2020: The Year of the Externship?

For some institutions, resoundingly, yes.

Since early May, career centers at colleges across the country report they have been flooded with emails from worried students left in the lurch as their summer internship offers were rescinded due to the global pandemic.

Some companies have proposed remote alternatives, or shorter programs that start later in the summer instead, and it has quickly become apparent to universities that the kind of support they need to provide students looking to build their resumes has drastically changed in recent months.

During this period of uncertainty, remote externships, or online experiential learning programs that are usually shorter than internships, might be the need of the hour.  

Externships are also typically provided through a partnership between an educational institute and an employer, so career centers at schools are now being called to rethink investments and veer away from splurging on a career fair, for example, to favor a remote externship program that is more likely to benefit students hunting for jobs.

Whether they are called remote externships, virtual internships, micro-internships, or the myriad of other names that get thrown around for student experiential learning, schools are ready to experiment and re-think what their degree programs bring to students.

Don Kjelleren, director of the centre for career exploration at Williams College in Massachusetts, said that very few students were interested in remote work options until this year, as they believed in-person internships gave them a better chance to connect with management and make a good impression.

“We previously would not fund remote internships and felt a student learned as much by participating in a work environment as they gained from the work itself,” he said. “Now there has been a 180-degree shift. 

A small survey conducted by the university showed 47% of students were still looking for work opportunities for the summer and that nearly 27% had their internship offers reneged due to COVID19.

This is definitely a time for career centers to think on their feet and reallocate resources to support their students better. Across the board, many seem to be rising to the challenge. 

Sam Welch, associate vice president of the career center at Hamilton College in New York, outlined the university’s plans to expand student internship funding and modify its expectations of what is considered an internship to include, for example, virtual work experiences.

“Seniors may have to pursue non-traditional opportunities this summer until a more standard job market returns,” he said.  “As such, we want to help them bridge this gap, and provide the same financial support.”

Aside from tweaking budgets, universities are also assimilating resources to help students find remote work or research for the summer.

Susan Smith, Associate Director for Employer Relations at Vassar College in New York, explained how the university crowdsourced information on which companies were cutting back on internship programs and which ones were hiring, got alumni involved to create short, paid externships for students and prepared resources to help them make the most of remote work gigs during the summer. 

“Before the pandemic, remote internships weren’t really on our radar,” she said. “Now we’re actively seeking them out. And I don’t think this trend is going away any time soon.”

She might be onto something. 

While most students are caught up in a mad scramble to replace in-person work experiences with remote ones this summer, there are still some concerns worth addressing:  

How can students ensure meaningful facetime with management in a remote externship?

A Zoom call does not an externship make. 

A longstanding concern about remote work externships is that they deprive students just beginning their careers of valuable opportunities to network with management that an in-person work experience is more likely to provide. 

Without the ability to bond with a team around an office cooler or have coffee with a mentor, are students losing out in their quest to lock down a full time job? 

Not necessarily. A well-designed externship should allow for planned time slots so mentors can give feedback on projects and answer questions. Students are generally made aware, right from the get go, of whom the best person to ask questions is and even a ten minute daily phone call with a mentor can prove immensely valuable.

Several companies also take the time to plan icebreaker events on video chat, where the team shares a brown bag lunch or plays a game together virtually.

Are colleges equipping students with the right resources to secure remote externships?

It is as important for universities to recognize the value of remote externships and support students pursuing them, as it is for recruiting managers.

While our conversations with colleges clearly indicate they’re starting to think about the shift toward remote work, I would caution decision makers at universities about examining the specifics of an externship opportunity before promoting it to their students. 

A quick-fix remote externship that has been hastily designed to replace an in-person experience can leave students wanting. 

Schools should consider whether companies have the capacity to offer an experience that will be engaging and educational enough for students, complete with training, mentorship, and feedback.  

Companies should have clearly defined projects and systems established to measure a student’s output and provide feedback.  Far preferable to an internship that relies on the whims of a manager who designates work only when he looks up from his desk and notices an intern idling away their time!

What sort of value does a remote externship add to a resume? 

The primary reason students chase internships and experiential work opportunities is because they’re considered a bridge to better job opportunities. As we see a paradigm shift towards permanent or semi-permanent remote work, it is unlikely remote externships or virtual internships will be looked down upon by hiring managers.

However, during this period of flux, it needs to be said that all remote work opportunities aren’t equal. 

So how do students choose the right remote externships? Some of the same rules apply. 

Being able to list work experience of any sort with a big, well-known name on your resume never hurts. 

Choosing virtual externships that offer hands on project work is always a wise move.

Finally, externships that provide students the chance to earn credentials beyond just course credit or a line on a resume will not only leave them with a feeling of accomplishment, it will allow employers to target students who have developed real-world skills. 

Given that we’re on the brink of an economic downturn and remote externships save both time and money while serving the needs of companies and students, we believe this trend will only continue to grow long after the masks come off. 

The summer of 2020 will be a time of trial and error in the world of internships and experiential learning as the economy works to establish a new normal.

But just because the months ahead will be a time of experimentation, it doesn’t mean universities can’t be discerning when thinking about the education-meets-work opportunities that will meet the demands and needs of students.