Where did internships come from?

Forbes.com has a historically interesting article on the “Evolution of Interns” which traces the history of internships and related types of work, and why they’ve become so important.  The full article is here, and here is an excerpt:

Almost everyone seems to agree that an internship is a valuable part of career development. But if you were in college before the 1980s, chances are you never did anything called interning. So where did the experience come from, and how did it become such a seeming necessity for today’s future job-seekers?

Experts agree that in the largest sense, internships descend from the professional apprenticeships that originated with the trade guilds of Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries. Master craftsmen and tradesmen took in young learners and gave them menial tasks that make filing and photocopying look plush. Apprentices served one master for most of their teen years. Then they could graduate to journeyman and start earning better wages. Often they chose to continue with the same masters.

The 1911 book Labor and Apprenticeship, by Reginald Bray, includes a section that discusses the main objectives of the apprenticeship system: supervision, training and filling job openings. It sounds a lot like today’s internships, but there are key differences.

“The current system has much less structure,” says Andrew Wender Cohen, a history professor at Syracuse University. “Apprenticeship would have gotten you into a guild, or in the early 20th century, would have gotten you into the union,” he says. “The concrete benefits of apprenticeship were more clear and were typically contractually stated.”

… Not until the late 1960s did formal internships as we know them start to appear.

As the demand for knowledge workers increased, so did the importance of the internship. “People began using it as a recruiting tool, and that’s what it is now,” Davis says. Most recruiting happens, she adds, in the finance, entertainment and health care industries, so that’s where many internships are. She adds that when internships really came in, during the 1980s, they were developed first by business schools.

… The internship has proved effective in preparing many for today’s job market, and experts don’t think it’s about to change substantially, at least for now. “If there is a big change,” Gross says, “it will be brought about by technology.”

It’s the end of the economy as we know it, and I feel fine….

Well maybe not fine, but the doomsday headlines of this week are conveniently hiding some key pieces of information to make them salacious enough to scare everyone into reading them voraciously.  Here are the headlines of my Google News feed for “career or job or employ or job market”

• No End in Sight to Job Losses; 663000 More Cut in March, New York Times
• Ray of hope in bad job numbers: crisis may be flattening out, Kansas City Star
• Job Seekers Face More Bleak News, Wall Street Journal
• Meltdown 101: Job losses highest in 50 years, The Associated Press
• US Stocks Lower After Report Showing Big Job Losses, Wall Street Journal

Only ONE in five headlines tells the true story.  Thank you, Kansas City Star!  Here’s the deal: The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its March job numbers and yes, they are pretty bleak.  It’s the 5th consecutive month of huge job losses, with employers cutting 663,000 jobs in March.  The total jobs lost during this recession now stands at 5 million and the total unemployment rate moved up to .4% to 8.5%, the highest unemployment rate since I was 2 years old (aka 25 years).

However, what most of those headlines failed to show was the underlying news, and a bit of positive news at that (positive is, of course, a relative term).  During the recession thus far, economic forecasts have fallen short of reality: conditions proved to be worse than predicted, month after month.  February AND March of this year are the first months where economic predictions were dead-on and as expected, not worse.  I can’t really explain this properly, so I’ll let the experts do the trick:

“While steep, the March job losses were consistent with what mainstream economic forecasts had suggested, providing a measure of relief that things aren’t worse than expected. That, and the fact that February’s job losses weren’t revised downward, as previous months’ reports had been, suggested that layoffs may be flattening out.” ”I think that after months and months of getting worse-than-expected news, our expectations are in line now with where the economy is. ‘As hard as it is to believe, it is a sign that things are getting better,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wachovia. “We think the worst may be behind us. Job losses are going to remain very large for the next few months, but they should begin to moderate.’” (from Kansas City Star)

I know, I know…  saying that our expectations are in line with what’s happened doesn’t mean the economy is going to be fine anytime soon.  I am in no way saying that the recession is over and jobs will be pouring in- we are very far from that sunny day.  It does, though, mark a positive change in our understanding of this situation. 

But, since perception is reality, and 4 out of 5 news sources in my very unscientific experiment are allowing readers to perceive that doomsday is upon us, we’ll continue to hear really bad news about our reality.  Try to look for the good news within the bad.  It’s always there, but a good news story isn’t as good as a bad one (say that 5 times fast).  As I learned in my journalism classes in undergrad, “if it bleeds, it leads.” 

The Handiness of Unitasking.

My husband laughs at me when I say I’m a multitasker.  “I hope it doesn’t say ‘multitasker’ on your resume” is a common household expression at our place.  And lately I feel like I’ve been multitasking like crazy but also feel that I’m getting much less done.  So I decided to try out unitasking and see if I fair any better.

First, I examined my typical workday:  I get into the office, turn on my computer, and wait 20 minutes for the thing to finish loading completely (it’s an old beast of a computer, which is, thank goodness, getting replaced today).  During that 20 minutes, I distract myself with voicemails, usually needing to listen to them twice because I missed important details because I was multitasking my way through the paper as I listened…  Computer finally boots up, and I open my work e-mail.  I read through all my e-mails, respond to ones which I deem are “easy” and leave the rest to a later time.  Then I check my iGoogle homepage, which houses my Google Reader, my twitter gadget, CNN headlines, and a few other random widgets.  And this is where I get very easily distracted.  Once I tear myself away from iGoogle, it’s back to work e-mails, where I answer the next round of “easy” e-mails, leaving still more to be answered at a later time.

By lunch I’m starting to feel like I haven’t accomplishd much at all.  So, I tackle the “difficult” e-mails, which it turns out weren’t really that difficult after all.  I spend the afternoon creating workshops, responding to more e-mails, taking more appointments, and generally jumping from one task to the next without a clear plan or end point.  I should mention that throughout this entire process, I’m listening to NPR all day long and leave my door open constantly so the risk of distraction is pretty high in my office.

Starting on Monday, I will incorporate the following rules of unitasking into my daily schedule:

1. When settling into work, I will spend however long it takes responding to e-mails until they are DONE.

2.  I will ignore outside links in e-mails which have the potential to distract me for hours at a time (www.ICanHasCheezburger.com anyone?), but which have NO bearing on me accomplishing my work.

3. I will NOT look at my iGoogle homepage until all my work e-mails are completed.

4.  I will only twitter at certain times of day for 5-10 minutes at a time.  Enough is enough.  ps- find me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/briewr

5. I will turn off my e-mail when I am creating workshops or doing other projects so that I’m not interrupted by the lovely little bell that dings every time I get a new message.

6. I will listen to more jazz and classical music at work, and less NPR, because, even though I love you NPR, I am often so often compelled by your stories to research them further online that I am once again distracted from the task at hand.

7.  I will shut my door when I need to concentrate to send a clear message that now’s not a great time. 
 
Are you a multitasker who doesn’t get anything done?  Or have you reformed your multitasking ways into a unitasking lifestyle?  Do you have any tips on how to achieve such a state of bliss?  Comments please!

How would “blind” interviews alter the makeup of the workplace?

In career services, we stress the importance of appearance at job interviews.  Dress conservatively, get rid of distracting jewelry or scents, if you play with your hair, pull it back, don’t wear rings on ever finger or in every piercing, don’t have loose change in your pockets, and so on. 

WomenForHire.com has a thought provoking blog post today about conducting “blind” interviews and how our workplace might be different if hiring managers weren’t allowed to see job applicants, but could only hear the answers to their questions.

Here’s a excerpt from their post:

“Before blind auditions became common in the 70s, just 10% of new hires at major U.S. orchestras were women. The theory was that women weren’t very good musicians. But labor unions protested the hiring process and pushed for blind auditions where musicians would try out behind a curtain so appearance and gender were concealed.

In studying personnel from 11 major orchestras, Harvard economist Claudia Goldin and Princeton’s Cecelia Rouse found that 29% of females and 20% of males advanced to the final round in blind auditions. When auditions were not blind, only 19% of women advanced compared to 23% of men.

Even though sex discrimination is hard to measure, those stats speak volumes. Fortunately, since the 80s, about half the news hires at the New York Philharmonic, 40% at the San Francisco Symphony and more than a third in Boston and Chicago have been women.”

If we apply the same concept from these orchestras to hiring for other types of jobs, it’s amazing to think of how the workplace might be different.  I interviewed someone once who had tried to do the right thing by taking out his piercings, but had accidentally caused the piercing area to bleed, which was probably a lot worse than us just seeing the piercings in the first place. 

Have you ever been in an interview, on either side of the table, and felt that appearance, gender, age, looks, etc. played a roll in the outcome?  Do you think it would have been different if the interview situation had been “blinded?”

20 Best Job Search Websites according to PCMag.com

The 20 Best Job Search Websites, according to PCMag.com (full article has reasons for each).  I have to agree with most of the ones on this list, though I am particular happy to see niche websites listed.  I find those much more helpful than the mega huge job boards like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com. 

If you’re like me, you’re probably always poking around on job sites to see what’s new and interesting, without really thinking of applying to jobs.  My personal favorites from this list are SimplyHired and Indeed, Hound, Beyond, and LinkedIn.  I would also add Idealist.org, a great site for nonprofit work.  What websites do you like the best?

• www.Beyond.com (search all niche job websites)
• www.CareerBuilder.com (23 million visitors each month)
• www.CraigsList.com (classifieds including job listings)
• www.ExecuSearch.com (more selective, higher tier jobs, websites screens every resume that is submitted and then recommends candidates to employers)
• www.Hound.com (jobs directly from employer websites only)
• www.Indeed.com (aggregator for listings from major job, company, association, and other websites)
• www.JobCentral.com (best for corporate job listings)
• www.JobServe.com (internet recruitment service)
• www.Jobster.com (social recruiting, helps employers find candidates in 24 different categories)
• www.LinkedIn.com (professional networking and job listings combined)
• www.Monster.com (global job listings and career advice)
• www.Oodle.com (classifieds include job listings)
• www.OnTargetJobs.com (a collective of niche job websites)
• www.SimplyHired.com (like Indeed.com PLUS users can post resumes on 5 other sites for free)
• www.SnagAJob.com (hourly employment only)
• www.TheLadders.com ($30/month site for job seekers looking for $100K+ jobs)
• www.Trovix.com (personalized job search, users fill out professional experience and website matches them to open positions.  Also has Job Map, which shows users how many jobs are available in their area)

I hadn’t even heard of the one below until I was searching for images for this post, but it certainly caught my attention!  Anyone ever heard of it or used it?