Friday, July 22, 2011

Do Companies have time for interns?

In almost every course in a Kenyan University, one is supposed to go for internship during the course of the study.
Some call it attachment, but it nevertheless refers to the same thing. The year in which a student goes for internship varies depending on the course. For instance, many students pursuing Bachelor of Commerce and IT go for theirs at the end of the third year. Engineering students on the other hand go for theirs during the end of the third and the fourth year. The period of the attachment is between eight and twelve weeks. So, the Kenyan Campus students really learn anything during this time?

But do the Kenyan companies really have time for the interns.Do the workers in a company appreciate the role of interns? Or are they merely used as the helping hands in an organization? Some workers do automatically state that they have no time for interns. They view the interns as being a drain on their time and energy. Some others are happy, knowing that they now have somebody running the errands. N deed, there have been tales of students whose job description was to be sent for airtime, buy newspaper for the boss and fill in the diary besides other errands. So, how can an intern make best of that period?
For instance, you might want to pitch to the boss new projects that you think will be beneficial to the department and the overall company. So, here are a few things to do.

1. Take Charge.
Make the boss’s life easier and figure a way to help them implement a project. Show how you could fit in a specific role and be ready to it the ground running on a particular task. Showing the manager what you can specifically do is most often a better line than saying that “I’m excited to learn and do whatever you ask me to do”.

2. Use your strengths.
Since you are more savvy in technology than many of your managers, you could suggest a plan to help the company use social media to market themselves, or promote their brands.

3. Be strategic.
For instance, if John is your manager, you could approach him and say.
"John , I want to be as helpful as possible so I've thought about a few areas where I can jump in and help out. Would you like me to start pulling together materials for next week's meeting, compile results from last week's polling data, or do more research on the data?”

Then suggest to the boss two or three ideas that you could help o. The manager may agree with you or pursue an entirely different strategy. But he will surely involve you in the new project.

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