In this blog post, Varun Anand, a student at Symbiosis Law School, Pune and pursuing a Diploma in Entrepreneurship Administration and Business Laws from NUJS, Kolkata, describes the importance of an online internship for students.

In this day and age of modern advancement, everything has changed. The way we communicate, travel, order food and even get our household chores done. No more waiting to place an STD call, no more standing at an auto stand and haggle for the fare or even spend precious minutes on the phone trying to place an order, so you don’t go hungry. Everything has been made simpler with the development of applications or as we lovingly call them ‘apps’.

When the entire world has been brought to your phones and laptops, then one brilliant bloke argued, why not work? Thus, came the idea of working/interning from home.

Some people would argue that online internships are nothing but a waste of time but every coin has a flip side.

In this article, I’m going to evaluate both aspects of an online internship- the good and the bad.

INTRODUCTION

First, let us understand the meaning of an online or virtual internship. It literally means interning from home or a place of your convenience at your pace and at your own sweet time.

This concept is not very old, and if you go up to your granddad and tell him that you are interning from home, all that you will get is a look of disapproval. But, on a more serious note, online internships are on the rise since the past decade. With the rapid increase in technology, one can work from anywhere till the time he has a laptop and an internet connection.

More and more youngsters these days are opting to intern from home so that they can manage to gain experience while simultaneously pursue other interests as well. This has also helped mid-level and other low-level firms to attract interns to help them out with their work at practically zero cost to company since an online internship need not involve any allocation of resources like a separate office space and a workstation or providing the intern with a laptop or a desktop, or even having to reimburse the intern if he incurs any expenses while doing any work for the company.

TYPES OF VIRTUAL INTERNSHIPS

If an entrepreneur applies his mind, then any work can be done online. What this essentially means is that all kinds of work that an intern does at a regular internship can be done by him sitting remotely.

Some areas of work, though, are especially suited for a virtual internship. These include marketing, advertising, graphics designing, blog writing, content writing, software developing, work on social media, etc.

Such work can be handled sitting at home provided the intern knows what he should do. An intern who is managing content writing or editing blogs or even designing for a company doesn’t need to be at the place of work. Moreover, he needs his space and time to get his ideas going, and that is possible by interning online.

So basically, jobs that don’t require you to have someone standing over your head every minute to guide are the ones that you can do from home.

THE GOOD

1. FLEXIBILITY– One plus point of interning from home is that you need not worry about time. Your boss assigns you to work and gives you deadlines, but you aren’t constrained by a 9 to 5 work setup. You can start your job at 2 in the night and still match the period when you’re working from home. Also, if you’re either working or taking classes, then this fits perfectly into your schedule. You can study, play, concentrate on your hobbies and still manage to complete an internship. Also, most internships are unpaid and being a student no one minds a little extra pocket money, so what better way to earn. Do an online internship and get your required work experience and you can still do a part time job alongside. Makes it a win-win situation, doesn’t it?

2. SAVINGS FOR EMPLOYER– It is not only the intern but also the employer who gains from an online internship. Employing interns online saves the employer a lot of time and money hassles. Firstly, employing an intern on site requires prior interviews and other formalities. The employer is also expected to provide the intern with an office space and a desktop or a laptop too. Printing expenses and providing the intern with an internet connection also adds to the costs. But that’s not all; employers are also supposed to provide them with basic stuff like stationery and expense money when the interns run errands for the office. When an intern works from home, all these overhead costs to the company are eliminated from the picture thus saving the employer’s precious money, and this also helps him get his work done. Also, sometimes, it so happens that interns are paid with the number of work hours that they clock in a day. When an employee is working onsite, he often tends to waste precious minutes socialising and doing other unproductive things; this leads to the employer paying the intern for the time that he has utterly lost. An online internship helps reduce this cost as well.

3. SETTLING IN– Often it takes time for a new intern to settle down in a new corporate environment. This leads to unproductiveness. But, with the concept of interning online, this awkwardness has been done. It has become much easier for an intern to communicate with his employer for work related queries. No time is wasted on assigning a mentor to an intern who can show him around and tell him how to get the work done. A simple set of instructions over an email is enough to get an intern started on his daily duties. Moreover, the intern can do this sitting anywhere, from the comfort of his home or in a park.

4. LARGER POOL– This is an advantage for both the intern and the employer. An intern can be benefitted in various ways by this. He can sit at one end of the country and intern for a firm that is right at the other end. He can pick and choose where he wants to intern and what type of an internship he wants to do. This sort of flexibility isn’t available when one is working in person at a firm. For example, A wants to intern with a company, B, which is a leader in web designing. But the firm is located very far away from him. Then there is another firm C located within the vicinity of A which isn’t excellent at what it does. So if you look at this the conventional way then for ease of access A would end up interning with C and not gain valuable experience, but now since the concept of interning online has come up, he can actually apply for an online internship with B and work from home thus, in turn gaining invaluable experience. Now as for the employer, he gets his share of benefits. He can put up applications for an online internship and sift through responses that he gets from prospective interns. The applications that he receives are not only from interns who are in the vicinity but from all over the place. This leads to an increase in the number of applications but also leads to an increase in the talent that is available. Now the employer can choose an intern who is aptly qualified and better than the rest of the applicants, for his work. And this intern can be from any region.

5. EXPERIENCE– Sitting at home and gaining experience, that’s the dream. This is possible because of the concept of online internships. Now an intern doesn’t need to be physically present to gain valuable insights and experience of working in a particular He can now do so by sitting at home. Online internships don’t hamper communication with the experts in the field, and the intern can always reach out to his employers in case of difficulties and get his queries sorted out. Online internships are a boom for those who wish to gain experience, but it isn’t possible for them to physically go out and intern. Such is the impact of an online internship that present day employers are asking interns, who are good enough, to continue interning with the firm even after their internship period is over. This is being made possible by the concept of an online internship. Per Bloomberg Business week, employers are increasingly asking top students from in-person summer internship programs to continue working remotely from campus during the succeeding school year. This gives students the chance to continue formulating relationships with companies and the ability to extend their experience along with their current skill set[1].

THE BAD

Even with the immense benefits, there are still some downsides to an online internship. Few of them are listed below-

1. NO REAL OFFICE ENVIRONMENT– No matter how much one advocates an online internship the real problem is that there is no real office environment. The intern gets to work, but he doesn’t get the basic hang of how a company in a corporate setup works. An intern doesn’t need to set foot in the office so he doesn’t get to learn much about the culture of a company and other work ethics which can become a problem. This leads to another issue of managing the online interns No matter how flexible the schedule the intern still needs to be aware of his work and stay on track lest he missed his deadlines. When an intern is working on-site, it makes it easier for the employer to keep track of the work and he can guide the intern as to what to do and how to do it.

2. HARD TIME HIRING– When an intern works online the only interaction the employer has with the employee is over the internet or rarely over a telephone, this makes the hiring process difficult. Employers get apprehensive about hiring someone who they’ve never met face to face. So, no matter how good the intern his hiring chances are always a little damaged given the fact that he is awry of the work culture of the company and that he has never met his employer.

3. ON THE JOB TRAINING– To be very honest, there is no on the job training when it comes to an online internship. Yes, the intern is gaining experience, but he is missing out on the invaluable ‘on the job training’ that one gets from his peers when working at a firm in person. There is no way that an intern is subject to constructive criticism which could help him improve over time. This is a major drawback since an intern who is working on-site has a greater chance of growing and developing his potential than an intern working from home

CONCLUSION

All in all, the bottom line is that online internships are a boom for those companies that want an efficient workforce without shelling out too much money.It is of great help to students who want to intern but due to certain conditions, be it geographical or economical, end up without any learning experience. Online internships are an answer to all these problems.

But, all said and done, companies need to overhaul their online internship programs so that there is more interaction with the intern and an intern is easily and fluidly inducted into the program. Alco there should be some form of incentives introduced into the program. This would attract more applicants and lead to an increase in enthusiasm and dedication amongst the interns.

Reference:

[1]http://www.braatheenterprises.com/virtualproject/professional-development/internship/benefits-virtual-internships/#.WCrwZ-Z97IU