Internship

It is important for early career professionals to highlight the benefits of building personal brands and networks, skill development, industry knowledge, professionalism, and work ethic. Ampersand recommends that interns take advantage of opportunities to learn new skills, understand industry trends, seek feedback, and actively engage with colleagues and managers. By doing so, interns can create a valuable learning experience that can help them achieve their career goals. Overall, the blog emphasizes the importance of internships as a tool for personal and professional growth.

Internships should always be paid, as it provides financial stability for the intern, increases diversity in the workplace, leads to better retention rates and better results. Unpaid internships can add extra financial stress to the intern and tend to favor individuals from privileged backgrounds. Based on Ampersand’s experience, the importance of both parties (interns and businesses) having a stake in the internship for it to be a beneficial experience.

Internships can be a great way for businesses to bring in fresh talent and get new perspectives on projects and tasks. However, to make the most out of an internship program, businesses need to put in the time and effort to ensure success.

If you are considering bringing on interns to help with your team’s workload, but are a little uneasy about the idea, we have some starting points to help you and your team become great first-time intern managers.

It is estimated that more than 40% of internships are still unpaid. Here are 3 reasons Ampersand wholeheartedly believes paid internships provide more value to both an intern and a company than unpaid internships.

Research shows that 77% of employees have experienced burnout in their jobs, and burnt out employees are 2.6 times more likely to search for another job. Bringing on one or more qualified interns can help reduce employee burnout by reducing their workload, at a fraction of the cost of hiring more full-time employees.

Finding work for an intern to do can be a task of its own, and can often discourage companies from bringing on an intern. As many as 62% of companies shy away from hiring interns because of the immense amount of time usually involved.

Unemployment and underemployment for young professionals entering the workforce is a huge program in the US. Currently over 50% of recent college grads are either unemployed or underemployed, meaning they have a job that does not require a college degree. 

As Spring Break season comes to a close, that only means one thing... summer internships! Now is the perfect time to begin preparing for opportunities and setting yourself up to be in the best position possible to acquire these upcoming experiences.

YES! Internships provide so much value to students and young professionals: not only can they lead to entry-level job opportunities, they can set the stage for a successful career. On average, completing internships increases job offers by 16%, and a 2018 survey reported that 83% of students said the knowledge and skills gained from their internship were “very or extremely important” to their career development.