WARNING: Your internship might be outdated
The other night I was out with a few friends from school and one of them was telling me about his "virtual internship". My initial reaction was the same as some of you to in this post. Aren't internships about learning through osmosis of everyone around the office? But after he filled me in on the details of his experience, my dismissal turned into a little bit of jealousy.
Let’s looks at the benefits of his internship in the eyes of the student. For starters, he avoids paying rent by living at home, and doesn’t have to worry about long commutes. And for freshman/sophomore interns this is huge because it’s more than likely your internship will be unpaid or your pay will be negligible after factoring in cost of living. But that’s just the surface, and spending your summer lifeguarding gives you those same benefits plus a much better view.
Virtual internships inherently provide a more substantive experience for the intern. You weren’t hired as a “go-for,” you were hired to assist whomever offered the internship on the projects he is working on and you take direct orders from him. Moreover, at most firms only MD-Level employees can bring in their own interns so its more than likely that you’ll be working directly for some one on that level. And for this reason my friend described his experience as a "virtual internship" .
Virtual internships also make it easier to continue the experience - albeit in a lesser capacity - beyond just the summer. So while he goes through fall recruiting for SA positions, he’ll be consistent contact with an MD, which will undoubtedly prove beneficial.
Now lets look at this kind of internship from the employer’s perspective. The purpose of offering an internship is to find cost-effective labor. Virtual internships take it one step further, cutting software, equipment, and sometimes payroll costs. Additionally, you schedule training, instruction, and any other form of contact with the intern, meaning you avoid distractions and interruptions.
With gotomeeting.com, skype, and the multitude of other options for internet communication, I’m willing to bet the dynamics of internships will adapt. But what do you guys think? Would you hold a virtual internship with the same weight? What about the long term potential of internships going “virtual”?
In my opinion one of the biggest benefits of being an intern is just being in the office. Seeing daily interactions, sitting in on calls and meetings, getting a feel for the culture, asking questions and having conversations with other employees, sr. and jr., developing communication skills, the list goes on and on.
I can't really see and MD or anyone for that matter firing up the skpye / online meeting platform to fill in a "virtual" intern. Doesn't pass the smell test for me, especially if its unpaid. It is one thing to be an unpaid intern and get the aforementioned benefits, its another just to do virtual grunt work for free.
I personally would not place much value on a resume with a "virtual" internship that came across my desk.
I agree, it would be far better for the person to put in at least a day, preferably 2-3 at the office while doing work at home on the other 2-5 days per week.
At the very least, during the school year or something, a long meeting in the evenings on a week day or something with the MD's and interns to catch everyone up to speed on the projects and get the perspective of the higher ups on where to go and what everyone should be doing and why.
That said, there is a lot of good stuff out there. The online modeling training courses could be good tools for teaching interns and other things could help too, but overall I see a lot of value from actually working in a work environment.
I agree with the above comments about just being in the office. One learns how to properly interact in a work environment and gains exposure to office politics, and can learn from senior and junior level people alike. I think if a student's only internship experience is "virtual", they would be ill-prepared for real office work. The technical and functional knowledge could be developed well, but it's hard to say how developed the soft skills would be.
I'm in a unique situation in which I am doing two unpaid part-time internships (I'm a rising junior). One of the internships requires me to go to the office 2-3 days a week, whereas the other is essential a "virtual internship" doing investment research. I don't feel like I get as much out of the latter because there isn't as much interaction or "non-technical" experience.
Where do you find these virtual internships?
I had both, I did way more research on the virtual one than I did in the in office one, but the office one gave me a much more realistic view of the work place
it's more of just sitting in a cubical and interacting with coworkers that make the internship then the actual work you'll learn how to act around people better
actually it wasn't virtual now that i think about it b/c i got yelled at every day for messing something up :(
I did an internship in market research after my freshman year. All of the data was accessed from an online propietary database. My project required me to use Excel and PowerPoint to analyze data and make slides. I did 95% of my work from home. I only went to the office every few weeks to do status checks and talk about how the work was going.
This is nothing new, it is just tele-commuting/working from home.
I'm not sure how this would work for banking, given that deals are done in teams. But hey, if a small bank could figure out how to make this work (not just for interns but for full time staff) , they could save a ton of money on overhead.
I would also never use the title "XXX Virtual Intern." Why does it matter if you did the work at home or in the office?
We have been blessed with over 50 virtual interns in the last year. The ones that worked out best stayed in regular contact and spoke to us at least once a week by phone. The ones that didn't work out really needed a better work ethic; they probably would have failed in a traditional internship as well.
From our experience, the virtual intern model is a success and a great way to offer opportunities to those who need to stay where they are yet want the same experiences as someone who lives in a bigger city
http://www.braatheenterprises.com/internships
Are you serious. This looks like the biggest scam and I wouldn't be surprised it it was illegal based upon the way the laws are written that govern free intern labor. You have a constant revolving door of a substantial amount of free labor. Based on your website you have more free interns than actual employees, granted they aren't full time but regardless. Sorry but without all the details this just seems shady.
[quote=braatheenterprises]We have been blessed with over 50 virtual interns in the last year. The ones that worked out best stayed in regular contact and spoke to us at least once a week by phone. The ones that didn't work out really needed a better work ethic; they probably would have failed in a traditional internship as well.
From our experience, the virtual intern model is a success and a great way to offer opportunities to those who need to stay where they are yet want the same experiences as someone who lives in a bigger city
http://www.braatheenterprises.com/internships[/quote]
There are criteria required for internships to be unpaid. We ask for 5-7 hours per week and in exchange the students design their own internship, get trained, and get free online classes. We call our application process The Resume From The Future
"The Resume From The Future is a resume that contains not only work that you have done already, but accomplishments, skills, activities and achievements that you intend to accomplish during your time interning with us. This resume helps set the tone and agenda for your internship and helps us to assess your goals and how to design a program that best suits you and Braathe Enterprises."
If you'd like more information we'd be delighted to share it.
Here are the rules (and we meet every one)
The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment; The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern; The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff; The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded; The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship. http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm
http://www.braatheenterprises.com/internships
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