Because the current job market is filled to overflowing with talented entry level job seekers, it has become increasingly necessary for candidates to find ways to stand out in a positive way from their competition. One way to do that is by participating in an international internship.
Organizations like AIESEC (pronounced eye-sik) can facilitate a student's efforts to find an internship oversees. Though not the only one of its kind, AIESEC is the largest student-run global internship organization with 35,000 student members in 107 countries, including the United States.
Established in 1948, AIESEC, which was once an anagram of a French phrase that roughly translated into International Association of Students in Economics and Commerce, believed that helping people from different cultures to gain a better understanding of each other would decrease the likelihood of the recurrence of world war.
Unlike other international internship programs, AIESEC allows students to become fully immersed in the culture of their host country, learning not only the language, but the customs and business practices as well.
"The internship program is only one stage of the development process they're trying to take students through," said Andrew King, an alumnus of the AIESEC program who works full time in the organization's business development office. King works with companies to create internship programs for AIESEC's student members.
Some of the companies that currently participate in AIESEC are Microsoft, DHL, UBS, HSBC and InBev, the international beverage company that recently acquired Anheuser-Busch.
There are two primary benefits for students who participate in programs like AIESEC, says King, and they are:
1. Membership in AIESEC helps develop skills like
- leadership
- ethics
- accountability
It encourages students to become "change agents," to "make a positive impact on society," said King, who spent a year in Beijing, China, during what would have been his junior year of college, in 2006.
2. Because the program is structured, students receive a higher level of service than they might if they found their international internship through their campus career services office.
For example, when King went to China, his counterparts in Beijing had been responsible for developing his internship, meeting him at the airport when he arrived, showing him around the city and helping him to gain a better understanding of Chinese people, their culture and their society.
"There's worry about our place in the global competitiveness and economy, that we're falling behind," explained King, who graduated from the University of Wisconsin Madison earlier this year. "[So], not only does [AIESEC membership] have the social benefits of promoting world peace, but it will also make U.S. students more competitive. Students need to know how business is conducted in other countries."
Of course, there are other pluses to an AIESEC international internship. Students who speak more than one language are more valuable because they can not only communicate with colleagues, but with customers and clients, too.
The only criteria for membership in AIESEC are open mindedness, willingness to learn about another country and an understanding that culture shock is inevitable. Students who join AIESEC are also expected to be "self starters with entrepreneurial spirits, who will be good ambassadors for the United States," said King.
Membership isn't limited to business or international relations majors. It's open to students of all majors who are curious about how business in other countries is conducted and how the people live and work on a day-to-day basis.
"There's something about going to another country and meeting the people that lessens the chance of future conflict and promotes personal development as students learn to cope with the difficulties of adjusting to a different culture," King concluded.
Finding the right entry level job after graduation is tough for many recent graduates, primarily because the competition is so tough. Participation in an international internship program through organizations like AIESEC could be what sets 2010 graduates apart. They will have experienced other cultures and, like King, they will also have matured beyond their years, which will definitely make them stand out during interviews.
Article by, Penny Loretto, a career counselor at a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, has her own private career counseling practice, Career Choice, and is About.com's Guide to Internships.
