Internship connections: finding work for college students is a win-win-win situation.

EXPERIENCE. THAT'S WHAT employers want, even from the just-graduated. So paid or unpaid, credit or no credit, internships give college grads an edge. Employers benefit by getting a job done by an eager worker exploring a potential career, and the luxury of trying out a potential full-time hire. What could be more win-win? Only adding that Indiana internships frequently lead to Indiana jobs--helping to stem the brain drain 

"Internships provide opportunities to enhance skills and talents that cannot be otherwise achieved in a classroom environment," says. John Crawford, a DePauw University student who's interning with Terre Haute-based JZ Consulting, an information-technology consulting company and value-added reseller of IT hardware and software. "Experience is on a completely different level than a certification or classroom knowledge."

Crawford, in fact, says he chose DePauw specifically so that he could be a part of its Information Technology" Associates Program, which provides eight to 10 hours of oh shadowing and internships per week throughout participants' entire four years at the university It's part of DePauw's 361[degrees] Initiative, a Lilly Endowment-supported drive to make sure all students are well-equipped for living and working in the digital age.

Crawford's boss in his current internship is Josh Zuerner. "An internship provides students with the opportunity to see the 'real-world' exhibits of work ethic, trust and responsibility," he says, noting that a good internship experience benefits all 'The student must provide value to the employer and the employer, in turn, must provide value through experience and matched education investments to the student--basically an equitable exchange."

It hasn't been than long since Purdue grad Zuerner was himself on the receiving end of such real-world experiences He's now in his early 20s, but "I was paid to write custom software at the age of 14 or 15 for multiple local businesses," he says. Zuerner was, in fact, in business for himself long before earning his diploma, and has made a strong commitment to provide opportunities and guidance for other young Hoosiers.

That's why he was honored last year as one of "tomorrow's leaders" for Indiana. As part of the Indiana Leadership Summit, the Indiana Humanities Council and the Stanley K. Lacy Leadership Association picked Zuerner and other young adults as recipients of the Governor's Awards for Tomorrow's Leaders, based on excellence in education, culture, community service and entrepreneurship. "It was an opportunity for me to summarize my interests and attitude towards long-term personal and professional growth that is supported by current Indiana companies," he says.

He believes it's critical for Indiana companies to employ interns, not just for the benefit of the interns and companies themselves, but also for the general good of the emerging workforce. "Employing interns is critical because it allows the younger or emerging labor market in Indiana to be mow highly valued," he says.

Indiana INTERNnet. Internships were plentiful last year, but the sluggish economy made it harder to find paid ones. Nearly two-thirds of schools responding to a National Association of Colleges and Employers survey said 2003 grads had trouble finding paid positions. Many employers could not justify paying interns, it reported, while laying off full- or part-time employees.

Indiana students can access Indiana INTERNnet, a Web-based internship program funded by Lilly Endowment and operated in partnership with the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, the University of Indianapolis and other higher education institutions. Employers post .job opportunities, students post their resumes, and if employers find a potential match, they'll email the student to apply for the position More than half of these internships have turned into full-time positions after graduation, meeting a key goal of the program: keeping grads in Indiana.

"We're huge advocates of Indiana INTERNnet," says Tim Harding, director of Butler University's career services. "In the last year it's really come into its own." The database of employers has grown, he says, in large part because it's free to participate.

Harding says 54 percent of Butler's grads stay in Indiana. The goal is to increase that to 64 percent within five years, further reducing the state's brain drain.

Other programs are being developed at Butler (and most other colleges and universities in the state) thanks to recent grants from Lilly Endowment. Butler will hire a program coordinator to work with its existing 24 intern coordinators working within its academic programs, and will begin a program of summer housing subsidies to allow out-of-state Butler juniors and seniors to remain in the state to do their internships with Indiana employers.

Engineers move on. Students would rather stay in the area when they graduate but they go where the opportunities are, says Deborah Roemke, director of career services at Tri-State University, Angola. Unfortunately, job offers in Indiana have dwindled during the last three years. Half of its 1,200 students are in engineering and their opportunities are usually "one state up or over," she says. Only 20 percent of them did a co-op program in Indiana, and with most students being offered full-time jobs where they intern or co-op, that means few stay in Indiana. Some do find internships and co-ops in Warsaw's biomedical hub at DePuy, Biomet or Zimmer.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology's engineering grads have been exiting the state a bit more slowly on graduation, says Kevin Hewerdine, director of career services. "When the job market was very good in the '90s to 2000 it was a lot worse. Out-of-state companies were coming in in droves," which was good from the student's perspective. "As the job market has tightened, Indiana's clone a lot better." About 40 to 50 percent now stay in the state. Lilly's recent hiring of many of its chemical-engineer grads has been a boost.

Ninety-eight percent of students at Tri-State graduate with internships, says Roemke. "The majority of our employers are looking for those that have had internships. It's almost a given that they would have had an internship. My challenge has been from a small school in a small town, trying to coordinate with student needs," she says.

"We attract small-town students who have already worked--very hands-on students who want to get their hands dirty," says Roemke, and Tri-State mirrors where they come from. She urges employers to use students to their fullest. "They're like sponges. They don't want to sit back and watch, they want to be involved." Although they know they might have to start out doing grunt work, the longer they're there the more intense the experience should be. She points to an engineering co-op student at CTS in Elkhart who was given the opportunity to design and program a robotic line.

Wendy Seligmann, associate dean of students at Earlham College, Richmond also encourages employers to provide a substantial challenge to students. "What makes it a meaty experience is when students are asked to do real and meaningful work, make a contribution and see the results of what they've done." In a fall survey, about 60 to 70 percent of students at Earlham reported that they had an internship in the prior year.

Internships also can steer students away from things they don't want to do. There's value in analyzing an "awful experience," says Seligmann. "Figure out what we learned from it. Learn what a bad supervisor is. Learn what kind of people you don't want to work with."

Many of the academic programs at Anderson University require internships, says career services director Jo DuMontelle. These include music, business, graphic design, social work and mass communication. "To be marketable, I feel our students need to have two if not three work-related experiences on their resume at graduation."

Many employers have a "rolling internship" she says, a spot reserved for an Anderson student. It might be an accounting firm that always needs help in the tax season or a church that continually wants a student in its music program. But the posted regulars are not always enough to meet tire need so DuMontelle teaches students how to make cold calls and network within an industry. This training is particularly helpful for out-of-state students seeking summer work at home.

Some internships, including those at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, aren't likely to result in a full-time job offering, says DuMontelle, but "they are wonderful to market our students to other organizations." Others, such as internships with accounting firms, routinely result in job offers upon graduation.

Although occupational information for Anderson grads is sketchy (only 20 percent reported it on returned surveys) DuMontelle says her gut tells her more would stay in Indiana if they found an opportunity "It's easy to jump on the Internet and find a job in Michigan or Chicago."

Starting early. "The expectation of employers is that you have degree-related experience before you graduate," says Hewerdine "If they don't, they'll be tar, far behind the one that does." So Rose-Hulman starts to drill the importance of career development as part of the freshman College and Life Skills class.

"We're very unusual," he says. "There's probably not another school in the country where career services is in front of freshmen three class periods in the first eight weeks. We're setting the stage as far as what employers are looking for."

Hewerdine is in the business of helping students, but he has some specific advice for employers, too. Conduct a search for an intern or co-op student just as you would for a full-time engineer. Screen them, meet with them at job lairs, take them to your facility. After all, you may wind up hiring the candidate full time, so it pays to be diligent. "Take the time to find the best-qualified candidate. A lot of our students come back off their junior internship experience with a full-time job offer in hand," he says.

"It's important for employers to establish a relationship with a university career center, especially small employers that don't have large recruitment or human resources staffs," says Hewerdine. "We can do an awful lot in connecting them with qualified candidates."

FINDING AN INTERN

Indiana college and university Web sites often include internship-related information geared toward employers. Also check these resources:

Indiana INTERNnet--Employers post internships and students post resumes on this site: indianaintern.net.

Career Development Professionals of Indiana--Check here for a list of Web links to the career-services offices at Indiana colleges: cdpi.org/ members.html.