Transcripts

TIM POST: When it comes to internships, Patrick Steele is up for almost anything.

PATRICK STEELE: I would be interested in something related to design or engineering, but I would also be open to anything that's general business.

TIM POST: Steele a 20-year-old sophomore mechanical engineering student at the University of Minnesota has spent four months searching for an internship.

PATRICK STEELE: There are some listed. But for the most part, it's hard to even get a call back unless you have some sort of inside connection, or significant experience that is directly applicable to what you're doing at that internship.

TIM POST: At this point, Steele is considering summer jobs similar to those he had in high school. But he says even retail positions and fast food gigs are hard to come by this year. Steele blames the economy for the tough internship market. So does Morgan Kinross-Wright, who works with students and companies to line up internships through the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.

MORGAN KINROSS-WRIGHT: So I think that companies are being more careful about internships, and they may not have as many as they did. But they still have some.

TIM POST: A recent survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers reports that companies across the country plan to hire 21% fewer interns this year. They cite the economy is the reason. The story is much the same in Minnesota. Carg Toro and target tell NPR they're hiring fewer interns this year target offered specific figures that show the company will hire interns across the country this year that's 700 fewer than last year. But it's not just large Minnesota companies that are cutting back on internships.

MIKE CORBIN: We have to watch the bottom line, and that's quite honestly why we're not using them.

TIM POST: Attorney Mike Corbin runs a law office in Faribault with another lawyer and two assistants. The firm handles mostly divorces and bankruptcies. So business is strong. His office employed an intern as recently as last fall. But bringing another on board is not something he wants to do, especially now.

MIKE CORBIN: It is very hard to recoup the costs associated with a direct paid clerk or a paid intern, and then you add to that the lost productivity of having to supervise and mentor and train these clerks and these interns, even when they're unpaid. It adds up to be quite significant, and it's not something we can recoup from our clients.

TIM POST: College career officials, always the optimists, spot a silver lining in the down market for interns. Nancy Lochner coordinates internships for students at Hamline Law School in Saint Paul. Lochner says, yes, there are fewer paid internships available for law students. At the same time, though companies and organizations are creating more positions for unpaid interns.

NANCY LOCHNER: Places that maybe wouldn't have used students in the past are now seeking them out as volunteers because somebody who can come in who's highly educated and can do the work and needs the work, so they have the incentive to work for free to gain the transferable skills.

TIM POST: Lochner says college students need to be creative to find new ways to gain workplace experience. A failed internship search may have resulted in a new opportunity for Benedict Tubuo. The 33-year-old Hopkins resident is a finance student at the Carlson School of Management. The internships Tubuo hoped to secure this summer fell through. So he and two other classmates decided to lay the groundwork for their own finance company.

BENEDICT TUBUO: I know I can work. I know I have the knowledge. I know I have the experience. It might not be enough to get me to where I'd like to have been if I had used a regular job, but at least, it kind of puts me-- gets me to be responsible for my path that I would like to follow down the road.

TIM POST: Tubuo admits actually running a company with his classmates is still far from a certainty. But he says it's something he wouldn't have had the chance to try if he spent a summer in an internship. Tim Post, Minnesota Public Radio News.