It is amazing and most gratifying to hear employer after employer and client after client telling us that their organizations recognize the strategic value of a strong internship program and how they're taking steps to build or enhance their programs.

When we went live in 1996, about a quarter of the Fortune 500 employers had web sites, about as many had email, a small minority had formalized college recruiting programs, and virtually none had formalized internship programs. Now, all Fortune 500 employers have web sites and email and many have formalized college recruiting programs that include an internship program. Thank goodness.

College recruiting and internship programs are strategic and most leading employers today recognize that fact. They understand that their management and leadership ranks will be decimated by the retirement of their Baby Boomer employees unless those soon-to-be retirees are replaced now by Gen Y students and recent graduates. It will take years for today's hires to gain the experience that the departing Baby Boomers have accumulated so to expect today's hires to immediately be as productive is foolish. But to replace those retirees with lateral hires will be incredibly costly in terms of recruiting dollars and, perhaps even more significantly, the ability of the organization to control its own culture.