Work Experience - Essay Example

Running Head: Work Experience Work Experience [Institute’s Work Experience Introduction One of the most important questions that graduates are asking themselves sand others concerns about their future jobs and the job getting process. Quite understandably, the world is in one of the worst recessions ever. In fact, reports reveal that this current recession is getting closer and closer to the great depression of 1930s. Unemployment is peaking to the all time high levels, consumer spending is down, layoffs and downsizing are becoming usual, companies are squeezing their operations and up till yet, despite all the claims is the recovery is very slow compared to the expectations. Quite clearly, this has created a troublesome environment for the job seekers, where job opportunities are becoming fewer and fewer and competition over these scarce resources is increasing day by day. This has made indivduals ask themselves that how they can add value to their resumes and make them look more attractive. A common answer regarding the same concerns the work experience specifically in form of internships. This paper is an attempt to look at the importance of internships as a form of work experience and work experience in general in light of various examples, critical findings, and logical examples. Discussion Prior work experience in form of internships is so crucial is because it helps students to have a realistic picture of their future job or careers. A student who wanted to major in accounts decided to undertake an internship during his first year of college. He was excited about the job since that would open the first door towards what he has been imagining as his dream job. Things started well at the internship but soon that intern find out that his dream jobs was nothing less than his worst nightmare. Repetitive tasks, well defined practices with lesser degree of employee empowerment, no creativity or innovation, comparatively higher working hours, lesser chances and growth and other issues. The intern decided to leave the internship after four weeks, despite the fact that it will meant to be an eight weeks internship. That student changed his major from accounting to marketing realizing that he is fit for a job, which allows creativity, innovation, change, and empowerment and fits his restless yet fun loving nature (Green, pp. 125-129, 1997). This little story explains that at times internship can provide handful insights about the job, even those that are not in books or career magazines. Internship can offer a good way to confirm that whether one has made a good choice regarding his career or not (Miller, Watts & Jamieson, pp. 56-59, 1991). Besides having a realistic picture of the corporate world, internships also give a chance to students to expand their network to contacts that may be useful for future. People that are already working in firms are the ones that have “been there and done that”. These people have gone through the processes of recruitment, selection, testing, training, job changing, job searching, interviews and relevant others. Moreover, these people keep an eye on job openings and the happenings in other firms. Therefore, these people can offer considerable help in terms of job searching, getting into organizations and other relevant tricks of the trade (Fedorko, pp. 26-29, 2006). Furthermore, prior work experience in form of internships, part time, or full time jobs adds a lot to the credibility of the resume. If a person has been able to remain as an intern at a reputable company or has worked there for quite some time, it allows the employer to asses the level of abilities and skills of that person (Miller, Watts & Jamieson, pp. 56-59, 1991). People have their dream organizations with which they want to work with because every organization has its own type, level, or caliber of employees. The best of the best, multinationals, fortune companies search for the cream and high-level talent, mediocre would settle on good to average individuals; however, organizations that are not performing well would only be able to attract mediocre to poor skilled individuals. The point here is that if one has the name of a very good, reputable, high performing organization on his resume then it indicates the individual’s talent, performance, skill level, and ability are line to that of that organization. This helps the recruiters and selectors to understand the applicant better and thus, ease their process (Ashworth & Saxton, pp. 12-19, 1992). Moreover, there have been various recent researches that show that people with a good degree from a reputable organization is not enough, individuals with more experience can earn more as compared to people who have little or no experience. A research conduct by the Learning and Skills Council in United Kingdom reveals that individuals who have relevant work experience of a year or so can earn more than 1000 Euros per year as compared to applicants who have lesser work experience. This same research conducted with more than 400 employers also highlighted that 90 percent of them consider work experience as a crucial part of the resume. More importantly, 13 percent of them were staunch and strict enough to say that they would never interview any candidate who does not possess any relevant work experience (Fedorko, pp. 26-29, 2006). Important here to understand is that college education is never enough for any individual. Despite the fact that over the time of 16-18 years of education or bachelors or master degrees, one tries to learn every thing that relates to the job and all the skills that would be required for the job, however, this is never enough. The point is that there is huge difference between what is learnt and how it is applied. In fact, at many occasions, indivduals end up finding that they had been learning for the past so many years is just the tip of the ice berg, a small fraction of what is expected out of them and what the job will tell him would be the relevant and valuable information (Fedorko, pp. 26-29, 2006). Despite the fact that universities and colleges try their level best to make the education more interactive and reality based by studying case studies, seminars, interviews and lectures from people of the corporate world and on site visits, yet nothing matches to the learning that takes places when the individual takes the driving seat. It is very similar to horse riding, swimming, baseball, staking, or any other activity. You may spend decades studying the dynamics of the subject, learn the skills required to conduct the activity, train yourself physically and mentally for the activity, have detailed discussions from the pros and experienced people, observing people doing the activity for years but nothing would match the practical and first hand experience (Ashworth & Saxton, pp. 12-19, 1992). Actually, the learning that place in colleges and universities, through case studies and all other ways mentioned above is in reality, secondary and passive education. Individuals are not taking part in the learning process actively; moreover, the information is neither personal nor valid for the individual. However, skills, information, or knowledge acquired actively and first hand by the individual or through primary means remains there in the memory for a longer period. Moreover, personal or live involvement in the process of learning ensures better recall and stronger validation of the process. People tend to remember events that have occurred to them rather than the events told to them that occurred to someone else (Green, pp. 125-129, 1997). Another important reason why there is immense need and importance of work experience is that many companies have complained regarding the skill set of the recent graduates that come for job searching. They may be good in hard skills relating to their jobs, the hardcore skills that are mentioned in the job description; however, there are many “soft skills” that are needed for the job but many universities, colleges and educational institutions fail to teach them to their graduates (Miller, Watts & Jamieson, pp. 56-59, 1991). Making presentations, writing memos, working in teams, confronting organizational politics, adapting to organizational challenges, dealing with juniors and seniors, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, friendliness, time management are included under the umbrella of soft skills. Moreover, empathy, leadership skills, self control, celebrating diversity, conflict management, optimism, decision making skills, proactiveness, managing change, building trust, maturity, confidence, commitment and others are also a part of soft skills. Quite clearly, many universities fail to teach them in the same depth with which they focus on hard skills. Therefore, many fresh graduates encounter many problems dealing with people and managing their self because they score low on emotional intelligence. As one employer mentions “IQ gets you hired but it is the EQ that gets you fired”. Therefore, the competitive advantage that prior work experience or internships provide you is to learn these soft skills and verify the hard skills thus building a set of skills that can help you compete better with other applicants (Ashworth & Saxton, pp. 12-19, 1992). Furthermore, experienced employees provide great cost advantages to their employers. During the initial years of work of an employee, he also receives substantial on the job and off the job training. Quite understandably, this training is always extremely costly for the employer. Not only the employer is financing the training but also he is paying the employee for taking that training. At the end of the day, the employee is benefiting in the short term but the employers ends up benefiting only in the long term. Therefore, whenever an employers sees a fresh employee the also see the costs that they would incur in training him during the initial days, however, with an experienced employee there are no such costs associated. Only and only when a fresh graduate is extremely skillful and talented he is able to validate his selection but offsetting the costs by the advantages that he would provide to the company. However, in most of the situations as indicated by the research mentioned earlier in the paper, employers tend to go with the experienced applicants (Fedorko, pp. 26-29, 2006). References Ashworth, Peter D., & Saxton, Judy. 1992. Managing work experience. Routledge. Fedorko, Jamie. 2006. The Intern Files: How to Get, Keep, and Make the Most of Your Internship. Simon and Schuster. Green, Marianne Ehrlich. 1997. Internship success: real-world, step-by-step advice on getting the most out of internships. McGraw-Hill Professional. Miller, Andrew, Watts, Anthony Gordon., & Jamieson, Ian. 1991. Rethinking work experience. Taylor & Francis. Read More