Interships offer foothold in competitive job market

Dubai: Budding professionals don't mind working for free, just to get that one foot in the door in today's competitive job market.

Indian youngster Prerna Agarwal is one of many college graduates who has turned to internship listings after her hunt for a paid career drew a blank in Dubai. The 20-year-old media and communications graduate of Middlesex University Dubai (MUD) said her friends are also looking for internships even though they are not usually paid and these stints are offered on a short-term basis.

"I don't mind if I don't get paid; I don't want my CV to be blank," Agarwal said. "Unpaid internships have really increased; I did one at a public relations company in January. I had paid from my pocket for expenses like transport. I would ideally like to have job that at least covers costs, but any work experience will do," she said.

Even full-time salaried workers are switching to lower-paid trainee jobs to get into more ‘stable' companies, added MUD Career Adviser Yogini Udeshi.

Graduate schemes

"Alumni are looking at fresh graduate opportunities, asking us to put in a good word for them, even though they've already got full-time jobs," Udeshi said. They want to enlist in what are known as company "graduate schemes", the adviser said. These programmes fall somewhere between internships and careers, shuffling and training workers across company departments for one or two years before they are slotted permanently in a particular position.

"It could be for a more professional atmosphere, long-term perspective or cultural experience. At the end of it, you're absorbed — you come out as a saleable product and the salary skyrockets," said Udeshi. At the same time, companies today appreciate the ‘value' of fresh graduates ever more, she added. "They can hit the ground running, are motivated and don't complain ‘this is not part of my job description'. It's a two-way street, we need each other."

Despite the pressures of job hunting, graduates should never cross certain lines, said MUD Careers and Employability Service (CES) Manager Becky Kilsby. "Never blanket-apply by mass e-mailing your CV. Target only the jobs you're eligible for and to firms you want to work with. Otherwise, there's no point," Kilsby said.

The CES desk at Middlesex helps students plan careers and is itself hiring more people. It recently opened a Twitter account to keep people abreast of job prospects.