Know-How Exchange : Strategy

The challenge you have is really one of understanding the unique and specific needs of each prospective employer and responding to those needs. In that sense it's more of a sales task than a traditional marketing task.

If you try to promote students from your school (in general) to employers en masse, you will have to be very lucky to present a compelling reason for them to hire one of them.

If you take the other approach -- finding the right student for each employer's specific requirements, culture and situation -- you will demonstrate to them that you genuinely care about their well-being, and they'll reward you with return engagements year after year.

This is a one-job-at-a-time challenge. You're dealing with a finite number of companies and a finite number of students, in a well-defined (and limited) geographic area. If you do your job well, the result will be a great image and a continuing stream of grateful employers seeking your students.

As an adjunct faculty member I have been approached often by students who wanted the school to improve their internship opportunities. My answer was always the same. At best, the school could fire a shotgun aimed at the mass, undefined target of "possible employers."

The student could aim a rifle at exactly the industry and company which would make for a great internship. My feeling therefore is that the best possible way to help your students is to give them guidance on how to "create your own internship."

For instance, one could offer a semester long "internship" course, with the teaching load shared among faculty. Sections could include "researching your ideal company," "your personal website instead of a CV," "defining your value proposition," "developing your internship campaign - including the right people in the company to make contact with (not just the human resources department)," "negotiating terms and conditions," "hitting the ground running - your first ten days." The course would be graded, and at the end of every week the assignment is to have made "real world" progress in the internship hunt.

Returning students are invited as guest lecturers to the next class, to tell them what worked, what hadn't, and the outcome.

In short, you are creating a multiplier. Instead of you researching xxx industries and companies to sell one generic product "our interns," you have 10, 20, a hundred or more students doing the work to sell a "custom" product, namely himself/herself. Teach them how to market themselves well, and you get a double benefit, good for the reputation of the school with a) students, and b) companies.

Summer interns from places like Harvard Business School cost the employer thousands of dollars a month. These students are picky about where they do their internships, have done their homework, and, costing what they do, are hardly set to work making coffee or photocopying. With the right preparation (can solve a problem for the target company) a student from a no-name school can wind up every bit as well placed as the Harvard intern.

Why more schools do not offer such internship courses is a mystery to me.

Regards,
JH