Montreal Gazette - Real-world experience

The recession, mixed with high unemployment, is pushing companies and hungry potential employees to look for new ways to come together. Internships, where young people get a chance to try their hand at a job while employers assess candidates at a substantial savings in wages while not committing to permanent jobs and the salaries and benefits that go with it, are finding favour at many companies.

At McGill University, Gregg Blachford, director of the McGill Career Planning Service (CaPS), says the internship program has gone from nothing to thriving in about 10 years, with 200 students from the faculty of arts and 200 engineering students being placed each year - locally, nationally and internationally.

Most arts internships, he says, are not paid, but says salaries for students have a lot to do with supply and demand. Historically, arts students, placed in publishing, media or NGOs, are not paid because there are always people willing to work in the sectors for nothing to earn experience and maybe a full-time job.

Blachford says the university keeps an eye out for firms simply looking for cheap labour without offering a significant quality of work, supervision and mentoring. "Some people say an internship is the longest interview you'll ever have," he says. On the whole though, he says the program is a positive experience for employer and employee.