By Margaret Hansen
JobsInTheUS Marketing Content & Development Leader

College degree? Great. No work experience? Not so great. Realizing the competitive edge a paid internship brings, not to mention a paycheck and a wealth of future opportunities, many college students today are turning to paid internship programs in their field of study. On the employer's side, it's a recruiter's dream.

"As a recruiting tool, it gives us the opportunity to see and evaluate their skills and work habits. If we find the right individual, we can make them an offer for full-time employment before they actually start looking for a job with other companies," Pam Bergner, Human Resources Manager of DeLorme Publishing Co. in Yarmouth, Maine, said. "Hopefully, it gives us the first opportunity to hire these students."

DeLorme's summer internship program hires for software engineers, hardware engineers, and web developers. Interns are paid an hourly wage and many have made significant contributions to the company. DeLorme's Director of Technology began as an intern after his sophomore year at the University of Maine, majoring in electrical engineering. Other recent interns include a physics major from California who was working on his PhD.

"It opens a door to a future opportunity," Brian Widell, president of Profit Tools, Inc of Lee, NH, said. Profit tools began its internship program this year and plans to hire three Software R&D paid interns. Located minutes from the University of New Hampshire at Durham's campus, the program capitalizes on the natural marriage between a growing technology company needing to find talented workers and the need for students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels to gain real-world experience.

The Profit Tools interns will attack a list of identified items that require research, analysis, and prototyping before they can be approved for full-scale product development.

"The intern team will enable us to make better choices about which projects to approve, and be more efficient in our product development effort," Widell said.

Widell looks forward to the diversity of skills and experience that will augment his current staff and hopes that at least one third of the interns in his program will become full-time employees upon graduation.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont's summer internship program offers an introduction to corporate culture with the added possibility of a full-time job upon completion.

BCBS of Vermont offers a paid summer internship program in 11 of its departments, including:

• Corporate Planning
• Marketing
• Sales
• Human Resources
• Quality Assurance
• Accounting
• Legal
• Underwriting
• Actuarial Services
• Data Analysis & Reporting
• Corporate Communications

"We think it's a win - win situation," Dawne Smith, Human Resource Employment Coordinator with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont, said. "The company benefits by getting extra help through the summer and grooming potential future employees. The students win by getting a well paid, interesting summer job."

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