“Internships
play a key role in employee retention, with graduates who have been interns
likely to stay with a company for longer than those who weren’t, according to research published by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR).”
Internships are on the increase. “The leading employers featured in the
research are offering over 13,000 paid internships and work experience
placements this year. This is the highest level ever recorded and an increase
of 10% on 2014” (Graduate Market 2015, High Fliers).
And there’s a key reason for it: “For the majority of employers who offer
paid work experience places, such schemes have become an integral part of
recruiting new graduates.” (Graduate Market 2015, High Fliers).
It got
me thinking about the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s report from 2015, into elitism at top
law, accountancy and financial firms, where disproportionate numbers of jobs go
to the higher socio-economic classes. I blogged about it: “Institutionally Posh”. The report found many
things that favour the better off and better educated. A couple of
high(low?)lights:
·
“[firms seek] the capacity to
present a “polished” appearance, display strong communication and debating
skills, and act in a confident manner at interview … Russell Group universities
are successful in providing them with high numbers of talented candidates
according to this definition.”
·
“… the current definition of
talent may disadvantage talented students who have not benefited from similar
educational advantages or been socialised in a middle-class context…”
It
seems to me that internships only perpetuate this. Not unpaid internships, that
effect is well known, and we’re surely getting rid of them.
Sutton
Trust: “the cost barriers to participating in an unpaid internship have
significant consequences for social mobility”
But this literature
review
points us towards the conclusion that the more affluent are also more likely to
get internships (and hence a better graduate job):
“The use of internships to increase the chance of
gaining a place on a graduate scheme has proved to be the most effective way of
securing a job before graduation”
“These results suggest that attending a private
school does increase the chance of gaining an internship”
That’s
my observation when talking to graduate employers, graduates and students.
There’s an increasing professionalisation to getting a graduate job. Not just
ensuring you get the right course at the right university, but taking part in
the right events, having the right social skills. It all helps to get the right
internship.
But how
is that knowledge shared, and it is equally shared? Or are those from more
affluent backgrounds more likely to be exposed to these ideas, earlier?
It’s
hard to blame employers for getting the best people to do the jobs they want
them to do. But there’s two questions:
- Should they take a more fundamental look at how they attract, recruit and select young talent? And I don’t just mean dropping a 2:1 requirement
- And wider than that even, should they take a different look at what they want young people in their first jobs to do, to open those jobs up to more people?
