College Crunch

Most college students that have little to no work experience after completing their college education generally struggle to find suitable employment.

On the other hand, students who do have relevant work experience are the ones that are typically snapped up by likely employers pretty quickly. This type of work experience usually comes in the form of internship programs and the like however with the downturn in the economy the number of these internship opportunities and programs has dropped sharply.

According to the National Associate of Colleges and Employers, the number of nationwide opportunities has dropped 21% from this time last year – companies haven’t been able to afford running these programs. This has obviously made it much more difficult for students to get that experience that will help them further down the track in their careers.

The internship opportunities that are still available remain unpaid. When the economy took a nose dive last year it was the first thing companies looked to reduce to save expenses and further expenditure. This has meant that those students that look to get necessary experience are struggling to be able to find any open opportunity and even better, to find an internship opportunity that is paid. An internship which is paid or not paid is usually the determining factor as to whether students can actually accept them or not. And with the economy down in the gutter, there is now a particular need for students to get paid experience, otherwise it seems, they’re too difficult to accept.

There are several benefits for companies to offer internships to students and they shouldn’t only been seen to offer benefits to students. Companies like Target who continue to run their paid internship programs are realizing the importance of such programs. The students who do take up internship positions at Target are coming back to work for a position in the company in excess of seventy to eighty percent of the time once they’ve finished their education. And this has meant that Target has been able to have the first crack at the better candidates because most students, who have worked there, want to come back. Internship programs are clear recruiting tools that can help attract more numbers of suitably qualified students.

It’s becoming clear that the economy is slowly returning and with that we’ll see an increase in the amount of opportunities available as it continues to improve.

For more details on this, check out a relevant post on This is Lion Country.