Student Internships

Student Internships
by Vaughn Wallace

Despite having excelled in the University of Pittsburgh’s Honors College for four semesters, sophomore Jen Hirsch still worries about finding an internship during the summer. Majoring in both English Writing and Chinese, Hirsch has applied to many different internship programs but has not had any success.

“I’ve applied to eight different internships but have only heard back from three,” says Hirsch.

Hirsch is certainly not the only college student facing problems finding employment this year. Seniors and recent graduates throughout the country are experiencing similar problems.

Information released in early 2009 from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics declared the national unemployment rate at 8.1 percent, up from 4 percent only a decade ago. Although the Pittsburgh metropolitan area has thus far been sheltered from the full effect of the national recession, it too is showing signs of faltering: as of February 2009, the area’s unemployment rate hit 7.6 percent.

In the winter of 2008, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) conducted a survey of 174 employers across the country that hire more than 7000 employees. The results they found were surprising: employers planned to cut college recruiting and internship hiring by an average of 22 percent.

Managers cited downsizing, decreased profit, and budget cuts as the primary factors for their planned reductions. The survey did find a surprise within the transportation sector as well as the federal government; both sectors predicted that they would hire more college grads in 2009.

President Obama is also set to stimulate the economy by creating federal jobs. Between November 2008 and January 2009, President Obama promoted various job programs on Change.Gov, a special website established for the presidential transition. The site encouraged anyone interested in working for Obama’s administration to fill out an online application.

Historically, local companies such as H.J. Heinz Corp and PNC Bank have heavily recruited college students for positions in retail, marketing, finance, and business.

Davie Huddleston, the Director and Vice-President of PNC’s Strategic College Recruiting office, says that college students make up a large number of PNC’s recent hires. “The intern program provides over 50% of our full time strategic entry-level hires.”

Despite the bleak economic forecast, Huddleston says that college recruiting at PNC still plays an integral part of the company’s long-term goals. Hiring at PNC is still hitting levels higher than in 2007, although certain cutbacks are being made: “Last year we had a significant growth in strategic positions. This year and the next are not projected to be as high, however.”

As for the actual financial sector as a whole, Huddleston is not quite as optimistic for the short term. He does think that the short-term job losses seen now will taper off in favor of a gradual upswing and recovery.

For students attending college in the Pittsburgh region, this conflicting news adds to a growing list of graduation-related concerns.

Dr. Cheryl Finlay is the director of Pitt’s Office of Student Employment & Placement Assistance. Each year, her office helps thousands of undergraduates in a wide variety of career-related activities. One of her goals is to help students “figure out if what you are studying is really what you want to do.”

Finlay has noticed a downturn in the number of internships available across the board.

“With the economy the way it is, some employers are not bringing on interns right now. So, yes it is a little more competitive for students to land an internship right now.”

Even while the number of internships is dropping, college students now face increased competition for relatively few paid internships. Paid internships are ideal because they allow a student to fully commit their time to the job. In the past, paid internships were typically offered to grad students or older undergrads.

A paid internship requires an increased time commitment for students and obliges an employer to provide enhanced training for the student. Thus, many companies just don’t have the budget money or human resources staff to train new hires. Additionally, paid internships are relatively short-term (average length is six months). This makes paid interns especially unattractive to companies facing decreased profit margins.

College students are facing problems finding both summer work and internships simply because the demand doesn’t outweigh the cost. Inexperienced interns require more handholding and instruction than other hires, who may have more experience working in the corporate community.

So what are local colleges doing to help their students find internships?

Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences offers several “internship courses” to undergraduates. Many of these special courses allow students to receive credits that count towards their respective programs of study. Students interested in finding an internship through the School are encouraged to browse potential employer’s opportunities on a special website, “FutureLinks”. Managed through Pitt’s Career Development Office, FutureLinks is marketed as “a comprehensive career management system.” FutureLinks lists many opportunities that are searchable by several criteria, including distance from home, duration, and salary.

In addition, Pitt holds several job fairs throughout the year. The largest is held in the Petersen Events center in the fall. More than 230 different companies set up booths to recruit local students during the one-day event. Students are encouraged to dress in business attire and come prepared with resumes and contact information.

For many students, the Annual Job Fair serves as their first experience with career networking. Many students don’t know what to expect from the fair, but most leave with some idea of their prospects for the future.

Besides networking, what else can students do to stay competitive?

Shawn Graham, director of MBA Career Services at Katz, encourages students to continue reaching out to companies they’ve applied to even after receiving a rejection letter. It’s important to reach out even when they don’t receive an offer of employment, he says.

“Instead of calling and asking why you didn’t get [the job], reach out to the person and ask for general feedback on how to improve [your] candidacy. That way, you’re not left out in the dark.”

Graham’s office tries to help students by carefully monitoring their interactions. His office tries to stay in touch with students to “make sure we’re helping in any possible way,” says Graham. His office also tries to aggressively uncover new career opportunities and tries to engage alumni about possible graduate job opportunities.

“It’s always difficult to convince a company that isn’t recruiting to add you as a school; it’s especially tough with this economy.”

As for Hirsch, she’s found that networking and connections have proven to be the most successful in her job search. Out of the three internships she heard back from, two of them were because of connections she had with friends in the company.

Establishing a contact at the company you’ve applied to is important, explains Graham. Not only does this allow you to have an “in” with the company, but it helps associate a personality with a name.

In the case of Hirsch, this personality was already established, but still didn’t help her employment chances. She’s currently looking for alternative activities this summer, such as studying abroad.