For all returning placement students, ASET runs a yearly essay competition. Offering students the chance to write retrospectively about their placement experiences and help inform others about the benefits of undertaking a work placement.

The 2009 Essay Competition has been won by Lucy Armstrong from the University of Bath. Lucy is studying Psychology and undertook her placement in Macquarie University Anxiety Research Unit, Macqaurie University, Sydney Australia.

Here is a short snippet of Lucy’s Essay:

“When asked to think of Australia, we immediately picture a golden beach, tanned surfers and the words “no worries mate”. Through Foster’s adverts alone we Brits have been conditioned to believe that Aussies are the most chilled out human beings, even when faced with a shark attack. So imagine my surprise, one day when flicking through the pages of placement options for Psychology, to not only find that anxiety exists in Australia, but also, that a perfect opportunity, working within an anxiety disorder clinic in Sydney’s Macquarie University, was available.

As an individual studying a course that doesn’t lead directly into a career (i.e. becoming a psychologist as such, involves more than just three years of learning), I have always explained to others, that I was driven by the content of the course, not the job options. After completing ‘A’ level Psychology, I realised that while I had thoroughly enjoyed the subject, it felt as though I had only brushed the surface. For the first time in school I wasn’t just doing a subject I had to do, I was doing something that inspired me, and made me want to turn the pages of the books I was reading. Choosing the University of Bath to study Psychology was based partly on the university’s reputation for academic excellence, and the prospect of an eight-month work placement ‘down under’ – a place I had dreamed of going ever since I discovered I was one quarter Aussie (however that was calculated).”

To download or view this full essay in PDF format, please click here.

The Judges of the competition also gave special commendation to Christopher Pagett from Liverpool John Moores University who will receive a runner up prize of £150. Christopher worked at Cheshire Police Headquarters in the Forensic Footwear Unit.

To download or view Christopher’s full essay in PDF format, please click here .

A familiar idea that is frequently discussed on RateMyPlacement; this latest blog from Grad Expectations is all about making the most out of your placement. A timely piece for some, it may help those of you starting your placement year over the coming months to set off on the right foot!

Sitting in the Corner

On Thursday this week an email arrived in my inbox with a spreadsheet attached. In that spreadsheet was a list of all the Graduates and all the placement students in our company. As a Graduate Programme manager I make sure that I know everyone of these people. However, on Thursday as I scanned through this new list I saw a name that hadn’t been there before.

‘That’s interesting,’ I thought to myself as I checked out who this person was on the directory. Under their name it said that they were a Placement Student. Instantly I picked up the phone to find out more. It turned out that this was true, Mark was a placement student who’d been working in the company for the last 8 months. He’d been brought in through one of the ‘alternate routes’ rather than through the central system, which sometimes happens. And it was only now that the standard reports were showing that he ‘existed’.

“So are you planning to apply for a job with our company once you Graduate?” I asked Mark after he told me his story. “Probably,” he replied. “But I haven’t really enjoyed my time here,” he continued. “I don’t really know anyone and all I’ve been doing is sitting in the corner and analysing spreadsheets for the entire time.” ‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘poor guy.’

After setting him up to talk to some other people so he could find something more interesting to do, I wondered why he wasn’t doing more to get the most out of his placement.

Get the most out of your Placement

Generally I see that there are 3 reasons people do a placement:

1. Their course requires them to
2. They want to get the experience to build their CV
3. They want to land a job with that company once they Graduate

Regardless of the reason you’re doing a placement, it is essential that you use the opportunity to the best of your advantage. And, unlike what Mark was doing (i.e. sitting quietly in the corner) this means doing 3 key things:

1. Know what you’re seeking to achieve Whenever you start any new job or project, always think about what you want to get out of it! This doesn’t mean being purely self motivated, but on a placement you have a great opportunity to develop new skills and new contacts. So if you start with clear goals in mind, you can be more focused on achieving them. For example, if you want to get experience in a specific area of work, then make sure you tell your manager this, as they will usually help you achieve it.

With Mark, he had a goal of trying to get a job after Graduation, but I had to ask him to find that out. If he had made his goal explicit, like other placement students, he would have hunted me down and told me what he was trying to achieve, and then I could help him.

So morale of this part of the story is that if people don’t know specifically what you want to achieve during your placement, they can’t help you – you have to have goals, and you have to make these goals known!

2. Build Your Contacts One of the things I find is really common in organisations is that most managers are happy to spend time talking to new people. And more importantly, they’re happy to talk about themselves to new people – managers love talking about themselves!

With this in mind, against the goals of what you want to achieve, make sure you build your contacts. This doesn’t mean you have to be a ‘networking freak’ who cold calls every manager in the business, but I would encourage you to pick out certain managers and schedule some time to buy them a coffee. When you do this, make sure you start the conversation asking them about their current role, their experience and then, any tips they have for being successful. Then talk about yourself and what you’re trying to achieve. Every manager I know (including me!!) loves this because it makes them feel important as they impart their worldy wisdom to help someone, which gives you the perfect opportunity to build your contacts.

As with my statement above, after they’ve talked about themselves, make sure you tell them what you’re trying to achieve. If they don’t know this, they can’t help you!

Even 30minutes of some-one’s time can open up a range of opportunities for you, if you’re prepared to ask. So do not sit in the corner, get out and make the time to talk to people. This is how you’ll get known and how you’ll find out about new opportunities.

3. Use your Initiative to Get Involved When you start your first professional job, knowing where the boundaries are can sometimes be tough. For many Students and Graduates, the fear of getting it wrong too often prevents them from really showing what they’re capable of. This to me is a flawed approach. With any Student or Graduate, what I want to see is them using their initiative and getting involved in things. If you just sit there doing only what you’ve been asked (as with Mark and his data analysis), you’re not really adding a huge amount of value to your boss or your company. So…seek to get involved.

How do you get involved? – One way is to use your initiative to look for simple things that aren’t working and fix them – I call this positive dissatisfaction and positive impact! Over my years of working I’m yet to see an organisation where every-thing’s perfect. This therefore gives you plenty of opportunity to do other value adding things to show what you’re capable of. And, a good place to start with this is to find out what’s keeping your boss awake at night.

As you look for things to get involved with or to fix, be sure to start small and build up. I’ve seen too many people take on too much too quickly and fail to deliver. So be sure to start with ‘quick wins’, or ‘low hanging fruit’ as they say, and build up to bigger things from there. It’s amazing how often fixing the simple things will help you get noticed…so don’t ever be afraid to show your initiative and get involved!

A Last Thought… Regardless of the reason you’re doing a placement, it is essential that you make the most of your opportunity. However, to do this you have to drive it – you have to make it happen. Within every organisation I’ve seen there are always people or managers who will help you, but as the saying goes – you have to help yourself! If you sit there in the corner like Mark waiting form someone to find and help you, it’s unlikely to happen. But…if you know what you want to achieve, if you get out and make contacts, and, if you show people what you’re capable of, then you will get the most out of your placement!

Find out what our Guest Bloggers are getting up to. Throughout the year we will be following the progress of our Guest Bloggers as they find a placement or keep us updated as to what they are doing on their placement. Click here to read all entries from our bloggers or click here to meet them.

In my last blog I spoke about doing a student event called X48 (a gaming event for computer enthusiastic students) which was a big success – sold out and the quality of games produced was really high, plus a lot of energy drinks and sugary sweets consumed. It’s also really good to ‘get out in the field’ at these type of events to talk to techie students and really understand the audience. In my mind I would always encourage you in your role to get out there and understand your customers/audience in their everyday role and situation to improve overall marketing sales and/or service to them.

The next student event is the Imagine Cup (a student technology competition to solve the world’s problems) here at Microsoft HQ in Reading so I’m trying to make that a really great day for the students involved which looks like a lot of dominos pizza plus some cool swag to give away. We’ve hit the target for students entered into the competition which is really great, and is a good story to tell at the end of the year.

Just recently interviews and assessment centres were held for the new me, Sarah 2.0, which I shadowed my manager on and my job has been given to a lucky girl called Sam. It was really interesting sitting on the other side of the interview and picking up what to do and what not to do (note: fart jokes in the lift with your new employer are not good!). My manager appreciated the feedback I gave on candidates – after all I’m the one doing the day to day job so I have a good understanding of the type of person it would suit.

This also got me thinking about my return onto the graduate scheme and what I need to do in my last 4 months to really stand out from the thousands of applicants that apply to Microsoft. So the next 4 months are really around planning and strategic thinking, leaving my mark, for the next year and Sam to take over from me. I’m also trying to take as much training as I can from now until then, of which there are a lot of opportunities at Microsoft to expand knowledge and skills.

Good luck with the interviews if you’re having any!

Name: Duncan University: University of Nottingham Degree: Economics Programme attended: 1NSIGHT Academy Current role/year at University: 2nd year undergraduate. Joining the UK 1NSIGHT Internship in East Midlands this Summer

1) What did you enjoy most about your 1NSIGHT academy week – were your expectations met or exceeded?

The 1NSIGHT academy was a great experience. After applying and getting accepted on the course, I went there with very few expectations of what was lying ahead. It did not disappoint. The best bit would have to be the surprise of how challenging and intensive the week was. We were required to undertake a week long project, and every day we faced new dilemmas and situations that we had to solve and adjust to. All of our activities were assessed by recruiters, and we were given individual scores and feedback, so we all worked to our full potential all week. The project culminated in a 4000 word write up and a 20 minute presentation to several members of the PwC board. High pressure! Our group won the overall challenge, which was the ultimate reward.

One cannot forget the enjoyment of the social side of thing too, meeting plenty of like-minded participants, and the extremely well-prepared and inspiring PwC staff.

2) What skills did you develop on the programme and how have you gone on to use them?

The week concentrated on PwC’s “core competencies” for employment, so these were always in the back of our minds. The week long project encouraged good project management skills, but I mostly developed my communication skills, with most of the week’s emphasis being on discussion, presenting and socialising. These skills are very helpful back at university, and have given me greater ability to manage my work and state my point of view confidently. Hopefully I can take these skills and use them in the summer internship that I have been awarded with PwC as a result of 1NSIGHT academy!

3) What advice would you give to prospective joiners?

Apply! I have advised all my friends in the year below me to apply if they were interested in going into finance post-university. There is so much to benefit from by going to the week, and nothing to lose. It is a fun week of challenging work and socialising with students from across the country, with the added bonus of something to add to your CV and the possibility of gaining an internship at the end of it all like me!

For more information on the opportunities available at PricewaterhouseCoopers, please click here.

Name: Liam University: University of Portsmouth Degree: Economics. Finance & Banking Programme Attended: 1NSIGHT Business Placement Current Role: Associate within Assurance – Corporate Audit. Southampton Office

1) What did you enjoy most about your placement – were your expectations met or exceeded?

I completed the Business Placement programme between my second and third year at Portsmouth University. A particular attraction of the business placements offered by PwC is that they can in effect constitute the first year of a three year training contract, hence I completed the same training as the those students joining the conventional graduate scheme. It also implied that I spent a proportion of my placement at college studying for the first exams of the ACA qualification. Working in Corporate Audit meant I was often out at client sites working as part of a team to complete the year end audit of a number of organisations from an array of industries.

I enjoyed the fact that the job offered such diverse experiences on a day to day basis. I never worked in the same place for longer than 2 weeks, and this therefore enabled me to gain an insight into a number of different organisations. Joining as part of the graduate scheme was also an enjoyable experience, enabling me to meet a number of people of the same age entering the same stage of their professional career. In some respects, the feeling of belonging to a ‘year group’ as you progress through the professional qualification with PwC maintains an element of university environment, albeit with earlier starts and later nights working! Completing the first exams of the ACA qualification was also a worthwhile, if not at times demanding, an experience that will no doubt stand any student in good stead upon returning to University.

2) What skills did you develop on the programme and how have you gone on to use them?

Completing my Business Placement with PwC ensured I improved a number of core skills required for any graduate job. It was imperative that I could communicate well with clients and fellow team members in order to complete audits efficiently and effectively as possible. My time management skills also improved, with each audit constituting a new project with deadlines to meet, it was essential that I managed my time and planned ahead in to meet my personal objectives on the job. Inevitably my business awareness skills have also been enhanced as a result of my 12 months with PwC. Witnessing first hand how our clients deal with business issues and economic pressures was an invaluable experience that I could take back to University.

3) What advice would you give to prospective joiners?

Overall I would sincerely recommend any student looking to complete a placement year to consider PricewaterhouseCoopers. In my opinion there are very few organisations that are held with such high regard in the financial industry and thus would improve any student’s CV. My advice to prospective Business Placement students would be to consider their options as early as possible, and therefore allow themselves to apply for positions early. It is also important to think about the skills/experiences gained already through University studies, and how these can be used to demonstrate on a CV that the candidate has the necessary capabilities. It is essential that students recognise how the advice and support offered by their University’s careers office can play a major role in preparing for a first interview / assessment centre. Completing a Business Placement with PwC can be demanding, especially since there will be periods spent at college with the other graduates studying for the ACA exams. However, there are very few organisations that offer placement students such a great opportunity to make their first step towards an interesting and rewarding career!

For more information on the opportunities available at PricewaterhouseCoopers, please click here.

Over the coming months we will be hosting Intern Options Summer 2010 Internship blogs to help our users who are looking to gain work experience abroad. Make sure you check them out, in order to hear from current students and graduates who are in Australia and New Zealand doing their internships, and those planning their internship abroad.

For most of our students and graduates this is the most daunting part of the application process for their internship. But the response I always get after our students have finished their phone interview is “that wasn’t too bad, it was more of a chat on the phone rather than a scary interview”

So some tips already I hear you saying:

1) Remember to smile while you’re speaking so the interviewer will receive a positive impression.

This one is so simple but works so well, body language is over 80% of the way we communicate in a normal face to face interview, so not being able to see the person you are talking to, means you need to rely on voice tone and what you say. Smiling is a simple way of not slipping into a monotone voice while trying to think of what to say.

Also as it’s a telephone interview, again the interviewer will not be able to see if you are nodding your head in approval, so ensure that you are vocal and that you are responsive to everything that the interviewer is asking.

2) Act confident, friendly and well-prepared

Couple of ways you can do this, firstly stand up when you are talking on the phone, don’t sit down (or slouch!).

This is actually something I learnt when I was on my internship, and it works surprisingly well. Next time you need to make an important phone call try doing it standing up, you’ll feel a lot better than sitting down (bit of psychology in there which I won’t go into).

Secondly have your CV printed off and in front of you while you are doing your interview. Most employers will refer to your CV/ resume during the interview and if you’re like me you wrote this a loooong time ago and don’t even know what references you put in there.

3) Show that you have a knowledge of their company (RESEARCH ON THE INTERNET)

Sorry didn’t mean to shout there but this is an area where you can really impress the person interviewing you. Today most information you can find on the internet. So use it to the full potential. Look at their website, see what projects they have on, how many staff, look at their press releases if they have them, Google the company to see if anything extra comes up in the news or on Australian websites, Google the person interviewing you, although don’t take this one too far and freak them out! It is good to know what the person interviewing you is responsible for, if it is an events internship and the person interviewing you is in charge of event set up then you can customise your responses to this.

4) Think about your skills and attributes

For many of our students this is their first bit of quality work experience in their career area so trying to think of your skills and attributes for PR or Advertising internships will be pretty hard. Think outside the square a bit her as the person interviewing you knows you will not necessarily have experience but you have the theory behind you to jump into your internship.

Couple of things here:

• Think about your strengths, could be you are a people person, good social skills, think of examples where you have used your strengths in a part time job you have had or at university
• Employers like to hear that you have weaknesses, try to make the weakness actually come across as a strength, for example my weakness is that I am a perfectionist. Yes this can be a weakness in that you never get that article written, but follow this up with the steps you have taken to make yourself more effective like giving yourself a deadline.

That’s about all, if you think about how you would be an asset to the internship company you will be working for and come across as keen to learn then you will fly through the interview.

To visit the original blog follow this link – Summer 2010 Internships – Internship Phone Interview Tips

Find out what our Guest Bloggers are getting up to. Throughtout the year we will be following the progress of our Guest Bloggers as they find a placement or keep us updated as to what they are doing on their placement. Click here to read all entries from our bloggers or click here to meet them.

So this is part two of my piece on stakeholders that you’ll interact with if you do a placement in R&R. This time I’ll write about debtors and the government.

In order to ensure the maximum return to your client’s creditors, you will need to recover as much of the outstanding money that they’re due as possible. Debtors are usually customers of the business, but they can be trading partners or companies to which your client has issued loans, depending on the nature of their business.

Recovering your client’s debts is often more complex than you might think. In a lot of cases, debtors will withhold payment, for a variety of reasons. It is then up to you to prove that they have a legal responsibility to pay. This can be done by looking at contracts and your client’s ledger. Once you have established that your client is due the money, you may become involved in instructing debt collection agents or lawyers to help recover the funds. Once the funds come in, you will have to account for them using IPS, the accounting package that is designed for insolvency practitioners.

The government plays a large role in insolvency proceedings. On your placement, you will be responsible for filing documents with companies house on behalf of your client and submitting tax returns. You may need to liaise with HMRC regarding your client’s tax liability too.

The Insolvency Service is the government’s main vehicle for liaising with insolvency practitioners. When you’re six months into a case, they require a report on the conduct of the directors prior to insolvency and their subsequent cooperation. You will also need to work closely with The Insolvency Service’s Redundancy Payments Office as they step in to tide employees over while you recover your client’s assets.

An insolvent business has broadly similar stakeholders to a trading one, but the relationships are different. It is managing these relationships that is key to making insolvency proceedings run smoothly. In most other areas of accountancy, your client is your work provider, ie. the main party that you need to satisfy. In R&R insolvency work, your clients are insolvent businesses, the work providers can be directors, lenders and their legal advisors, and you have a range of statutory responsibilities to perform. This makes it a more attractive line of work for a lot of people. If you think you might be one of these people, then apply now!

Until next time Harry

Over the coming months we will be hosting Intern Options Summer 2010 Internship blogs to help our users who are looking to gain work experience abroad. Make sure you check them out, in order to hear from current students and graduates who are in Australia and New Zealand doing their internships, and those planning their internship abroad.

Everyone knows that employers look for work experience. But when is the best time to get it? Last month we talked to a range of UK employers about how they viewed the need for work experience. This month we talked to some of the UK’s top universities about the benefits of a quality summer 2010 internship and how this enhances not just future job prospects, but can lead to higher degree marks in years to come.

Why is relevant work experience so important?

But hang on, we hear you cry, I already have work experience. That may be true but how relevant is it? We see hundreds of CV’s each month and we see the same thing 95% of the time, lack of relevant work experience. The type of work experience we see usually is serving tables at a pub or scanning groceries at a supermarket, nothing relevant to the degree a student is studying, or the profession they want to go into. Certainly not something that jumps off the page to graduate employers.

What are the benefits of getting your work experience early?

Intern Options talked with a range of university careers and placement teams on this subject. Suki Clayer, Placement Manager at De Montfort University believes the biggest benefits of gaining quality work experience relevant to your studies while you are still at university are:

• Relevant work experience on your CV can make it easier to gain employment for your sandwich placement
• To test ideas and try subject areas you are interested in
• To see if that is the career area you really want to work in (rather than testing this when you graduate)

Lindy Blair, Placement Manager for School of Management, University of Surrey had this to say about the importance of students gaining relevant summer work experience in their degree subject area after the first year: “Probably the greatest benefits we see for our students is applying their course work to the real world of business and especially applying concepts that are often hard to grasp when taught in a classroom environment. The university sees improvement in students’ attitude and approach to studies and there is a real link between students that have undertaken relevant work experience and higher degree marks when they return to their studies”.

At Intern Options we realise there needs to be a choice made between working in a paid job to save money over summer OR getting real world quality work experience in your area of study to put you ahead of your class. A sacrifice is needed in today’s world and the earlier a student can make this, the more beneficial it will be to you.

Why international work experience?

In a recent article on the BBC website titled “Life in a harsh jobs market” they report that with unemployment in the UK reaching 2 million and half of employers not looking to take on graduates or school leavers in the coming months, young people looking for work should think about spending time abroad.

“We are but one country in the global landscape. There are lots of countries round the world where GDP is growing not shrinking… don’t constrain yourself to thinking about the UK.”Reference: BBC website “Life in a harsh jobs market”

One of the biggest reasons students don’t search out work experience opportunities in their second or third year, is they don’t believe they have studied for long enough for employers to want to take them on. Louisa, a graduate from Manchester Metropolitan University has been placed into a fantastic position in Sydney, Australia in Fashion Marketing. Louisa had heard how hard it was to get a job as a graduate with a degree, so never thought she could land a proper job in marketing or fashion as an undergraduate.

Can I really get a good summer internship in my second year?

Jon from Intern Options said: “I don’t think students realise just how good the positions are that Intern Options can place them into, and how early… when we talk to students about the type of jobs we can place them into any time after their first year of studies, students are amazed”. In Australia, specifically Sydney and Melbourne there are some excellent summer internships to be had working in some very good positions.

What kind of work experience can I get over the summer?

Holly from the University of Bristol who was placed into Sydney for a 16 week internship had this to say about her experience: “In my first week they threw me in at the deep end doing things I’d never learnt before,” she says. “It was good, because I’ve learnt so much in a really short space of time. It was kind of nerve-wracking taking on jobs I wasn’t familiar with, but it’s the best way.”

To visit the original blog follow this link – Summer 2010 Internships – Get Work Experience Early

Over the coming months we will be hosting Intern Options Summer 2010 Internship blogs to help our users who are looking to gain work experience abroad. Make sure you check them out, in order to hear from current students and graduates who are in Australia and New Zealand doing their internships, and those planning their internship abroad.

We have had quite a few questions on this lately from students and graduates. So, we thought we would get out and ask some employers how they viewed international work experience.

We asked a range of UK companies, small and large how they viewed work experience from Australia. The response was very positive in favour of Australian work experience, and the life experience to be gained from travelling and working overseas.

So What did the companies have to say?

When we talked to a range of employers we showed them two company and position descriptions each from the Intern Options website, explained they were in Australia and that they were unpaid.

Stephen Handisides, Director and founder of the UK’s largest beauty and aesthetic website www.MyFaceMyBody.com commented: “Any potential new employee we are evaluating needs to stand out from the crowd. If I saw a student’s CV that had international work experience like this on it, they would be short listed immediately. We are a marketing, PR, filming and advertising company and we are international, we are looking for candidates that have relevant work experience, not just a qualification.”

We talked with Mark West, founder of People, Process and Solutions. They are a management consultancy company working with some of the UK’s largest Retail brands online and on the high street. This is what they had to say about international work experience on a candidates CV: “We would look very favourably on a candidate who has not just international experience, but life experience gained by travelling and working in a foreign country like Australia. Our consultants are required to enter business situations with a broad range of skills, most of these are not taught in a class room, they are learnt through working in companies in a range of situations”.

How is this relevant to you as a student or graduate?

A couple of things shone through about what companies are looking for these days. It is no secret that companies have a lot of potential candidates to look at with graduate vacancies in 2009 dropping around 25% from 2008. These were:

• Experience on your CV is crucial, a degree or diploma won’t do by itself
• Life experience through travel is highly regarded
• One employer even said she would love to hear about a candidates travel if nothing else!

So to make yourself stand out to employers, it all comes down to work experience and differentiating yourself and your CV. What are you planning for summer 2010 to get this experience on your CV?

To visit the original blog follow this link – Summer 2010 Internships – What do employers think?

Over the coming months we will be hosting Intern Options Summer 2010 Internship blogs to help our users who are looking to gain work experience abroad. Make sure you check them out, in order to hear from current students and graduates who are in Australia and New Zealand doing their internships, and those planning their internship abroad.

There are two main reasons that summer internships in Australia are so popular:

1. You get some fantastic work experience on your CV that makes you stand out from your peers

2. You don’t have to work for very long to get this quality international work experience Actually

I thought of a third: 3. IT’s SYDNEY, living in Sydney myself for six months was some of the best times I have had, Sydney is not a place that will disappoint!

So What are the Benefits?

On top of the three main reasons above, there are also a number of other beneficial outcomes that our students tell us about. Like testing if PR or advertising is the industry for you. One of our students (Simone) commented that if she hadn’t spent 12 weeks in Sydney working in an advertising agency, she probably would have wasted a graduate job pursuing a career in advertising. Simone is now in a PR position working in internal communications and loving it! Luckily her employer in Sydney was able to give Simone some experience on internal comms and this is what she preferred rather than advertising work.

There must be Some Negatives!  

The obvious negative is that the internships are unpaid. You will need to take enough money to pay for your living costs for the whole time you are in Sydney or Melbourne.

So What is the Big Deal with a Summer Internship in 2010?

41% of students surveyed think their CV is not good enough to get a job in the UK and 31% don’t know where to start looking. This result from a survey Intern Options conducted over the last six months didn’t surprise us, but it did reinforce how bad things are for recent graduates in the UK. This is why Intern Options saw a 75% increase in summer 2009 internship applications.

Students graduating are very aware they need quality work experience on their CV before they graduate. At the end of the day it all comes down to who has experience on your CV. It is getting harder and harder for employers to distinguish between graduates just by your degree, something else is needed… Work Experience. The Sydney and Melbourne summer internships are designed to give you intense work experience over a short period of time. This is why the internships are unpaid, because that way we can dictate to employers that the internship purpose is for your learning, and nothing else.

To visit the original blog follow this link – Summer 2010 Internships – What’s the big deal?