The Best Internships for Millennials

The word internship to many conjures up the image of a young person taking the lunch order for their boss and standing at a printer photocopying paper all day, humdrum tasks that very often don’t come with any pay. Millennials, however, are getting tired of succumbing to such menial internships and are on the look–out to discover internship programmes that offer meaningful work and boast exciting opportunities.

It was during the late 1960s that formal internships started to appear throughout America as employers started to recognise their potential as a recruiting tool to hire. However, internships became more widely recognised during the 1980s as the demand for knowledgeable workers increased. For many professions such as medicine and business, employers require individuals to have both academic knowledge and the hands-on experience of working in the field. Internships were created with the purpose of providing students and graduates with an opportunity to gain employment experience within their chosen industry and as an alternative to attending networking events which were popular in the 1950s.

Universities greatly encourage students and graduates to pursue internships, particularly during the summer periods, because in the current job market employers greatly value experience and having completed an internship shows employers that you have taken the initiative to put your skill set to the test and that you are passionate about working in the particular field.

It has, however, emerged over the last few years that Gen Y are dissatisfied with many of the internships on the market as they fail to challenge individuals and there is no guarantee that completing an unpaid internship will help individuals to secure employment.

With many internships going unpaid and taking place over the summer, it is understandable that young people feel frustrated at being delegated menial tasks when they were promised an opportunity to upgrade their skill set.

However, a recent study has revealed that students have a 7 in 10 chance of landing a job with the company that they interned with which shows just how beneficial it is for individuals to pursue internships!

Many internships can be found by directly searching on the particular company’s website. There, companies will advertise the particular internships that they have on offer and will also specify if they are long or short-term and whether they are full-time or part-time vacancies. It can also be advantageous to make a LinkedIn account as it is a good way to network with employers and discover upcoming internships.

Working for Disney and getting paid to do so for most of us sounds like the dream job! Disney offer a range of professional internship opportunities throughout both the United States and Europe and interns have the choice of working within a specific area such as the Walt Disney Animation Studios, Marvel or within the Disney parks. Within each of these areas there are internship opportunities that allow you to develop your specific skill set in preparation for the career path that you wish to pursue. For example, Disney offer a Parks Management internship if you wish to go into the operations and retail sector or there is a Disney Parks Animals Programme which would allow you to be responsible for the care and welfare of animals across the properties.