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Saying that I have very strong feelings about what interning can do for one's career is a gross understatement. While I can only base this on personal experience but I do think that internships and those first jobs - even the most inane that include 'Xeroxing' as a skill - are a solid foundation for a career. Living in DC for six years all of which were spent attempting to build some sort of career even if it meant enjoying hors d'oeuvres at fundraisers because they were free and free lukewarm calamari is way better than Ramen; presented me with options. I mean it didn't feel like it at the time as I was mindlessly giving completing flag requests but still, I got a career out of it. And that's what really matters.
Lauren Porat and Cari Sommer are two former interns who became successful in their respective careers. As a child Lauren knew that she wanted to work on Wall Street and her first job was at 15 years old as a bank teller because it was the closest a 15 year old could get to the power of Wall Street. She ended up doing internships in accounting and banking and worked her way into a position on Wall Street. All the while viewing her work as a progression to getting to where she wanted to be. Cari viewed her internships leading up to a career in bankruptcy law as Lauren did; as the natural steps to build her resume in a meaningful way that gave her experience and insight into her eventual career. Earlier this year Lauren and Cari - longtime friends - started the site Urban Interns. A site dedicated to matching busy employers and prospective employees all the while hoping that those just entering the oft dreaded real world would have great experiences starting out just as they did.
It's probably needless for me to say that I love the idea of Urban Interns and what these two women have done in terms of creating a good internet business; especially a small internet business with a focus of bringing other small business owners together with people who are looking for jobs or new ways to jump start their careers in such awful economic times. Lauren and Cari both agree that right now people are looking to build their resumes and to be creative with what they can do because many traditional jobs are no longer available. Urban Interns not only helps people find jobs but also promotes the growth and sustainability of small businesses by allowing owners to be more efficient with their hiring strategies without the financial commitment of a full-time person. Of course that opens up an entirely different set of issues of part-time vs. full-time and the loss of benefits, etc. But the bigger picture here is that Lauren and Cari have started a site that benefits busy professionals and the small business community by offering a different approach to solving unemployment in New York City.
For now the site keeps its services in the NYC area but Lauren and Cari hope to move onto other cities in the near future. You can find the Urban Interns site here and perhaps one day, I'll write about my own internship experiences and the very first time I figured out how to use a fax machine (HINT: take out the staples and face up).
Related Reading:
College Internships vs. Paid Summer Jobs
This year, this economy, even more college tuition hikes staring them
in the face for fall semester, I feel downright guilty touting the
high-brow virtue of internships. Maybe I should be sneaking a call to
their parents and asking how they’d like me to play it. (Not a bad
idea.)
Should Job Seekers Settle for Internships
As they collected checks I gathered experience that I hoped would make
me competitive in the job market. Even at times when I really needed to
generate income, I convinced myself that the peanut butter enriched
diet that I had succumbed to thanks to work with no pay would pay off
in the long run.
Adult Internships: Real World Solutions to Real World Problems
But I guess that's my problem with adult internships. It's that you get
the real world problems, but you don't actually have a real world
solution (except for maybe your credit card, which isn't actually a
real world solution; it's more of a "I'll think about this later,"
right?). I mean, sure, my boss may love