The nation's sluggish job market is spilling over to college student internships for better and worse.
More internships are being offered. But college students are finding there are many more people vying for the spots, including those who graduated a year or two ago, said Camille Luckenbaugh with the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
"One of the things more students and alumni are willing to do is take an internship instead of a job," Luckenbaugh said. "That's making finding an internship much more competitive." Luckenbaugh said some students are even willing to accept lower pay or no pay at all for internships that they hope will lead to full-time jobs.
Their hopes are not unfounded. Luckenbaugh said the latest National Association of Colleges and Employers survey shows that companies rank internships as the top way of finding a successful young employee. Five years ago, internships ranked seventh.
Spring is usually the deadline for students to find summer internships, and the number of unemployed is making them harder to find.
Marietta College junior Tim Wilson found his summer marketing internship through the Internet.
"I went to Yahoo.com and put in 'Pittsburgh internships'," the 21-year-old from Pittsburgh said. The search led Wilson to a local database of internships and he jotted down names and phone numbers.
"It's a lot of calling and sending resumes out and a lot of people don't respond," Wilson said of his search which started in November. It took three months for Wilson to land a marketing internship with a software company in Uniontown, Pa.
"I want the job experience," Wilson said. "You have to have it to even think about getting a job these days."
About 40 percent of Marietta College's 1,100 students work through a summer internship, said Career Center Director Kathleen Powell.
More companies are preferring internships because they have the chance to test the candidate out and breed their own kind of worker from the start, Luckenbaugh said. At a time of budget constraints, employers are also finding out that internships are cheaper to fill needed spots - wages are lower and there are no health benefits to pay.
However, Luckenbaugh said that this cost-saving trend may only last until the economy gets better.
"Employers still want experienced workers," she said.
Other employers are focusing on the youth because of the expected workforce shortage when the baby boomers - people born from 1945 to 1960 - begin to retire in the next five to 10 years.
"They are hiring people they may not need now, but they want to be ready in five years with trained replacements," Luckenbaugh said.
Washington State Community College Career Placement Director Greg Mitchell said that internships also allow students to explore their options before committing to a career.
"They find out the nuances of a job and whether or not this is the field they want to go into," Mitchell said.
In some cases, the work experience is part of the class, Mitchell said. A student will work unpaid in their field for college credit while keeping in contact with a job mentor and the professor. For example, many education majors work with the local schools during college.
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers survey, accounting, education and engineering firms are the top source of job offers to college graduates in 2003.
The federal government placed fourth, jumping from seventh last year. Luckenbaugh added that college graduate job opportunities have only increased in the Midwest, while decreasing in other parts of the country.
Summer internship tips
* Start inquiring early, some internships have winter deadlines.
* Create and make plenty of copies of a resume.
* Apply to many places, don't bank on one internship accepting.
* Use connections with friends, parents, and professors to find out about internship opportunities because many places don't advertise internships.
* Search with the Internet, but also make personal visits. Face-to-face connections are stronger than letters or E-mail.
* Look for housing options well ahead of time. Temporary summer housing can be tough to find.
* Make connections during an internship to try and secure future internships or jobs.