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.

When am I going to use this in the real world?

I have asked myself this question more than once when I was at school. Like most students of my age, I learnt to quietly absorb pages of contents without really understanding why I was doing so, except than to obtain a degree which would set me free from school and supposedly open my career path.

I didn’t know when, where and how I would have a chance to start applying my school learning’s into real-life work situations.

One would say that it is never too late to get work experience; today I would emphasize that it is never too early.

I had my first encounter with work while participating in internships at different companies during the summer. I was 18. Waking up at 4am every day quickly opened my eyes to what work really was. I can’t say that I liked what I was doing, but I did learn quite a bit. Mainly, I learned what I really wouldn’t want to be doing in the future.

I also realized that I was lacking many important skills: communication, decision-making, organization.

Yes, I could write and speak, do my math properly, but I was not able to use much of what I learnt at school. School left me with groundings, now it was up to me to absorb the rest like a sponge. I believe there is no better way to do so than to gain work experience through internships or summer jobs as early as possible.

Supply Chain management news

More than two decades of economic reform, culminating in its entry into the World Trade Organization, has made the People’s Republic of China the focus of massive foreign investment and an area of interest among supply chain decision-makers.

More information about supply chain management can be found at http://www.supplychain.cn/

On July 6, 2008, Bradley A. Feuling, CEO, Kong and Allan was a featured guest on CCTV International’s Up Close. – Global Talent discussion.

Next Step Connections has partnered with the 2009 best supply chain management partner in Asia: Kong and Allan Group.

Hong Kong Stock Market rose 2.1% despite fears over the fast train approval

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 2.1% and broke to 22279.58 on Tuesday

“Asian stock markets ended mostly higher, bolstered by Wall Street’s upbeat start for 2010 and strength in the commodities sector, while technology shares advanced on optimism for chip sales this year.” The Wall Street Journal

This happened while Hong Kong’s government is trying to get approved the US$8.6 billion railway that would connect Hong Kong to southern China’s two most important cities.

“The express train would stop in the city of Shenzhen just across Hong Kong’s northern border. Then, it would travel to an outlying suburb of Guangzhou, southern China’s traditional commercial and transport hub, in about 45 minutes.

The current service, which arrives in downtown Guangzhou, takes about two hours. With the completion of a high-speed line linking Guangzhou and Beijing set for 2013, government officials say a train ride from Hong Kong to Beijing could take about 10 hours, compared with about 24 hours now.

Hong Kong’s chief executive, Donald Tsang, has made infrastructure spending one of the cornerstones of his economic policy. Mr. Tsang created a Development Bureau in 2007 to push ahead with 10 large-scale infrastructure projects before 2012, which he said would “lay a new foundation for our sustained development in the future” The Wall street journal

Hong Kong economy is stil thriving and there is no better time for students or young professionals to come gain work experience  in HK and boost their career.

Next Step Connections offers finance internship placements at leading firms in Hong Kong all-year round.