Student and graduate "internships" are very important, because they substantially increase the chance of graduates finding employment. To an employer, a candidate who has spent time working for a firm within a particular industry shows dedication to a particular career, enthusiasm for a particular job and importantly, has experience.
Internships are Great Experience
[Edit]Internships are also very useful to interns themselves as they offer the chance to find out what working for a particular company, or within a certain industry, is really like. Internships also allow interns to make contacts with managers and recruiters, which can later be used to negotiate full-time employment.
Salaries During Internships
[Edit]Companies also usually pay interns for their time during an internship, and salaries can be very good indeed. The highest recorded pay for an internship in 2008 was £800 a week, offered to interns at BarCap.
Getting an Internship
[Edit]Internships can be highly competitive, in fact most internships receive more applications than employer's graduate schemes themselves. Often candidates are required to visit companies for interviews and/or assessment days where they must impress recruiters sufficiently in order to be offered the internship.
Internships can get you Hired
[Edit]It is not unusual for graduates to return to the organisation who hired them as an intern, for full-time employment. Graduate recruitment surveys have found that almost half of all employers convert at least a fifth of their interns into permanent staff members.
