According to Forbes Magazine, 69 percent of companies with 100 or more employees offered full-time jobs to their interns in 2012.
Many college students apply for internships with the hopes that it will land them a full time gig after graduation.
“I selected my internship specifically to gain the experience in pro-sports,” Megan Tustin said. “It also helped me decide whether I wanted to work in pro sports or collegiate athletics.”
Tustin is a 2015 graduate of Cabrini College. She graduated with a degree in marketing and a minor in sports management.
Tustin interned in the spring of her senior year with the Philadelphia Flyers within their game presentations department.
“It was a very ‘on-your-feet’ internship,” Tustin said. “We did a lot of running around and fast thinking. The interns within my department were required to work every home Flyers game as well as a few shifts within the offices.”
Tustin said the variety of responsibilities she had helped her to see what she really wanted to do someday.
“My original goal was to work in Marketing for a pro sports team, specifically the Phillies,” Tustin said. “After working with the Flyers, I decided that working at the collegiate level is where I wanted to be.”
Tustin is currently the facilities manager at Arcadia University and following her new dream of becoming an assistant athletic director.
“My advice to current college students would be to get an internship that is related to your dream job, or something as close as possible,” Tustin said. “The Flyers internship was fun and an amazing experience that I would not change for anything, but work wise, I realized that working at the collegiate level was more along the lines of what I truly wanted to do.”
Meagan Kalinoski is a senior international business major at Cabrini College. She is currently interning at HTH Worldwide for the customer service department.
“As an intern, I work on several different projects ranging from the cliche “paper-pushing” intern work to assisting higher-level managers with concepts and implementation of new strategies to make the company and department more efficient,” Kalinoski said. “My formal title is customer service intern.”
Kalinsoki feels similarly to Tustin in terms of how the internship has helped her narrow down her “dream job.”
“Currently, my ideal company is one that deals with international business and is growing, expanding and allowing their employees more opportunities through their own expansion,” Kalinoski said. “My college career has been full of uncertainty about my future, but I have managed to narrow my career search to a business role that interacts with all types of people daily.”
Kalinoski was motivated to get their internship to gain experience and learn more about what the company has to offer.
“I have come to believe that customer service would be a great basis for learning about the insurance industry, international business, and HTH Worldwide,” Kalinsoki said. “I have even been offered the customer service representative position at HTH Worldwide. I am currently weighing my options and highly considering continuing my employment with them.”
Kalinsoki believes that although customer service may not be her “calling” in life, it may be a great place to start.
Florida International University states on their website that organizations converted 58.6 percent of their interns into full-time hires, the highest recorded percentage.
Additionally, 83.4 percent of employers say that their internship program is designed to help their organization recruit entry-level hires.
In most academic departments here at Cabrini College, at least one internship, if not multiple, are highly recommended.
However, as of last year the business department, as well as the graphic design department, are making it a mandatory requirement that students have at least one internship throughout their four year college career.
Nancy Hutchison is the director of the Center of Career and Professional Development at Cabrini College.
Her main role is directing the entire office to determine the direction of career development for students.
“We often work with students and their parents before they even begin their college careers,” Hutchinson said. “We help them think of short and long-term goals in terms of deciding a major and what the career options are for those specific majors.”
Hutchison says helping students find internships are a large part of what they do in the Center of Career and Professional Development.
“Student will come to us with their resumes and tell us what they are thinking about in terms of internships,” Hutchison said. “They then can begin to look through our online database, which is filled with more than 1,100 internship opportunities.”
Hutchison has spent the last 25 years building relationships with employers and companies to have all of those opportunities available to students.
Hutchison finds that first year students will come to the Center to try and decide upon a major, and sophomores, juniors and seniors are mostly very focused on internships and future careers.
“Especially for graduating seniors, they ideally will be offered full time permanent employment after their internships,” Hutchison said. “Additionally, if they do a good job, their employer can refer them to another company or at the very least write them a good recommendation.”
Hutchison believes the benefits of internships go much further than just employment opportunities.
“I have seen that for students who have had multiple internships, their confidence just sky rockets and they become so much more mature,” Hutchison said. “They can really see how what they have learned in the classroom can be applied to the workplace. They really understand what skills are needed.”
