Traditional internships are a popular tool for businesses, but they often come with some built-in limitations and challenges.
Geography. As with traditional employment, physical proximity is a requirement that often stands between finding the perfect candidate and merely filling a seat. Sometimes the best possible person for a role — including an internship — may not be local.
Timing. Most schools have very limited windows of opportunity each term to secure an intern. And if you aren’t on their schedule, then you can miss your chance to participate.
Relying on schools. Most conventional approaches to getting an intern in your business require that you classify the type of intern you are looking for in alignment with a schools department or program structure, which isn’t always a direct mapping to the cross-functional skills you are looking for within your business. Additionally, a single instructor or department can often be responsible for promoting internships among students, which means a potentially limited reach and a very small pool of candidates.
Overhead. Just like employees, traditional interns often require a series of interviews and paperwork that require dedicated time and effort from a business. In addition, many schools have follow-up work throughout the course of the school term, for both the business and the student.
Specialties. Most schools have departments or programs which are more specialized and competitive than others. If your business needs are in a field that is different from your local school’s specialty, then it’s quite common for your pool of candidates to be too limited to be truly effective.
Commitment. Because traditional internships are for an entire school term, you must be ready, willing an able to commit to a school and a student for as many as 14 weeks. This is often a longer commitment than a business is interested in making, or capable of effectively sustaining.
College towns. Some communities are built around one or more large schools that offer a breadth of choices when it comes to interns; other communities have little or nothing in the way of academic institutions to partner with for interns.
Secondary schools. Internships are traditionally filled by college students, while high school students are often relegated to flipping burgers or stocking shelves. BrainMatch recognizes that student drive and talent is not a function of age, and strives to pair capable students of all ages with businesses in need of their skills.
Project-based competitions are a great solution that combines the value of internships, while also mitigating the challenges that often go with them. And by opening up a dialog between business and students, potential long-term relationships — for either traditional internships or direct employment opportunities — naturally emerge, to everyone’s mutual benefit.
