Abstract
Experience, they say, is the best teacher. This paper asserts that directed experience might be an even better teacher. By directed, we mean purposeful, channeled, appropriate, and specifically relevant to the student's vocational interest. A tightly organized, directed, professional advertising internship program demands more of students, employers, educators, and internship administrators, but provides greater benefits for all. This paper articulates several areas of focus that will enable an advertising internship program to optimize the relationship between the academic and business communities.
1. Elevate the Importance of Internships: It's not about “Getting Coffee”
Without question, traditional classroom learning is vital to one's education. However, in a directed advertising internship, the intern is challenged to go beyond learning professional competency to apply classroom skills in a hands-on environment and also to develop “relationships and identities within communities of practice in which those competencies are exercised” (Sides, Mrvica, 2007, p. 25). Given that industry routines and practices continually change as new technologies are introduced, the internship offers a learning experience with significant benefits (Perlmutter & Fletcher, 1999).
Although most students begin the internship process worrying that they will spend their days serving beverages, cleaning out file cabinets and running errands, it's really not about “getting coffee.” The advertising internship administrator must communicate clear expectations that this program is designed to provide the student with a well-rounded, hands-on learning experience, and to provide the employer with a well-qualified trainee. When an intern is bright, motivated and well prepared, employers view interns as professional trainees, not as messengers.
2. Raise the Bar: Match Employer Needs and Candidates; Enable Students to Exit with a Professional Portfolio
The decision to offer a professional quality internship is not something that happens shortly before the semester begins. Planning and execution involve working with potential hosts to determine their needs, and how students might best match those needs (Somerick, 2004).
A written or verbal agreement ideally generates commitment. It helps to assure that the employer will partner with the department in seeking to arrange for the best possible learning experience for our students. Some of the points to be considered are:
The host agrees to provide internships through the department in one or more (1, 2 &/or 3) of the areas relevant to the student's area of advertising concentration, such as Art Direction, Copywriting, Management, Media Planning, and Research each academic semester;
Internships will be modeled on entry-level professional positions in the appropriate agency department;
Internships will provide approximately 15–20 hours of professional experience during each of the 15-weeks of the academic semester;
At least three (3) times during the semester-long internship, a principal (e.g., President, Partner, etc.) of the agency will meet with the intern for an informal “mentoring” conversation;
Every effort will be made to structure the internship so that when the student completes the internship, the intern will exit with some professional product – e.g., research memo, media plan, creative work, draft copy, thumbnails – as evidence of their experience;
At the conclusion of the professional internship, the agency will provide to the department a regular personnel evaluation of the intern's work on the appropriate agency Human Resources form.
The academic unit, in turn, will:
Provide, as possible, more than one candidate for a professional internship to enable the agency to interview candidates for selection;
Utilize the agency personnel evaluation as part of the basis for the student's grade;
Only grant academic credit for an internship pursued and conducted under the criteria articulated herein.
The professional internship advocates active participation where the host is seen as facilitator, providing needed resources, establishing necessary communication networks, creating support when needed within the organization, and giving training in correctly completing the assigned tasks. Employers who take the task seriously gain an excellent source of potential employees with experience in their operations.
3. Consider Making Internships Mandatory; Encourage Students to Secure More than One Internship before Graduation
Current research indicates that advertising educators consider student internships to be part of a sound advertising education (Banning & Schweitzer, 2007). Although some universities allow students to choose an internship as an elective, given the trend among corporations for cutting training programs, an off-campus experiential learning experience is in the student's best interest. At the very least, the internship experience offers an excellent way for students to check their career options (Alexander, 1995). Given the research on the importance of internships, even to the extent that multiple internships are highly recommended, an internship ought to be a requirement for graduating (Gibson, 1998). Furthermore, pursuing additional unofficial internships enables the student to gain a more well- rounded view of the industry.
In seeking out an internship, the advertising student should be directed to a list of pre-approved media-related companies. Summer internships may be the solution when employers are not located near campus.
4. Provide a Safety Valve: Instead of an Off-campus Internship, a Service Learning Experience on campus
Ciafolo (1988) noted that to ensure successful relationships with professionals in the field, faculty usually required evidence of students’ successful performance in grade point average, completion of requisite coursework, and achievement of junior or senior status. When internships are mandated as a required course, it behooves faculty to ensure that both parties have a quality experience and that the program's reputation is protected. Some students simply may not be ready for outside contact, and are not prepared to positively represent the department or the school or the university. Other students may not yet have the maturity or confidence to embark on the off-campus interview process. For these students, some accommodation is necessary.
Here the Service Learning option comes into play. Similar to the professional internship, service learning takes “learning out of the classroom and into the community” (Zwarun, 2007). Broadly interpreted, “community” might include the university itself. So where applicable, the Internship Director might place the student in an administrative unit on campus, within the confines of the university.
The service learning internship alleviates pressure from the obligation of placing 100 percent of the students, every semester, in a suitable off-campus professional internship. This safety valve also allows the director the needed flexibility in placing students of varying abilities.
Taking to heart Ciofalo's (1988) critique concerning the administration of internships, it is best that the internship director be a member of the full time faculty. With knowledge of both the student and the program, the director can approve internships on the basis of whether or not the field experience contributes to the student's professional development.
Networking is widely acknowledged to be an effective way of extending influence throughout a community. Thus, the internship director should be in a position to make connections with the advertising and media community. The internship director should invest time building relationships with new potential employers, and working with current internship employers in order to ensure that both employer and the student needs are met. In addition, the director meets with interns several times over the course of the semester to assist them with:
Internship and career planning counseling
Resume and cover-letter critiques
Specific leads and opportunities for internships while simultaneously encouraging students to find internships on their own
Counseling during the internship
It is also the director's responsibility to: Evaluate students’ performance for the grade Communicate with employers during the internship search process and during the post-internship evaluation process.
6. Build Tighter Town-Gown Relationships
It is important to fully support the internship director in attending off-campus events to stay in face-to-face touch with peers in the advertising community. This initiative is a necessity for long-term town-gown relationship building. While difficult to put an exact dollar figure on the return on investment, the goodwill extended toward the director, alone, makes it a positive move.
7. Assign Interns to Write Formal Papers
Given the strong link between writing proficiency and marketability as a new hire (Bahls, 1992), the writing aspect of the internship should be given considerable weight. Borrowing from James's (1986) six paper report guidelines, one can collapse the number to three papers corresponding to the student's time at the internship: one at the beginning, middle and end. The reports are designed to encourage the student to communicate with people outside of his/her customary roles to learn how the business actually functions. Possible assignments are summarized as follows:
Describe your activities, duties and responsibilities, answering questions such as: What is the relationship of your position to the overall functioning of the organization? What are the functions of the various departments, and how do they fit together? What policies or informal rules has the company put into place concerning interns?
How are interns recruited? What benefits have you been told you would receive? How were you treated when you arrived on your first day of work? That is, was there a formal orientation provided? What has evolved over the first weeks of the internship?
Examine the economic model of the organization you are interning with. How, and from what sources is revenue brought in, and what are the major expenses?
Analyze the process through which work flows through the organization. How do orders for advertising (or other) assignments, sales leads, tasks in servicing the clients (or customers) make their way through the company from start to finish.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the overall operation? And on a more general level, what are the major threats and opportunities facing not only this business, but also other businesses in the same field?
Describe what this experience has taught you. How has your advertising education prepared you for this experience?
Is there a particular specialty within the field you are now more determined to pursue? Did you meet people who inspired you? Can you pinpoint specific things you gained from the experience? Integrate the findings of your previous reports and evaluate the internship itself.
The final assignment can be a reflection paper that brings together a holistic perspective. By purposefully reviewing all that has transpired during the semester, the student consciously lists and categorizes the specifics of the workplace. This reflective process enhances the value of the experience (McEachern, 2006).
8. Create an Electronic Assessment Form
The online assessment form should ask the internship site supervisor to rate the student's performance in various categories and learning objectives on a Likert scale. This can be useful for overall assessment of learning outcomes as mandated by various accrediting bodies. Supervisors should be cautioned that this assessment is not used for grading, but as an aid to the school in ascertaining what emphasis should be put on various parts of the curriculum.
In addition to a check list of attributes related to job attitude and job related skills, the form might includes questions and requests for comment, such as:
What tasks did the intern do best?
What tasks gave the intern the most trouble?
Comment on other aspects of the intern's performance you consider relevant.
The feedback provided on this final assessment form offers critical information relevant to the advertising program. Assuming the employer has agreed to provide the school a regular personnel evaluation of the intern's work on the agency's Human Resources form, it is this form that will be utilized in grading.
Conclusion
Assuring that the internship program is as professional as possible will enhance the value of the experience. Students learn more about the profession and employers learn to value interns not only because they are an asset in terms of assisting in the management of the current workload, but also because the internship period provides an extraordinarily in-depth method to judge the effectiveness of a potential entry-level job candidate.