Matchmaker, matchmaker, find me an internship -- Career Center Blog

September 25, 2010

Matchmaker, matchmaker, find me an internship

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By Randy Woods
NWjobs

The leaves are changing. A chill is in the air. The kids are back in school. Time to start thinking about summer. Not the swimming-pool, shorts and sunglasses kind of summer -- I mean summer internships.

Since the needle on unemployment trends hasn't budged much in recent months, the internship has become a popular first step for those hoping to secure permanent employment. But as more job seekers flood the market of coveted internships at places like Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon and Boeing, many are finding it hard to find openings that match their skills.

That's one of the reasons InternMatch came on the scene in May 2009, near the height of the economic crisis. The Seattle-based Web site, set up a little bit like an online dating service, helps match the talents of students and other job seekers with organizations that are looking for new recruits.

InternMatch is the brainchild of co-founders and longtime friends Andrew Maguire and Nathan Parcells, who, like countless others, encountered a post-collegiate job search world that was a little daunting. "We really experienced a problem finding good internships," says Maguire, CEO of InternMatch. "We found there is a massive disconnect between students and organizations in terms of matching talents."

After earning their degrees at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively, Maguire and Parcells headed west to Seattle to be part of its vibrant startup scene. Being eager entrepreneurs, the two created a site that allowed candidates to search and apply for internships nationwide not only geographically, but also by keyword, field of interest and job title. Intern candidates can set up profiles that can be viewed by organizations looking for new workers. The InternMatch platform also includes a blog and a resources section providing tips on how to stand out in the internship world.

While InternMatch has obvious uses for students and other job seekers who are looking to get a toehold into a new industry, the site has a dual purpose of helping organizations find new talent, as well. The site has gathered a large collection of internship opportunities at smaller organizations, startups and non-profits -- places that often have little or no outreach budgets and often fall through the cracks at other intern search boards.

"At many of these smaller firms and startups, there are a million different things going on," Maguire says. "These are extremely exciting places to work and build hands-on experience. Since they tend to have small staff sizes, they give people a chance to work very closely with the CEOs and other executives on a daily basis." This closeness, he adds, can give interns an enormous advantage over other job seekers when it comes time for the companies to expand and take on more full-time staff.

For those hiring managers who think they cannot afford to hire an intern, InternMatch offers another function called the Work-Study Calculator. By entering basic information, such as the length of internship, location, hours per week and per-hour wages, this simple app automatically calculates how much organizations can be reimbursed by federal or state funds.

For example, Parcells says, Washington state has a work-study program that will reimburse up to 50 percent of an intern's salary up to 40 hours per week. So, for a local company that pays $12 per hour for an intern working 20 hours a week over a typical three-month internship, that translates to $1,440 that the organization will be repaid.

"The promotion of these funds has not been done as abundantly as it should be," says Parcells, the site's director of marketing. "It's an important mechanism for those companies that are not sure about whether they can hire full-time employees."

So, even now, as the summer light is just fading in Seattle, Maguire says this is the perfect time to start applying now for internships next summer -- or for any time of year. The three-month summertime stint is still the standard form internship, but as the popularity of internships increases, more organizations are offering longer, six-month positions, starting in any season of the year, he says.

"There's been an enormous rise in the importance of getting an internship as a way to get a job," Maguire says. "It used to be that the occasional student got an internship. Today, a lot of students are getting more than one to build up their experience. So it's never too soon to start looking."

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.