Overseas experience can give you an edge in today’s competetive job market.


n the current economic climate, our competitive workplaces have become even more so. Anyone due to graduate in the next year may soon discover that enthusiasm, aspiration and a BA are not enough to pin down a paying job. The new buzzword in this context is “intern”. In January 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced plans to offer government- sponsored internships to some of the 400,000 graduates who will leave U.K. universities this year.


Experience in a working


environment, preferably in your chosen career field, is a valuable asset for any serious job searcher. If this can be combined with cultural immersion


14 : verge RESOURCE SERIES


International Internships I


BY SUSAN GRIFFITH


and the chance to cope with a foreign working environment, your profile will be enhanced even more. The troubled economy will send more students and graduates searching in non-traditional places for an opportunity to extend their resumés and gain language skills and job references. Even if an overseas work placement is irrelevant to your future career plans, it will at least provide a useful introduction to how companies or organizations function in a different culture.


International internships normally take the form of unpaid work experience for six weeks to six months or longer. Since host companies rarely pay more than a very basic stipend,


if anything, the boundary between work experience, volunteering and exploitation can become blurred. It’s important that candidates choose placements that really will bolster their long-term professional prospects. No one wants to spend time working hard for no financial reward unless the effort is meaningful and rewarding in other ways. In France, 20 percent of the workforce of some companies is comprised of poorly paid interns, which has provoked disgruntled and impoverished young French workers into organizing strike action.


For limited periods, however, unpaid work experience is justified, and placements overseas can be a


FOCUS ON : Working Abroad


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26