Companies raise bar, improve recruitment with paid internships

Central Penn Business Journal, Mar 23, 2007 by Ryan, Jim T

REGION

More companies are paying college interns. It's a growing trend regionally and nationally, business and college officials say.

The number of internships, paid and non-paid alike, are increasing, said Michael True, director of Messiah College's Internship Center, which helps students find work experience. He called the past couple of years the "golden age of internships."

"Companies are realizing that this is a benefit to them because it's a crop of educated pre-professionals," he said.

Interns fill several needs for a company. They free up regular staff to tackle other projects and complete work at a lower price. Businesses get the chance to evaluate people for future positions and might decide to hire an intern if that person excelled at the job. "You get an entire semester to try them out," True said.

Paying for interns helps companies attract the best and the brightest among upcoming college graduates.

"If a student sees two internships that are basically the same, yet one is paid and one is not, it's no secret that they'll go after the paid one," True said.

Cash is an incentive for interns to do a better job, too. "Students are committed to that project, paid or not. But if they're paid, they have an accountability to that job," True said.

Diane Fleishman, director of community and academic partnerships, reported a similar situation at Millersville University in Lancaster County. "We have had an absolutely fabulous year," she said.

More students are seeking internships, and more businesses are participating in the programs. About 70 percent of internships are paid, with nonprofits making up the majority of internships that are unpaid, Fleishman. The numbers of internships at nonprofits have also been increasing.

When jobs are scarce, students will be glad they took internships, Fleishman said.

Unemployment rates can have an impact on whether interns are hired, said Larry Wasser, vice president of operations at Phoenix Contact Inc. The company, with U.S. headquarters in Lower Swatara Township, Dauphin County, makes electronics for automated industrial operations.

Central Pennsylvania has a low unemployment rate, which means there are fewer skilled workers available. That forces companies to look to future graduates to fill positions.

"Our design going in is that we want to hire them," Wasser said, but that depends on business conditions and intern performance.

All of Phoenix Contact's interns are paid. On the technical side, interns make between $10 and $16 an hour, depending on their grades, experience and study areas. Factory interns are paid between $8 and $12 an hour, Wasser said. Phoenix Contact employs upward of 35 interns each year.

He compared interns to minorleague baseball team players.

"Basically, it's your farm team. If someone has a passion, they're willing to play Trip Ie-A ball for a while, with the hope of being called up to the majors," Wasser said.

There are other benefits to having college-age interns on staff, said Carol Lake, chief executive officer of Verefi Technologies Inc. The Elizabethtown, Lancaster Countybased company makes virtualreality training programs for the medical industry.

Interns can offer fresh ideas, Lake said. They also can do some programming. Verefi employs about three interns each summer and several others in the fall and winter. Verefi's pay for interns is fixed, Lake said. She declined to say how much Verifi pays its interns. Lake standardized Verefi's internship program two years ago. Paying interns makes a difference, she said.

"Does it help to get better students? I'd say yes. Students are going through some financial difficulties. And I think they are looking for a way to make some money to cover the expense of college, while learning a career, too," Lake said.

Kelly Lewis, president of the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania, sees a booming market for interns.The tech council operates TechQuest, a program and Web site promoting career awareness and training for young people in technology fields.

"Each month, we keep adding more and more companies," Lewis said. "And our existing companies continually give us more and more intern requests."

Information-technology and engineering firms usually pay interns, he said. That trend is spreading to other businesses competing for talented young people.

"In my opinion, we've got lots of talent spread across our institutions of higher-learning and in our high schools that can add value to our region's companies right now," Lewis said.

There are no internship statistics, so it is difficult to quantify on regional, state and nation levels, Messiah College's True said.

Messiah has a student population of more than 2,900. About 150 students use the internship center each year, he said. The highest concentration of users seek spring semester internships. About half of students take paid internships. Most of the non-paid internships are with nonprofit organizations, which generally can't afford to pay interns, True said.

Millersville has seen an increase in the number of students seeking internships through Fleishman's office. Intern numbers are at their highest level in 16 years, she said. This school year, about 435 students are registered with her office for internships, 175 in the spring semester alone. Millersville's student population is more than 8,000.