Employers hire candidates with experience.
There is empirical evidence that graduates today need specific, job related experience to be considered for employment. How important do you feel experience is in finding a job and what specific steps do you take with individual students to help them gain some experience prior to graduating?
Pamela,
How has this internship experience helped your placement outcomes?
Sheri Leach
Our school has a student internship at school location. It gives students the ability to hone their skills for 21 weeks before going out in the world.
April,
The benefits of volunteering are many, including those you mentioned. However, students and graduates don't often understand how beneficial to their career path volunteering can be. How do you get this across to your students and graduates?
Sheri Leach
Being in both environments (having hired new grad students...and in educating students) I suggest this same strategy of 'volunteering' to students. The effectiveness of engaging in volunteer positions is extremely underrated. This is especially productive when a new grad has no experience in their field of study, or if he or she has not yet been able to secure a job after graduation.
Employers instinctively view experience as a volunteer in the field...or even a similar field...as experience. furthermore, the impression is formed in the employer's mind that an individual has a genuine interest and motivation to work in the particular field. That factor weighs heavily when making comparisons of similar applicants.
On-the-job experience is invaluable. However, we have an 80-hour clinic open to the public that our students are required to participate in which is a requirement for them to graduate from our program (massage therapy school). Additionally, they are encouraged to work on other clients on a volunteer basis while they are attending school to gain additional experience until they pass their state exam and become licensed. The more experience they gain, they better their skill set and more confident they become. This confidence will help them when they go for their job interview(s) and perform their practical for those first perspective employers. Their confidence levels will be ten-fold of their counterparts who did not practice while waiting for their licenses.
We encourage our students to practice on as many people as they can during their time in school and while waiting on their license to be issued. We assist with all aspects of the job process from interview skills, resume & cover letter writing, mock interview scenarios.
Experience does offer more marketability to the graduate job seeker. Though internships are not required for many of our programs, we continue to identify such opportunities and encourage students to do them. Also, volunteer work is also marketable and assists students with gaining more experience.
Kendra,
Volunteering is a great way to demonstrate to employers experience of some kind. Do you offer anything to students to help them gain work or career-related experience? Or, do you have them complete volunteer work in their field of study? Can you elaborate please?
Ann Cross
Having experience is very important to most employers and it will make a student marketable if they have actual hands on experience in a specific field. We advise our students that if they do not have experience we suggest that they volunteer at facilities that will help them gain hands-on experience. All volunteering experience should be added to the resume listing all the student's responsiblities. We explain to our student's that experience is experience snd it does not matter whether or not they are being paid. An employer will be more willing to hire the student seeing that the student has been able receive hands-on experience in a real life setting.
