Our Internships Are Different
… and BETTER!
Usually, young adults who might be used to making many of their own decisions may naively expect to make management-level decisions if they secure a business internship. But of course, they neither have the experience or wisdom to do so. As a result, high school (even some college) students who serve internships are assigned low-skill, repetitive tasks that may not even relate to their academic or personal interests. They do not get a chance to experience the world of work at its most stimulating and creative best. Traditional internships never help students appreciate the full range of applied creativity that is demanded from both white- and blue- collar professionals every day in the workplace. Thus, students get bored, lose interest, and do poorly.
The length of the traditional internship is also off-putting to both students and employers. The cost of transportation to the business site and the need for a business wardrobe are also disincentives for student involvement.
Yet we know that every student can translate his or her love of, or skill in, a particular subject area into a future job. We give them that experience in high school. They get to ‘feel’ how working in a job that reflects their best cognitive skills and supports their emotional needs means they begin to understand how to pick a career that will support and sustain them over decades. We believe that an interest-based internship helps students ‘feel’ their way through a job, which will in turn, help them pick a college major that will better reflect what they really want to do.
In additions, interns arrive at the company’s door with no real level of training. Even worse, most traditional internships last for six to twelve months — a real stretch for today’s busy high school students. Traditional internships also require commuting to the business site and an appropriate wardrobe (minimally business casual), both of which can generate significant financial challenges.
Therefore, we invented a new kind of internship!
We offer young adults a different – and more meaningful – internship experience. We offer extensive training and preparation with The Internship Depot’s curricula, activities, simulations, competitive team events, business Mentor interactions, and online activities are superb preparation for the real world.
Our reinvented internships — our Rainmakers Internships — are:
- short
(2 weeks 0r 14 non-consecutive days)
- completely remote
(all interns ‘telecommute’ — they never go to the company site), and
- instructional (Rainmakers internships are unpaid so employers can guide and improve performance, rather than demand professional-level work).
To ensure that our candidates learn enough in our program to take control of their own careers as soon as possible, we also require that our Candidates secure their own internships (with our help and ongoing support). This way, we prepare them for the demands they will face as adults in the workplace. It is very likely that today’s high school students will have to secure jobs on a regular basis as adults in the growing GIG Economy, since most traditional full-time jobs will be scarce. In that world, today’s students may have to accept multiple jobs every year and piece them together to earn enough money in any given year to pay for living expenses. Learning how to do that as early as high school can only be beneficial.
In RIPP, Candidates will practice the skills that successful adults use every day. Candidates will
- participate in activities that mirror the competitive processes involved in employment and job retention,
- learn that facing and conquering work-based challenges can be amazingly rewarding regardless of one’s chosen career, and
- will use the skills learned from our program over and over to get the job they want and keep the jobs they get.
Candidates will also learn that success requires commitment and comes to those who have the necessary knowledge, the skills, and the grit (tenacity, resolve, perseverance, doggedness) to maintain focus until goals are reached.
And unlike most internships, there are additional rewards for students who successfully complete their Rainmakers Internship.
Don’t Miss This Information:
Why We Invented a New Kind of Internship.
Links to More:
How Can a Teen Become a Rainmaker?
What Rewards Do Rainmakers Get?
Where Are Rainmakers Programs?
Check Out Our Full Sequence of Activities Across Grade Levels.