We need to talk about placements...

Placements and internships are a crucial part of the employability agenda, but it is vital to recognise their limitations. In many sectors, disciplines, and regions, there simply is not the latent employer demand to deliver traditional placement and internship models to scale.

We have observed at some institutions that placements have regrettably become more of a student recruitment tool, particularly at Postgraduate level, than an employability initiative which can feasibly be delivered at the required scale. This is causing huge headaches to careers services and placement teams expected to deliver on these often insurmountable institutional expectations.

There is growing recognition that these models will only ever be part of the solution:

‘We note a correspondence between positive graduate outcomes, placements, mobilities and sandwich years and often make jarring conflations of association and correlation... Of course, this isn't to say that there isn't significant value to placement and mobility experience - this would be ludicrous. We should create far more opportunities and ensure that a far more diverse set of students gain access to them.’ Professor Mark Peace, Head of Education (Faculty of Education) at Manchester Metropolitan University

Placements and internships have become a key part of employers' recruitment practices but competition for roles in larger established placement employers is extremely fierce and opportunities aren't evenly geographically spread. In 2020/21 ISE employer members reported receiving a total of 401,732 applications for intern roles (77% increase from previous year) and 143,183 for placement roles (63% increase from previous year). In the Institute of Student Employers' Internship Survey almost half of roles (48%) were based in London.

Students who are unable to undertake opportunities outside their region, cannot afford to do an unpaid placement, who are unable to engage in periods of work experience during vacation periods (for example, due to caring responsibilities) have less chance of gaining crucial employability skills and experiences.

Other barriers that limit placement take up from Widening Participation cohorts include:

• Less access to networks and informally sourced advice and opportunities.
• Unconscious bias in recruitment processes and closed networks limiting the spread of opportunities.
• Pressure to earn money to fund their education which can conflict with career development activities beyond the curriculum.
• Lower social capital leading to reduced confidence and imposter syndrome entering professional environments. 

The students potentially most in need of placements, internships, and the networking opportunities associated with them, are often the least likely to secure them. Therefore, regrettably, traditional models of placement and work-based learning can often inadvertently exacerbate progression gaps.

A brilliant thread on Twitter from Jim Dickinson of Wonkhe highlighted how these issues have been exacerbated in the cost-of-living crisis:

When the government announced the reintroduction of the post-study work VISA it led to significant increases in international student numbers at many institutions, this has placed additional demand on already stretched careers services.

Many employers privately remain reticent to recruit international students on placements and in graduate roles when it remains complicated to retain them in the long-term – delivering international students into traditional placements at scale has proved hugely difficult to achieve in this context. A UUK report (produced by AGCAS) released in January 2020, revealed that only 28% of UK careers services feel that they were able to meet current demand from international students.

There is growing recognition of the barriers faced by many students in engaging in work-based learning and career development activities beyond the curriculum. The narrative is shifting from a the often stated ‘a degree alone is not enough’ to a more direct call to arms for teaching and learning strategies that argues:

‘The curriculum has to be enough’ Adele Browne, Head of Student Success –University of Warwick

There will always need to be a range of localised pragmatic alternatives given there is nothing in the UK higher education system that links number of students enrolling onto sandwich courses to demand in the labour market. Innovative and creative new methods can be harder to package into marketing headlines or as easy to sell in student recruitment campaigns, but they can have a powerful impact - filling the gaps that placements can’t always fill.

‘We need to provide our students with a broader definition of ‘placement’, one which encompasses a suite of opportunities more broadly termed ‘experiential learning’. In adapting our provision, we must embrace key principles of interdisciplinary connections across our university and providing employers with a more flexible model which will effectively better connect our students to employers whilst they are studying' Mark Stow, Director of Business Engagement, Careers and Employability at Leeds Beckett

To address the acute supply and demand challenges associated with traditional placements and internships, universities will need to develop a diverse work-based learning offer by developing scalable experiential learning and a host of embedded project-based learning initiatives with employers.

• Increase employer engagement, such as project-based learning, within the curriculum to deliver equitable access to all students regardless of their ability to engage in extra-curricular and co-curricular work-based learning activities.
• Increase the number of authentic assessments that replicate graduate recruitment processes in the curriculum, co-curriculum and in reflective assessments for placement modules (e.g. video interview assessments) to improve students’ performance in placement and graduate recruitment processes.
• Given the challenges around growing international mobility in the current political and funding climate, investigate the expansion of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) to create international experiences to develop students’ cultural awareness.
• Consider developing pre-entry career content for international PGT students to both support recruitment and prepare them to engage with the UK labour market.

We need to redouble efforts to build scalable experiential learning provision and employer-led project models to deliver experiences to students on mass that will both develop their commercial and work-based skills but also inform their career decision making.

There is also a strong argument to grow internal internship schemes, particularly considering mechanisms to deliver research internship programme for postgraduate students. I predict we will also see a growth in internal agencies being developed to create opportunities inhouse for students to gain experience, think web design agencies, architecture studios and community wellbeing hubs.

Developing frameworks and toolkits that can support academic departments to efficiently embed employer engagement into the curriculum and, where possible, further prioritising careers service resource to support academic alignment activities will be crucial to scale this expanded range of work-based learning provision.

I would be interested in your thoughts and reflections.

Mike Grey, Director

[email protected]