Dive Brief:
- Burning Glass Technologies, a labor market analytics firm, released data showing that employers want skilled interns who are ready to work on day 1, reports SHRM. The firm visits 40,000 websites to collect internship postings.
- The business category that posts the most openings for interns is operations, with 58,949 or 27% of the postings. The skills most in demand are business administration, scheduling, project management, customer service and economics, says SHRM.
- Burning Glass’s director of communications, Scott Bittle, told SHRM that a trend earlier studies show is that internships offer experience rather than training. He said employers expect interns to show up with specific skills in hand.
Dive Insight:
The change from internships as training opportunities for workers to sources of skilled labor is major. Many young adults received valuable job training as interns, but it seems now that employers are seeing internships as a sort of tryout for young talent. Their importance in the talent pipeline has increased as well.
Employers who want highly skilled, ready-to-work interns may also want to ensure that they are paid accordingly, as the DOL has paid particular attention to unpaid internships as of late.
Since internships are usually a worker's first experience with a company's culture, employers should ensure the programs fully integrate the young workers into the fold by providing mentorship experiences, paying them or even providing some modicum of benefits — especially if they want those interns to become employees one day.