While investments are down in light of the global recession, college students are making an investment in internship placement firms to secure the connections that will give them a leg up in the constricted job market.
In a nutshell, these companies set up young go-getters with gigs at one of hundreds of businesses they boast contracts with––from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Consultants guide students as they write their résumés and cover letters and coach them on what to say during their interviews. Students are guaranteed at least one offer or their money back, which could mean return of payments ranging anywhere from $800 to $10,000.
But the steep price tags have not deterred highly motivated clients from buying into these firms and their vast employer networks as more and more businesses demand employees with internship or other professional work experience. In fact, as Phil Gardner, director of Michigan State’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute, told Emily Frederix of the Associated Press, “about three-fourths of college students have had internships or some type of professional experience by the time they graduate” compared to the 35-45 percent of college students who held internships 25 years ago.
Paying for internships, however, is not a new concept, says Steve Rodems, a Senior Partner of Fast Track Internships, which is based in Highland, Texas.
“Everyone pays in one way or another,” Rodems explains. “You have to buy the materials––the stationery, the stamps, the envelopes––and then spend time in the library trying to find job opportunities online. There’s a cost to that.”
His company caters to a wide range of college students, from English majors at Yale to business majors at community colleges. Since 2005, Fast Track has been launching professional mass-marketing campaigns for each of its clients, sending out their résumés and cover letters to “key decision makers” at 100 to 1,000 companies and organizations within their career fields and locations of interest. Importantly, consultants steer students toward unadvertised internships, because their clients have not had luck locking in the advertised ones.
For $799, Rodems writes candidates’ résumés and cover letters, emphasizing the kind of material in a student’s narrative that employers will find most appealing. “After 25 years working in corporate America, I know what kind of content employers will be most interested in,” he explains. “I’ve been on the other side of the desk.” He then presents his clients with a box containing 100-300 copies of printed materials to look over and revise as necessary. All they have to do is sign, seal, and deliver the letters.
Why do all the work for the students?
“Our program is designed to take as little of students’ time as possible,” Rodems says. “As parents, we want our kids studying and not spending a lot of time looking for internships. We want to keep students being students because students aren’t experts at finding a job.”
Brill Street & Co., a Chicago-based internship-consulting firm, also coaches clients throughout the application process. But instead of charging a flat fee for its services, the company pays students to work internships at an hourly rate based on their skill set and their level of experience and bills the clients to cover the hourly rate, the employer’s share of the payroll taxes, and its acquisition costs.
“Due to our unique role in this process, ‘BrillStreeters’ [moniker for student clients] are paid regularly each week, while company clients have the option to complete meaningful work without placing talent directly on their payroll,” Vice President of Marketing Brandi Blades explains.
She credits this business model for the company’s success during an economic slump. Receiving more than 200 applicants per week across all types of industries, Brill Street has seen the size of its clientele double in the last year. “During a recession, the economics of tapping young talent just makes sense,” Blades argues. “Despite hiring freezes and layoffs, many companies turn to our direct pipeline of the best young minds as a cost-effective solution to traditional hiring models.”
Now take another booming internship placement firm, add camp, and that is University of Dreams. The company started off with 73 participants in Silicon Valley in 2000 and now boasts 1,300 participants and more than 5,000 alums. Named one of America’s fastest growing private education companies in 2007 by Inc. Magazine, University of Dreams runs eight-week summer internship programs worldwide in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Barcelona, London, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Costa Rica.
Each program includes housing, a meal plan, weekend field trips, transportation to and from work, and a speaker series led by industry leaders. All of these amenities run up the bill, ranging from $5,500 to $9,500. Yet Chief Marketing Officer Eric Normington points out that the lofty tuition does not mean that the company caters to affluent collegians. “Dreamers,” as participants are dubbed, come from every economic stratum.
“Our clients are extremely passionate and interested in pursuing what their dreams are,” Normington says. “They understand that internships are an investment, just like higher education. We have people who have no financial challenges, and we have people who have to scrimp and save to make it work, who take out student loans. We have even begun to provide scholarships and grants.”
Normington adds that 40 percent of Dreamers land a full-time position post-graduation, and 70 percent of them are invited back by their employers. Seventy-five percent of students cite their University of Dreams summer as the best summer of their lives. Some alumni even join the Dreams team post-college; already, 50 of the 55 current employees are former participants. Normington believes these numbers are a testament to the type of motivated students who do the program. “They recognize and know the impact and are passionate and interested in giving the same opportunities to new participants.”
Still, many employers prefer to see students acquire internships on their own, says a Hamilton alum working in Washington D.C. at a firm that has stopped using internship placement companies.
“I have found that students who have to struggle through the process of finding their own opportunities can be more committed to the Congressman or Senator or organization with whom they intern,” the alum says.
He prefers that students take advantage of the resources at their own colleges and universities to hone their life-long job search skills.
“There’s probably very little these groups can do that is really better than what your career center and alumni office can do––and you’ve already paid for the career center’s services,” the alum argues. “Plus, it is more likely that individual professors will have a standing relationship with people in fields in which you are interested.”
He does, however, back internship programs that have an academic component to them––like the ones that Hamilton runs in New York City and Washington D.C.––where students typically work internships four days a week while juggling two classes and an independent study.
“The accountability is much more clear for students who receive academic credit and who are in programs affiliated with accredited colleges and universities,” the alum concludes.
Yet Fast Track’s Steve Rodems begs to differ, arguing that his clients come to him when they have already exhausted the resources at their college career centers and job search websites.
“What happens when students can’t find these things through the traditional route?” he challenges. “What do we do with those students––all 95% of them? Of course, try every means that you can before you have to pay someone else to do the work for you. But the demand for internships has never been higher; they are too valuable to pass up.”
