Internships

Like many of you, our department requires 400 hours of internship as part of the degree process.  We have clear expectations of those who take our students in as interns including a living wage, job rotation, and periodic review.  Those who cannot meet that basic test do not get our students.

The one thing we require our students to do -- on top of representing themselves, our department and university in a professional manner -- is to write a detailed report on the mechanics of the internship and reflect on their internship experience from beginning to end.  We then set up debrief sesssions with groups of students and a faculty member at the beginning of the fall semester to discuss the experience after we have read their 20+ page internship report.  Reading the reports and engaging in the debrief session is enlightening indeed.

Here is one of the key things I learn from reading the reports based on the perspective of students doing  summer interns.  There are far too many people who have zero clue as to how to manage a hospitality business and we wonder why our industry gets looked down upon as a joke alternative to a "real job!"

And I am talking independent and major chains.  The stories we hear based on clueless apathetic recruiters who are unclear as to  when and where to start the internship, the utter lack of training, bad training, no job descriptions, working with those who hate their jobs, abandonment and not empowerment, sexual harassment and on and on are all things that student interns face.  It makes me wonder what the _____ these managers can be thinking?  First of all, treating interns like shit means they are going to work for a competitor.  Second of all, treating interns like shit means they will shop with a competitor.  Duh!!!!!

But far too many are oblivious to this reality and wonder why their business continues to struggle in good times and bad.  The students cannot wait to share these stories with others when they get back to campus and those companies wonder why they do not get the best recruits.  Duh!!!!

To be fair, there are those independents and major chains that do a stellar job treating interns with respect and dignity and providing an educational experience working for them for a summer.  Those are the companies that the students talk about when they get back to campus to share the good news spreading positive WOM and I am happy to share, too.

So for all those companies out there that treat interns like shit, you shall reap what you sow, and deservedly so because you are a poor representative of an honorable, noble, and exciting profession and should suffer the consequences.  You can also bet your bottom dollar that I will not speak bad about you to students but when they ask what I think of hotel company A, or contract foodservice company B, or restaurant chain C that I know has treated interns like shit my response will be "have you ever thought of working for hotel D?" knowing that they have treated our interns very well indeed.