Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409120028
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By EDITH UPDIKE
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Some are perfect, and some are perfectly awful, but internships are an increasingly essential steppingstone to career nirvana. Internships provide students with practical experience in their future professions. For businesses, internships provide a low-cost labor force and are an increasingly popular recruiting tool.
The National Basketball Association, for example, started its program with two interns in 1988, and now takes about 40 a year. About 10 of the NBA's approximately 400 employees are former interns, and other ex-interns are working elsewhere in sports management.
``These are people you want to look back on and hire - or at least have a shot at,'' said Leroy Nunery, the NBA's director of human and information resources.
Internships are everywhere.
If there's a place you want to work, try offering yourself, even if they don't have a program.
From 1987 to 1994, openings listed in The National Directory of Internships nearly doubled from 22,000 to more than 43,000, said Arianne Fennelly, herself an intern at the North Carolina-based National Society for Experiential Education, which publishes the book.
``It first became significant with MBAs and lawyers,'' said placement expert Victor Lindquist, a former associate dean and director of placement at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. ``It drifted down to the undergraduate population in the last five years.''
Internships are all over the map in terms of perks and pay. Graduate student interns in law, banking and engineering are called ``summer associates'' and are handsomely rewarded. Firms woo the best and brightest with weekly salaries as high as $1,600. That kind of top compensation exists in only a few fields. But no-pay internships are also limited to a few fields, such as entertainment.
Fennelly said internship compensation is rising overall. That's good news, because while internships can pay off in the long run, supporting one's self through a no- or low-wage summer - especially if you're from out of town - is a challenge.
Lindquist said he has known students to wait tables or tend bar on weekends so they can do their no-pay internship from Monday to Friday.
But internships are becoming more than a luxury. In 1993, 25 percent of corporate hires were from internship, co-operative education or summer associate programs, according to the Lindquist report on hiring trends for college graduates. That's up from 17 percent the year before and 9 percent in 1991. Companies reported that hired interns require less training, adjust quicker and stay longer. One Chicago-area company plans to have 75 percent of hires from intern programs by the year 2000.
by CNB