Work for enterprising interns

Work for enterprising interns

A new website offers internships for students only at small business ventures or startups across the world.

May 31, 2009 2:40 by Aarti Nagraj

While internships at many big companies translate into getting coffee or staring at your boss, a start-up company promises enterprising students work and opportunities. Trends spotting site Springwise.com profiled Enternships.com, a new website that hopes to provide small businesses and startups with entrepreneurial students, or ‘enterns’.

Both companies and students can register free with the website, which offers part-time, short-term and full-time placements. “Unlike other services, we focus on entrepreneurial work placements to ensure that our enterns get ‘hands on’ business experience,” says the website.

Some of the offers that are available on the site include internships with companies in the UK, Netherlands, South America, Philippines, the US, China and Milan. The ‘enternships’ range from field marketers and web developers, to PR managers and journalists.

The site was developed by former members of Oxford Entrepreneurs, a student-run society at Oxford University that encourages and supports student entrepreneurship. The site, which is currently in beta, is also planning to add more services in the near future, including a special program for children leaving school and year-long programs for graduates.

Enternships.com claims that it offers students a greater chance to work with the founders of a company, a chance to play different roles, and possibly a job in the future. At the same time, it also gives smaller companies cheap extra hands to help.

Regionally, a concept like this could work well. Before the financial crisis hit the GCC, the region –specifically the UAE – witnessed enormous economic growth, which was fuelled the rise of small businesses. Although these entrepreneurial ventures may be struggling to pay employees because of the slowdown, using an ‘entern’ could help for a short while.

Whether Enternships.com will work for regional startups or not, it seems like an interesting concept.