Analysis: Internships can offer experience and guidance

By JOY LEWIS
Published on 02/08/2012 00:00

JUST how useful are internships? For the employer, it’s a chance to benefit from fresh thinking, to bring a buzz of enthusiasm and eagerness into the office, to get that project done that’s been sitting on the shelf for months.

What they can offer, if there’s no likelihood of a permanent post at the end of the internship, is experience, a little guidance and the opportunity for the graduate to network.

If every entrepreneur, start-up, small and medium enterprise and corporate body were to explore the opportunity to employ a graduate intern, then overnight the social and economic issue of graduate unemployment would be pretty much resolved. The importance of paid, well-structured and accessible internships cannot be understated if we are going to achieve social mobility, economic recovery and avoid a lost generation of graduates.

•  Joy Lewis is programme director for Adopt an Intern.