internship

Australia's #1 for Law
Join 150,000 Australians every month. Ask a question, respond to a question and better understand the law today!
FREE - Join Now
An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies. They are typically undertaken by students and graduates looking to gain relevant skills and experience in a particular field. Employers benefit from these placements because they often recruit employees from their best interns, who have known capabilities, thus saving time and money in the long run. Internships are usually arranged by third-party organizations that recruit interns on behalf of industry groups. Rules vary from country to country about when interns should be regarded as employees. The system can be open to exploitation by unscrupulous employers.
Internships for professional careers are similar in some ways. Similar to internships, apprenticeships transition students from vocational school into the workforce. The lack of standardization and oversight leaves the term "internship" open to broad interpretation. Interns may be high school students, college and university students, or post-graduate adults. These positions may be paid or unpaid and are temporary. Many large corporations, particularly investment banks, have "insights" programs that serve as a pre-internship event numbering a day to a week, either in person or virtually.
Typically, an internship consists of an exchange of services for experience between the intern and the organization. Internships are used to determine if the intern still has an interest in that field after the real-life experience. In addition, an internship can be used to create a professional network that can assist with letters of recommendation or lead to future employment opportunities. The benefit of bringing an intern into full-time employment is that they are already familiar with the company, their position, and they typically need little to no training. Internships provide current college students with the ability to participate in a field of their choice to receive hands-on learning about a particular future career, preparing them for full-time work following graduation.

View More On Wikipedia.org
  1. procrastinasian

    Homework Question - Novation Strategy for Internship?

    Hi, this is not so much a school question as it is just random practical application in my internship. When we covered novation in law school, it was very brief and it was not examined when I did contracts. My basic understanding is that a novation is just essentially a change in parties to a...
  2. T

    VIC Internship - Legal for Firms to Demand Six Months Free Labour ?

    Is it legal for firms to insist on volunteer interns to work 9-hour days, 3 days a week, with no lunch, no coffee breaks and made to complete out of hours business? Also, paying for all transport costs including errands across town? The intern in question has well and truly completed required...
  3. W

    NSW Student Vocational Placements

    Hi there, My son is undertaking a veterinary degree in NSW. This requires him to complete a year of student placements working in veterinary clinics. These are lawfully unpaid positions and that's fine. What I am interested in knowing is what legal protections exist for students in this...
  4. S

    NSW Custody of Children - Ex Applied for Urgent Recovery Orders

    My husband of ten years and I separated recently and I took our 3 children to live 4 hours from where they were living. Background was, we were living up north while I was doing a 2 year internship - my husband was having to travel a lot to keep his job as we had moved 7 hours from our home...
  5. J

    QLD Challenge Internship Employment Reference?

    I have recently completed practical experience and an internship at a Queensland State School. (I am a student teacher). At the end of this experience I received feedback and reports I feel are unfair and inaccurate and will make finding employment very difficult. Are there any options for...
  6. L

    NSW Exploitation of Employers through Internship?

    I'm running a blog based on internships and wanted to get some legal opinions on a story which was shared with me by a reader of the blog. Thank you in advance for your help! This week we were contacted by D who wanted to share his experience while interning with an engineering company. D...