Choosing an international internship program

I was having dinner with some of our international internship participants the other night and really came away with some great insights that I thought would be worth sharing.

Every year we get a few interns who find us through google search and after a little research decide to apply. Of course this is something we are really happy about but we still wonder how they finally make the decision to commit. Most of our participants find us through their Universities career offices, through other programs that we partner with or through other references, but for these few, well let’s face it, they only know about us through our website.

For Robert the finance intern I was eating with, he said that he had spent almost 24 hours of time researching online before deciding to “take the leap” and pay the deposit to reserve his spot in our program. One thing that helped convince him was all the news and press he found about pay for internship programs that helped to prove that such services existed. Prior to finding our program he had never heard of such companies that offered those types of intern programs and so was skeptical and believed it could be a scam. Finding news about other programs legitimized our niche service area (there are benefits to having competitors) and helped convince him that we could be for real. He also mentioned that our videos that we posted, especially the one of Luca our finance intern in Shanghai in 2010 helped sway him to go for a similar internship experience with us. 

Another intern who also found us directly through online search mentioned that on top of the great details we include in our website, they were also convinced because of the fast and informative correspondence that she had with our program advisor. She explained that even though it was through email, the return time on answers to questions came in a “friendly, professional and timely manner.” And after an experience filled summer in China, she’s planning to go back to school and recommend us to her class mates.

For Ze, who happened to be a Chinese native studying in an overseas masters program also confirmed that the information that he was able to find online coupled with our professional email communication was helpful to help him decide we were a legitimate program.

And I remember quite a few of our past interns in 2009 who mentioned that it was after our phone calls with them or their parents, that they were able to put away most of their fears about whether someone was going to be at the airport to pick them up after their long flight over.  Imagine a  situation  where they not only were scammed of money but that they could land in a foreign country without knowing any of the language and having no other friends or family members on the ground to help.

The reason i think this is important to bring up is that even though we can say with confidence, and with the history of having over 300 students successfully finish one of our professional internship and other career related programs in China in the last 3 years, there are still some companies out there who are trying to use a flashy website to cheat people out of their money.  In fact, this year alone, I had 2 students contacting me directly in Shanghai from 2 different programs because they felt they were being cheated when they finally arrived.  One girl was rightfully upset because though the company that she had worked with was in Shanghai to pick her up, they had forgot to mention that they had not yet found her placement.  She had contacted me a few weeks into her stay and finally had to go and find her own placement.

So if you search and find any program online, including ours, make sure to do a little homework before you decide to spend any money and commit.  The amount of information that each person needs will vary, but with enough patience and determination, you’ll be able to find out what you need to ensure that you have found the right company to help you build that international experience that you have been dreaming about.  And if you have a gut feeling that a company looks shady, avoid them at all costs, or at least until you are able to put your concerns aside, as these types of companies give all of the other legitimate and quality programs a bad name.

high school entrepreneurs

These last few weeks we have been working hard on the program curriculum for our high school entrepreneur summer program which we are planning to offer for a second year in 2011. All these discussions we’ve been having about creating an amazing entrepreneurial experience in an international setting has really got me excited about the potential we can bring out of young students and so I wanted to do some research online to find some great stories to help inspire future business leaders.

The web is full of amazing stories featuring high school students that have took the initiative to start their own ventures. Some big, some small, but the idea of really starting something more than just that corner lemonade stand has really started to transcend to this younger generation.  It seems with the growth of the internet, young high school students have more resources available making it possible to do everything from planning an idea, to launching a full fledged service.  Just take a look at Diane Keng, at 18 she’s already the topic of several news articles and for good reason; she’s already launching her third start-up, myweboo.com.

According to Diane, “My age, my gender and my lack of experience don’t deter me from going after what I want for the company.”  This is the attitude that many high school students are displaying.  For these highly motivated few, a day could look something like this:  Get up and go to school, participate in after school activities and associations, go home to do homework and then spend a few hours on their own business.  On weekends, spend more time working, marketing, selling, implementing and tweeking.

For three 16 to 17 year old entrepreneurs from Canada, the drive to start their own business led them to the creation of a company called Design Vetica.  Alex Gondek, David Kim and William Zhou came up with their idea during IT class and were able to launch the interactive web design and media production company soon after.  Sometimes being so young actually keeps some barriers that slow down or even stop other older would be entrepreneurs from ever launching their ideas.  For instance, young kids have less to lose and have less responsibilities to worry about and are able to approach a start up with more of a care free and “just do it” attitude, while older generations have to worry about whether they can maintain a full time job (to pay the bills) while trying to keep up with the demands of starting and operating their own business.  Of course a can do attitude and is not all that is required in launching a successful company as these young teenagers can confirm.  For the few that are able to succeed, the drive to pull such a venture off includes the need to absorb as much about business as possible, learn from mistakes and to continue pushing along.  It might be natural then, to say that starting a business as a youth might be ideal, similar to what they say about learning languages; a young brain seems to be able to take in a great deal of information much more quickly and effectively than adults.

Whatever the reason, I do believe that it’s never too early to get some entrepreneurial experience and believe that the internet is probably the ideal medium that is lowering the barriers of entry. If you are a student and are interested in learning from actual entrepreneurs in Shanghai, check out Next Step Connections high school summer programs.  This is a chance to do something exciting and different next summer.

Networking with the best

Building a strong network is a key to success when it comes to starting a new business venture. This is true to pretty much all industries, however it makes even more sense when your core is to organize top placements for international internships in a foreign country like China.

Len Hayashi, one of Next Step Connections co-founders and current international internship program director landed in Shanghai in 1997 and spent a good 13 years building contacts in Shanghai.  This has proven to be fruitful.  Len knows most senior management of multinationals across various industries ranging from advertisement to Finance.

“I have to say that being well-connected in Shanghai and more so in the whole of China has played a major role in our fast growth. Since our start, we have been able to secure internship placements in large companies like McCann, Tesco, or AXA-Minmetals. This is also the main reason why we named our organization:  “Next Step Connections”; our participants benefit from our strong corporate connections in Shanghai and at the same time we encourage them to spend time growing their own network once they have landed here.” Says Mr. Hayashi.

Shanghai holds numerous networking events, some are effective, and some aren’t, but it takes more than spending hours exchanging business cards at public events to build a strong network.

Once you realize that you can actually meet people pretty much anywhere and at anytime; it becomes an interesting game. It’s all about being ready to open-up and taking the time to interact. You also need to be ready to step away from your comfort zone, as approaching people might seem intimidating at first.

According to the NSC co-founder, the concept of building connections comes with being ready to give first before eventually asking back for a favor.“ I always try to see how I can help people around, it’s all about doing a favor first” explains Mr. Hayashi.

Not only do you need to build a network but you also need to keep it alive, which can be quite time-consuming but once again crucial. “ You do not want to realize one day that your main contact is no longer working at the same company, you need to plan ahead to anticipate moves. Maintaining a strong corporate network requires a lot of strategy and planning.”

Anyone who has been living in China long enough knows that doing business without Guanxi is impossible. Guanxi is a central idea in Chinese society and is commonly translated as connections.

Why should companies take an intern?

As part of my duties as an internship program director in China, I’m responsible for finding new partnership opportunities with companies that could benefit from having an intern.  One question that comes up all the time when I’m speaking to HR and other managers is what benefit will they have by setting up an internship program in their companies.

First thing is that an internship program has to be a win win situation to work.

In this I mean an internship must benefit both the intern and the company to work out long term.  It would always be possible for a company to take an intern out of some sort of gesture to want to help. i.e. doing a favor for one of the director’s kids so that they can get some work experience. But if the company doesn’t see any benefits from the intern, the practice will be seen more of a waste of resources and time and will be short lived.  On the other hand, if the proper measures are made to make an experience filled internship, the company will benefit by having an invaluable resource to help work on projects and give insights and a fresh perspective.  By working on specific projects, the intern also learns what a career in that industry will entail, get a chance to take school learning’s and translate that knowledge into work, and build on skills necessary for their futures.

Here is a list of what some managers at the many companies that we work with tell us are reasons they take interns.

-Gain short term talent, that might be especially useful if you have new projects that need to be finished.

-Bring in different and fresh perspectives.  This is especially true with our program where we are bringing foreign students from around the globe to work in companies in China.  Also, students in University are often learning concepts that might be new, or even foreign and are able to translate those theories effectively into the work place.

-Young students are also very hip with regards to the newest technologies, software and especially social media that can prove beneficial for companies especially in the marketing/pr departments.

-Bringing in youth also brings new energy and life to the company.  More often than not, a young student is like a child taking everything in for the first time, interested in and excited with the new environment and is really invigorating to be around.  Most people really enjoy being a mentor, and since an intern really is at the starting stages of work, everyone in the company, if interested, can help coach the intern in some way.  This opens up the opportunity to have almost anyone in the company able to build morale and confidence through helping of a younger colleague.

-Give a chance for less experience staff to gain supervisory experience by managing an intern.  As they say, practice makes perfect, and why not start with an intern, where the individual can learn a lot by personally managing one intern rather than trying to start with managing a team.

-Help you build your companies international brand.  After young interns are finished with their internships they will go back to school and become your personal PR machines, telling all their friends, family and teachers about the great company they worked for.  Many locals also admit that they are also happy to build branding for China and Chinese companies in general.  Many understand that the perception outside of China tends to be negative or that most understand very little of what is really going on inside the country.  A positive experience in China, where students get to enjoy living in a very advanced city, and get great international work exposure are really great ways to show the rest of the world how amazing this city and country is.

In my few years running an international internship program I’ve heard many more reasons why managers are interested in taking in interns.  The reality is that it always takes some effort to create projects and a program that can be successfully performed by interns, but in the long run, the benefits definitely outweigh the costs.  If you are interested in taking an intern but are hesitating because of your concerns about how to best utilize their time, contact us, we can give you some great insights and project ideas to start with.