Learn To Earn: Internships Work

The invitation list at the Council of American Survey Research Organizations international conference in Miami last February was a roster of people at the industry's peak – everyone from President to VP to … Adam Stone, Intern. Stone was able to attend the conference while interning at Gongos Research, an Auburn Hills-based market research firm.

Historically, the intern image has been one of a hapless soul tipping a dozen vanilla soy lattes in one hand and restraining the boss' pet St. Bernard in the other. On the flipside, unconvinced employers don't see the financial upside to training someone who'll be out the door four months later. 

Across the nation this mindset is changing as high-tech industries hunt for young talent. These days, interns are often parked outside the top dog's open door. And finally, some Michigan companies are getting the clue. 

Meanwhile, Michigan State University's (MSU) office of career services has hired a full time employee to help companies develop internships for MSU students.

MORE inspires student entrepreneurship and also links employment-seekers with area small businesses – which employ 80% of the non-government workforce in the state, says Pfeiffer. Its successful Entrepreneurial Opportunities job fair, held in March, brought together 75 small high-growth companies and 900 students. 45 internships were offered, with another 100 pending, she says.

And MORE has generated a greater number of interns by using WIRED grant funds to launch a summer program for 14 University of Michigan College of Engineering undergraduate students, starting by subsidizing two placements at small start-ups. The other 12 are paid to intern for themselves – by developing their own businesses at a range of levels, from initial R&D to bringing their product to market. One student has built a better alarm clock, several have improved upon medical devices, and another team is enhancing the efficiency of wind turbines.

Research says….

For progressive area companies like Gongos Research, students are paramount. Eight of its 75 full-time employees are interns, says Susan Scarlet, the firm's marketing and public relations director. Gongos plans to grow both its permanent staff and intern count by 10% annually. And apprenticeship has always been part of management's philosophy; Camille Nicita, an intern at the firm's inception in 1991, is now a principal.

Area schools like U-M Dearborn and Oakland University send interns Gongos' way, plus graduates come from further afield, such as Georgetown University and the University of Georgia. Interns are not only marketing majors, but also have economics, statistics, social science, and mathematics backgrounds.

Gongos typically hires nine or ten students annually. "We give our interns the same role and responsibility that we give a full-time junior analyst," explains Account Director Amy Hernandez. "They're basically partnering with a more senior researcher and they're learning the business while they work here." Tasks include new business attainment, proposal writing, and pricing projects.

After just four months on the job, Stone was promoted to permanent employment last February. The 2006 MSU psychology graduate feels that ample substantive internships would keep more fresh college grads in Michigan. "It's also about the quality of the workplace. If there were more places like [Gongos], we'd definitely be keeping more students," he says.

Scarlet cites working with Fortune 500 clients and Gongos upper management as desirable for interns. Stone has already worked with an executive recently hired from prestigious market research firm Harris Interactive. "Coming in at that level, to be two, three, four months into a position and really interfacing with specialists in this industry who have worked for some of these top firms is really nice exposure for them as well," she explains.

Flight plan for success

Jacobsen/Daniels Associates, LLC, an Ypsilanti-based aviation planning firm, has hired over 35 interns since 2002; 14 of whom progressed to permanent employment. The firm works on airport projects nationwide, hiring five or six interns per year for full-time three month assignments.

Managing Partner Bradley Jacobsen explains that, initially, the young start-up used interns to balance its staffing loads. Now the company has grown to 16 employees, but each hire still means a change of "between 6 and 7% of our staff. … The internships allowed us to test our potential candidates, and early on that's what we used the program for, as a kind of rent-to-own scenario."

Interns have concentrations in engineering, architecture, computer-aided design, aviation management, and even history and geology. Local schools, including Eastern Michigan University and Lawrence Technological University, provide a good student supply. As aviation planning is very specialized, the firm recruits nationally from institutions like Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Tulane University, and the University of Tennessee.

The minority-owned firm is also addressing the dearth of women and minorities in aviation planning, Jacobsen explains. "Since there was no other conduit for it, we have emphasized our internship program, giving opportunity to females and minorities. Then when we go to make a new hire, we feel like we have a better pool from which to draw."

And interns are high-fliers. "They're working on billable client assignments and they have an interface with the client," Jacobsen stresses. "It is a very hands-on experience in aviation design, so that when they leave, whether they come to work for us or they go on to another firm, they've got a real sense of what it's like to work in the aviation industry."

Alana White, a project consultant and 2004 architecture graduate from the University of Michigan, recalls her first intern assignment, the Detroit Metro airport (DTW) Residential Sound Insulation Program, where she "worked one-on-one with people who were managing, operating, and running the company. It was things like that that made it easy when they offered me the position."

Interns will bring more than a sprinkle of star dust to the state. A 2008 Michigan 50 Company to Watch, Jacobsen/Daniels Associates' revenue has more than doubled since 2004. And Gongos Research is on the 2007 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in America.

"I think we're in a good place of opportunity in southeast Michigan here. I'm just thankful every time we have young, very bright, educated people walking through our doors, because quite frankly, I think they keep us on our toes," Scarlet says. "They bring something to the table that the most seasoned of us wouldn’t have thought of and I think that every great growth company can't exist without new blood."