Ruairi Kavanagh of Grad Ireland (Ireland’s largest graduate recruitment website) says having work experience is almost a pre-requisite upon leaving college nowadays but he notes that such work experience doesn’t have to be related to the sector the person wants to work in.

Ruairi notes that over 80% of students will do work experience, even if it’s not related to their degree.

Ruairi says the majority of employers are willing to pay for internships; gradireland found 86% of the companies surveyed in its Graduate Salary & Graduate Recruitment Trends Survey 14/15 (which is now in its ninth year) were offering internships programmes and 93% of these companies are paying for these internships thus dispelling the myth of internships as a free labour model.

But it’s worth noting that gradireland surveyed the l00 leading graduate employers in Ireland in this survey (as opposed to smaller companies) and gradireland doesn’t publish unpaid internships. Ruairi notes that there are particularly good internship programmes being run by the large employers in financial services, IT and pharmaceuticals.

Matheson Law firm

Matheson takes on 80 interns every summer – 40 in June and 40 in July as well as 30 to 40 trainees a year.

“The internship is like a four-week interview for them and for us. Internships also give students a chance to see if it’s for them” explains Matheson partner Tara Doyle who is a lawyer with the firm but has also chaired a recruitment committee there since 2000.

“We’re the first Irish firm to take a very organised and an American approach to internships. It used to be ad hoc, could you give my chid some experience etc, we received CVs in on spec – in fact, one of my current partners sent in a CV on spec about 15 years ago. But ten years ago we developed it into a more formal process and we’ve enhanced it even more every year.”

The internship is four weeks in duration and sees candidates getting training in soft skills, doing presentations to partners, doing written assignments and doing general trainee work.

Tara says Matheson’s internship programme is not just something that just feeds into their recruitment process but it’s becoming their primary process for recruiting trainee solicitors.

It used to be the case that half of those who received positions on Matheson’s traineeship programme used to come from internships, with the other half coming from the milk round, but Tara says that now approximately two thirds of their trainee solicitors come from the internship programme and the remaining third from the milk round.

“We review the interns in August/September and those we were impressed with are offered a traineeship contract straight off the internship. It’s very clear to people coming into the internship programme that that’s the purpose of it – that we’re trying to hire trainees off this process.”

However there’s still a very important place for the milk round in Matheson’s eyes.

“You have to recognise that it doesn’t suit everyone to do internships” says Tara.

“People usually do internships during their penultimate year in college and this means that with Matheson then they could have an offer of an apprenticeship (to become a solicitor) going into their final year.”

Tara makes the point that, while Matheson do pay their interns well, some people can’t afford internships because they may be holding down two or three jobs at home to get through college and they can’t abandon those jobs during the summer. Or they may be working in a family business or doing a J1 in the United States. Matheson also appreciates that some people don’t come into their own as such until after doing a masters or have had some work experience.

Most people doing internships complete them during their penultimate year in college and are therefore being chosen for such internship based on their Leaving Cert results and academic grades from two years in college.

“That’s quite early to judge them,” notes Tara. “They’re only 21.” The milk round, therefore, allows Matheson to consider candidates who are more mature. For example, if you’ve practical experience as a legal executive in an industry then that’s valuable to a law firm.

KPMG

Accounting firm

KPMG is the largest private sector recruiter in Ireland. The company takes on almost 300 graduates every autumn and takes on 130 people on internships and work placements every year. Most of these are college placements but there’s a number of internships too.

KPMG was awarded the best internship programme from gradireland in 2014. Janis Heather, recruitment manager in KPMG thinks they received this accolade because of the mix of one-to-one support and HR training support provided by KPMG. Janis says KPMG have really invested in on-the-job development and interns are assigned a buddy and a performance manager.

In terms of the value KPMG places on internships, Janis says they consider candidates with and without experience for their accounting traineeship.

“We do look at them very favourably if they’ve been with us but students also get great skills from working in a family business or from travelling. It’s important to get experience on summer breaks but it’s not essential, we hire students from across the board. Travel shows independence, that people can live and work abroad, they can soak up cultures, we work with people from a diverse range of backgrounds so if people have travelled they’re exposed to those backgrounds and students will usually work on J1s.

A & L Goodbody

Law firm

A&L Goodbody recruits up to 60 students for internships annually via three four-week programmes each summer in June, July and September. They recruit students from all disciplines, giving them the opportunity to work in one of the main departments – corporate, litigation and dispute resolution, banking and financial services, commercial property, tax and pensions.

Interns are guaranteed a trainee solicitor interview with the firm, meaning a high percentage of summer interns return to the firm as trainee solicitors.

Interns perform a similar role to that of a new trainee solicitor and are assigned to a working team with a partner, an associate and a buddy who is a current trainee.

There’s a lot of effort involved in getting these internships; the recruitment process for the summer internship programme in A&L Goodbody involves filling out an online application form, doing an interview with two partners in the firm, an in-house presentation and a then a formal offer. Students have the opportunity to see what it is really like to work with A&L Goodbody and whether they want to pursue a career in corporate law, whilst it also gives A&L Goodbody the opportunity to see if the candidate is suitable as a future trainee solicitor with the firm.

*A one-stop shop for everything you need to know about the graduate job market in Ireland which works in partnership with the Association of Higher Education Careers Services (AHECS).