<p>With increasing awareness among students, internships have witnessed a substantial boom over the past five years, with a rise of 80% in 2018. Reason being that internships make students employable by offering them opportunities to hone their soft skills, learn job-specific skills and gain practical experience. In fact, it is not only students but also employers have embraced the concept of internships over the years for they have understood the kind of energy and new ideas interns bring with them, as a result of which a rise of 82% was observed in the number of internship positions in 2018 as compared with the previous year.</p>.<p>In addition, internships have provided an opportunity for students to prove their mettle. An internship is one of the optimal ways of hiring; employers often extend internships to test the interns’ competencies for the job and once they find the interns’ performance satisfying, they hire them as full-time employees.</p>.<p><span class="bold">The growing demand for students searching for internship opportunities and recruiters who are looking to hire interns, we often come across questions like — where could a student find good internships, what are the best fields to find internships in, what kind of stipend a student can expect, or what is the best time to hire interns. To cater to such queries, here is a compilation of internship trends.</span></p>.<p class="CrossHead"><strong>Top cities offering internships</strong></p>.<p>Among all the cities, Delhi-NCR stands tall offering 35% of the internship opportunities to students. Closely following Delhi are Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad and other Tier-1 cities. India houses one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems in the world, which has given birth to a plethora of opportunities in the field of management in various profiles like finance, human resources, business development, sales and marketing. Management internships are in high demand followed by media offering internships in profiles like content writing, public relations, social media marketing, journalism, copywriting and video making.</p>.<p class="CrossHead"><strong>Paid opportunities</strong></p>.<p>Internships often come with a stipend that encourages students to manage their basic expenses like transportation or rent and make them financially independent.</p>.<p>In 2018, the interns were offered an average stipend of Rs 7,000 per month and the highest stipend offered for an internship was Rs 85,000 per month.</p>.<p>So far, we have talked about how internship trends of 2018 suggest for students. Now, let’s have a look at what does the trends have to say for the employers.</p>.<p>A number of students are seeking internships in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Delhi-NCR. One of the major reasons behind this is the abundance of opportunities students find in these states. This trend, in particular, presents the employers with a pool of relevant candidates looking for internships. Students in Tier-2 cities often face a lack of awareness about internship opportunities; however, with the advent of social media, students are becoming more tech-savvy, they have become more aware of their career options and have understood how internships could bring them closer to their dream careers. Hence, a rise of 58% in the number of internship seekers from Tier-2 cities was observed in 2018.</p>.<p>This definitely improves the chances for the employers, especially those from startups and SMEs based out of Tier-2 cities of India, of getting the right candidates for their internship requirements.</p>.<p class="CrossHead"><strong><span class="bold">Best time to hire interns</span></strong></p>.<p>Employers often find themselves either receiving a lot of internship applications or less-than-expected applications, which raises the immediate question— what is the right time to hire interns?</p>.<p>Well, the students who apply for internships are usually college-going students who find it difficult to pursue internships (especially the in-office ones) while studying in college.</p>.<p>This is why they prefer to do internships during their vacations, hence, the best time to hire interns is during the summer vacation months of April, May and June.</p>.<p class="CrossHead"><strong>In-office or virtual assignment</strong></p>.<p>As discussed earlier, students go for in-office internships during their vacations; however, this does not indicate that employers cannot find interns during the rest of the months.</p>.<p>Finding it difficult to intern full-time, college-going students prefer to go for internships that require them to work part-time or virtually. This brings us to our next trend that virtual internships receive three times more applications than in-office internships.</p>.<p class="CrossHead"><strong>Demand-supply gap</strong></p>.<p>A demand-supply gap has been observed in the last year’s internship trends which open various opportunities for students as well as employers.</p>.<p>Students interested in business development have ample internship opportunities to tap.</p>.<p>Similarly, a lot of students are interested in web development, which presents employers with a pool of talented candidates to choose from.</p>.<p><em><span class="italic">(The author is with Internshala Haryana)</span></em></p>
<p>With increasing awareness among students, internships have witnessed a substantial boom over the past five years, with a rise of 80% in 2018. Reason being that internships make students employable by offering them opportunities to hone their soft skills, learn job-specific skills and gain practical experience. In fact, it is not only students but also employers have embraced the concept of internships over the years for they have understood the kind of energy and new ideas interns bring with them, as a result of which a rise of 82% was observed in the number of internship positions in 2018 as compared with the previous year.</p>.<p>In addition, internships have provided an opportunity for students to prove their mettle. An internship is one of the optimal ways of hiring; employers often extend internships to test the interns’ competencies for the job and once they find the interns’ performance satisfying, they hire them as full-time employees.</p>.<p><span class="bold">The growing demand for students searching for internship opportunities and recruiters who are looking to hire interns, we often come across questions like — where could a student find good internships, what are the best fields to find internships in, what kind of stipend a student can expect, or what is the best time to hire interns. To cater to such queries, here is a compilation of internship trends.</span></p>.<p class="CrossHead"><strong>Top cities offering internships</strong></p>.<p>Among all the cities, Delhi-NCR stands tall offering 35% of the internship opportunities to students. Closely following Delhi are Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad and other Tier-1 cities. India houses one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems in the world, which has given birth to a plethora of opportunities in the field of management in various profiles like finance, human resources, business development, sales and marketing. Management internships are in high demand followed by media offering internships in profiles like content writing, public relations, social media marketing, journalism, copywriting and video making.</p>.<p class="CrossHead"><strong>Paid opportunities</strong></p>.<p>Internships often come with a stipend that encourages students to manage their basic expenses like transportation or rent and make them financially independent.</p>.<p>In 2018, the interns were offered an average stipend of Rs 7,000 per month and the highest stipend offered for an internship was Rs 85,000 per month.</p>.<p>So far, we have talked about how internship trends of 2018 suggest for students. Now, let’s have a look at what does the trends have to say for the employers.</p>.<p>A number of students are seeking internships in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Delhi-NCR. One of the major reasons behind this is the abundance of opportunities students find in these states. This trend, in particular, presents the employers with a pool of relevant candidates looking for internships. Students in Tier-2 cities often face a lack of awareness about internship opportunities; however, with the advent of social media, students are becoming more tech-savvy, they have become more aware of their career options and have understood how internships could bring them closer to their dream careers. Hence, a rise of 58% in the number of internship seekers from Tier-2 cities was observed in 2018.</p>.<p>This definitely improves the chances for the employers, especially those from startups and SMEs based out of Tier-2 cities of India, of getting the right candidates for their internship requirements.</p>.<p class="CrossHead"><strong><span class="bold">Best time to hire interns</span></strong></p>.<p>Employers often find themselves either receiving a lot of internship applications or less-than-expected applications, which raises the immediate question— what is the right time to hire interns?</p>.<p>Well, the students who apply for internships are usually college-going students who find it difficult to pursue internships (especially the in-office ones) while studying in college.</p>.<p>This is why they prefer to do internships during their vacations, hence, the best time to hire interns is during the summer vacation months of April, May and June.</p>.<p class="CrossHead"><strong>In-office or virtual assignment</strong></p>.<p>As discussed earlier, students go for in-office internships during their vacations; however, this does not indicate that employers cannot find interns during the rest of the months.</p>.<p>Finding it difficult to intern full-time, college-going students prefer to go for internships that require them to work part-time or virtually. This brings us to our next trend that virtual internships receive three times more applications than in-office internships.</p>.<p class="CrossHead"><strong>Demand-supply gap</strong></p>.<p>A demand-supply gap has been observed in the last year’s internship trends which open various opportunities for students as well as employers.</p>.<p>Students interested in business development have ample internship opportunities to tap.</p>.<p>Similarly, a lot of students are interested in web development, which presents employers with a pool of talented candidates to choose from.</p>.<p><em><span class="italic">(The author is with Internshala Haryana)</span></em></p>
