We Need More Meaningful Youth Internships

by Frank Gibson, CEO and Interim Chairman of the Board of the North-Central Ohio Employer-Based Worker Training Partnership, Workforce Development Advisor, retired from The Ohio State University – Alber Enterprise Center

Internships have been around for quite some time. The number of internships – mostly college-based – has hovered around 4.3–4.5 million per year. An estimated 31% of interns complete multiple internships before entering full-time work. A number of federal programs such as the USDA Internships and Career Opportunities website and state and local initiatives are there to assist employers to get started and potential interns to find internship hosts. A common complaint of college-based internships with an industry partner is that they usually offer an underwhelming mix of mundane, gofer activities and are more prone to logging hours until the internship is completed. We all hear it – critiques in terms of those who have completed a program and from inexperienced and unsupported employers who try to administer one.

High school internships have been slower to start. But in recent days high school graduates having been increasingly opting for more local employer-based training opportunities and 2-year apprenticeship courses with local community and technical colleges, where they can possibly start making money while gaining currently relevant and marketable industry skills, avoiding a large college debt.  They recognize from peer-to-peer anecdotal updates, that a high-cost 4-year degree has become more risky, with no way to know if their chosen career path will result in the career, or if the career opportunity will still exist after graduation.

For employers of any size, providing youth internship opportunities are a great way to build a pipeline of potential employees while helping young people to explore careers, learn about the work environment and culture, and make an informed choice about their employment future.

Among the reasons employers give for their reluctance to bring a high school-age student onto their worksite is federal youth employment age rules and restrictions and the state-to-state rules for youth employment. It is true that the amount of time a young intern can spend onsite might be limited, considering the importance to the intern for gaining exposure to occupations of interest for post-graduation employment seems like a worthy investment.

Another reason employers cite for avoiding youth internship hosting is insurance liability regarding “visitors” (if unpaid) or as employees if the intern is on the payroll. Again, each situation is different and many states offer ways to describe the program that fits state and local employment rules.

Yet another reason could be because there isn’t a clear method of setting-up and internship, minimizing the administrative burden, and reach an outcome that is satisfactory to them as well as the intern. Or it could be a combination of factors. All of these factors causing an employer’s reluctance to host an internship can be mitigated to the employer’s satisfaction.

With employers constantly saying they can’t find a skilled workers they need, youth are very receptive to the idea of internships, who can be a source of potentially local, loyal workers. But internships should be a value proposition for both parties. An employer selecting a few representative tasks of the target job and occupation, defining them in a way that is clear, concise, and providing time for an internal expert to train them leads the intern to the meaningful achievement of documented “task mastery.“ This goes a long way in providing the intern with a “taste“ of the occupation and business culture, while providing industry general skills that will be useful whether employed later by that particular employer or by any other.

A quality internship would be structured in a way that concretely gives the employer a look at the intern’s potential while imparting the currently relevant skills, and the intern a reason to stay engaged and interested in the program and potentially longer. It should also be a doorway to other potential careers within the industry based on observing them in the employer’s context.

Taking youth internships to the next level, youth apprenticeships can be a hybrid of internship and apprenticeship that allows future labor force participants to gain some valuable experience and potentially a path to continuing into an employer-sponsored paid apprenticeship (registered or not). Although rarer than youth internships, the potential is there.

There are a number of educational institutions that would love to connect with an employer to establish a meaningful internship for both. Sometimes education lacks the experience with the industry to know how to help the employer establish the guidelines for their unique internship. Sometimes they feel they already have the internship structure the employer needs without soliciting meaningful employer input and feedback. This is the time for the employer, who is much more knowledgeable about their operation than the education representative to lead the discussion of what they think will work for both them and the intern. An intermediary can be helpful in bringing both parties together and flattening out the bumps.

Internships are a very important opportunity that should not be avoided or squandered. Give it the deliberation and support it needs and it will provide both the employer and the intern with a highly meaningful experience.

Contact Frank Gibson at the North-Central Ohio Employer-Based Worker Training Partnership website. The NCOEBWTP was established to match employers with proven employer-based worker development resources and solutions.