Mentoring, and recruitment are different policies
I encourage my children, and everyone else who approaches me for advice, to work with a team, on a product, to get real life experience.
In my opinion, formal education has its place. It is fast being supplemented but better tools.
We got Google in 1998, and it changed the internet. We no longer needed to remember where to find information. It was ‘searchable’. With Generative AI and large language models, we will see another major shift. We will get ‘indicative’ answers instead of search results.
Formal education, at least in India, still lives in an age where students have to take impacting decisions, at an age when they barely know life. So, hiring them based on their education decisions, is not really right. Plus, we are still a country of shortage in terms of quality institutes. Does not mean we have shortage of quality talent. Do not assume people who could not get into IIT,or similar, are not the cream.
Working with companies, while studying, gives the students the ability to identify things that they are passionate about, and have a few years of real life industry experience before they graduate. Both of these the industry tries to find when they go to campus for interviews.
But, ironically, the same industry treats these students as ‘employees’ when opening up internships.
Internships are supposed to be available, for passionate talent, irrespective of your head count approvals. Those who are ready to take on bigger challenges, are outliers, and are self learnt, should be accommodated and appreciated.
If a student has reached out to you, they are already an outlier. An average student is busy with assignments, and life. They will only think about working when they graduate. Don’t treat everyone the same.
I request everyone, who is in a place to influence, please ask your organisations to review their policies. Be open for walk-in interns. Do not box them in areas of work, and limit what you want. Look at them as potential employees in the future, who come to you at zero hiring cost. Plus, once they learn your organisations culture, assuming it’s healthy, they will not go anywhere else. They will see the value.
If you are a company and open to talking about policy, or want sensitising your employees / HR, i will be happy to talk to them.
If you are a HR form who help companies, please incorporate this in your recommendations. Need to understand more? Talk to me.
If you are a college / university, and need a pitch to work with your partner companies, i can help.
Let’s build organisations that appreciate, and groom, talent.
