way into some of the most competitive industries. Placements and internships are a way of getting your foot in the door and beginning to meet the people who can shape your career.
“A network is really useful and often essential, particularly in competitive fields like media or law,” says Sue Johnstone, Work Experience Project Manager at The University of Warwick. “When you do a work placement you start to build up the contacts of various people and you learn who you need to contact in future. Networking is about getting yourself known in the marketplace, getting references and being able to pull on contacts’ help in the future.”
Improve Your Chances of Getting A Good Degree
Studies have continuously shown that if you do a placement or internship you are more likely to get a good degree. The opportunity to test your theoretical degree knowledge in a real business environment translates into a more thorough understanding of the subject and means you learn more. In one study students with placement experience had a 39% better degree performance in their final year than those without.
Many of the reviews on our site say that one of the most useful aspects of their placement or internship was getting a practical grounding in their subject: “I cannot imagine going into my final year, graduating and getting my first job without having done the placement,” said one student who worked as a trainee assistant buyer at Debenhams during their placement. “I wouldn’t be nearly as knowledgeable as I am now after the placement. It teaches you things that you won’t learn at university about general working life as well as the industry. Students who have been on placement are finding it easier to apply the experiences to lectures and reports. I’ve also already been offered a job back when I graduate so I can just get on with my degree and finish without having to stress about finding a job too.”
VIDEO: Why Consider A Work Placement?
Check out this video from our friends at HereComesTheBoss featuring none other than our very own Oliver Sidwell…
What The Statistics Say
- One survey showed that students with experience had around a 20% better chance of getting a job after graduation than those with no experience.
- 62% of companies have work experience placements specifically to find new recruits.
- 74% of employers offer salaries to work experience students.
