How do Internships Provided by the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship, Help FSU Students Obtain Jobs?

          Internships are on the rise and have become increasingly more popular among college students.  According to Olivia Waxman from Time Magazine, in 2017, over 52 percent of university students took part in an internship, which is a huge difference compared to the 17% in 1992 (Waxman).  Internships have proven to be an excellent opportunity for students to gain real-life work experience, develop early skills, and gain job opportunities in fields such as engineering, marketing, business, and I.T development (The New York Times). However, can internships also help students, like myself, in the entrepreneurial field of study?  An industry that is typically perceived as solo driven, meaning that us entrepreneurs, employ ourselves and do not rely on already established business for a job. The Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship at Florida State University firmly believes that entrepreneurial students can benefit from internships and require us to take at least one internship before graduating from the school.  This research essay aims to evaluate how these internships benefit entrepreneurship students and help open the doors for job opportunities. In this research paper, I will be focusing on corporate entrepreneurship, and touch on solo founding.  I will be taking a deeper look into factors such as, what skills entrepreneurial students can develop though internships, how building their network can help them find job opportunities, and how internships increase their chances of getting hired.

 

WHO ARE ENTREPRENUERS?

 

            The meaning of the word “entrepreneur” has evolved over time. When it was first coined by Jean-Baptiste Say in the 1800s, “entrepreneur” referred to any individual who utilized resources (such as land, labor, and capital) to develop a product and then sell it in return for a profit on his investment.  However, today, this term refers to any individual who peruses an “opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled” (KSW Middle East).  The word entrepreneur transformed from referring to people who create a business to referring to a form of management that puts a big emphasis on innovation. Due to the evolution of the word, the amount of job opportunities available to us future entrepreneurs has also increased drastically. So much so, that in the United States today, there are over 31 million entrepreneurs (Chmura). 

Entrepreneurship is a form of management, meaning that a lot of the job opportunities available to business majors are also available to entrepreneurship majors. There is a very fine line that divides business and entrepreneurship, and it can often be very hard to differentiate as they overlap often.  The main difference between the two, is that business majors focus on creating revenue, while entrepreneurship majors focus on creating value for their customers. 

 Graduating entrepreneurships students are faced with two paths for job employment.  On one side, they have the opportunity to find their own startup company, usually with the help of venture capitalists. It’s a much riskier path, but it also has greater potential rewards.  This career path is exemplified by Steve Jobs, who founded Apple when he was 21 years old in 1976.   On the other side, the other job opportunity available is corporate entrepreneurship. This refers to the process of innovation within an already established organization.  Corporate entrepreneurship is a much safer alternative since all the resources and capital are provided by the parent company and usually will be considered an SLE (separate legal entity).  Corporate entrepreneurship contains a variety of a different positions, and student perusing this career path will be able to obtain jobs such as operation managers, product designers, and sales employees. 

 

 

JIM MORAN SCHOOL OF ENTREPRENURSHIP

 

          As mentioned before, the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship firmly believes their students can benefit from Internships.  After speaking with one of the internship coordinators at the College, Roxane Parker, I was given insight into how the colleges views internships and learned about how successful internships have been with prior students.  “Internships are a vital experience for every upcoming entrepreneur,” claims Ms. Parker. They provide students with the opportunity to “try out an industry or a field that they may not have any prior experience, help develop critical skills that they will need once they leave college,” and start creating a network of contacts.  Not all entrepreneurship students will have the ability to start their own business as soon as they leave college and therefore will need another job to financially sustain themselves if they ever choose to take a leap into the solo entrepreneurial world. After Ms. Parker said this, I was able to understand the reality of matter. Starting a business may be easy, but surviving is not. What I learned from this was that starting a business requires extensive resources and capital, something the students fresh out of college don’t have in abundance.  People like me will most likely need a job first to financially sustain ourselves and any business we wish to start, further demonstrating why internships are critical to young innovators.

           Following this, according to Ms. Parker, internships also provide some “crucial” background knowledge that students will need moving forward in their careers.  While partaking in internships, students should be focusing on developing skills such as “critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and various business mindsets” (Parker) that companies would find valuable.

At the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship, in their three years of operation, 100% of their students have been able to obtain an internship with the help of the school. Out of those students, according to a survey taken by the FSU careers center, “90% of the students had employment at the time of leaving, 7% were going on to grad school” (Parker), and the other three percent had perused other career paths such as the military.   There is no questioning why 90% of the FSU entrepreneurship students that graduated from the school already had employment at the time of leaving.  According to a report conducted by Jack Gault, Evan Leach, and Marc Duey from West Chester University, “undergraduates with internship experience” had “significantly more full-time (job) opportunities.” This study demonstrates how impactful internships can be on job opportunities because “even average performing interns were significantly more likely to receive full-time job offers than non-interns.”  This has had an impact on me because throughout my whole life I’ve been very introverted and stuck in my comfort zone. I’ve refused to get a job multiple times and still have not had one. Going into Florida State this coming August, I have realized that I must be more open minded to these career development opportunities.  Instead of shying away from them, I must embrace them and utilize them for personal development.  

 

STUDENT TESTIMONIALS

 

 

          The Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship has a great variety of internship opportunities. According to Parker, the school is connected to a large network of businesses locally, nationwide, and internationally, all of which are used for student internships.  For example, Kadasha Eliacin is a Florida State University entrepreneurship student who interned at WFSU Public Media, where she worked alongside Suzanne Smith, the producer.  In her internship testimonial, Kadasha claimed that the internship was the "opportunity of a lifetime." Throughout her internship, she started gaining some real-world insight and knowledge about her industry, claiming her eyes were opened "to the business aspect and worker side of the Television." Kadasha was also tasked with putting together videos for the station's cable channel and producing for their political radio show, Perspectives. These tasks, allowed Ms. Elicain to start developing her producing skills early, making her a much more attractive job candidate when compared to others who hadn’t taken part in an internship. Nevertheless, if she chooses to start her own streaming company as she said in her testimonial, this internship gave her the fundamental knowledge and skills that she can build upon.  as well as helping her become a much more successful solo entrepreneur.   

          Similarly, Emmarica Lassin is also a Florida State entrepreneur who Interned with Patriots Ghana, an organization located in the East Municipal District of the Central region of Ghana, in Kasoa. During her internship, Emmarica worked alongside a “micro-finance team that focuses on educating entrepreneurs.”  This internship helped Emmarica as an entrepreneur because it taught her about “the competition that exists in the market between venders” and about the “relationships between vendors and customers.”  Two fundamental aspects that every entrepreneur who wishes to be successful should be aware of before entering any industry.  Also, because of this experience, she claims to be much more “globally knowledgeable” and “informed on the operation of businesses abroad,”.  Not to mention, she also claims to have experienced an improvement in her public speaking skills, something that many companies look for in potential employees.

 

CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP JOB OPPORTUNITIES:

 

          In today’s competitive market, constant innovation is necessary for businesses to survive. Gaining a competitive advantage requires businesses to innovate their products continually (Dunlap‐Hinkler, Kotabe and Mudambi 107). For this reason, Businesses are always looking to fill their ranks with employees that can provide a spark of creativity. “Companies are always looking people that are going to have the entrepreneurial mindset,” says Ms. Parker.

Entrepreneurial students can prove to be a valuable asset to any company. However, before we can make an impact, we require prior experience and fundamental skills to build upon.  For instance, Ms. Parker, despite being an entrepreneur, worked at Macy's as manager running various stores.  She was expected to use her entrepreneurial skills to run those stores as if they were her own.  It is a difficult task that requires large amounts of real-life experience and leadership skills; skills that cannot be developed within the classroom but instead through action in real-life scenarios. 

          Furthermore, corporate entrepreneurs are not just managers; they can serve various positions throughout the organization.  In this example from Intuit, one of the nation’s leading financial software companies, corporates entrepreneurs came in the form of product development employees.  According to Eric Rise, in his book The Lean Start-Up, a group of innovators were gathered from across the organization and tasked with creating an automated process of “collecting information typically found on W-2 forms” (what would later become known as Snap Tax) and given an island of freedom to experiment and innovate as they wished.  According to Rise, the team that innovated Snap tax did not “look much like the archetypal image of entrepreneurs either.  They don't work in a garage or eat ramen noodles. Their company doesn't lack for resources. They are paid a full salary and benefits. They come into a regular office every day. Yet, they are entrepreneurs.”  From this, I’ve learned that entrepreneurial job opportunities can come in various forms. However, these job opportunities do not come easily, and companies are very weary on whom they pick to bring in. This, in turn, makes internships vital to every entrepreneur.

          I spoke with Emilio Cordero, a consultant working for Accenture, who he interned with while he was studying at the University of Pittsburg. In our interview, Mr. Cordero said, “if I had never taken that internship, I probably would not be where I am today.”  Along with this, some other factors that I’ve mentioned before become evident. He explains that the trust he was able to build with his future employers alongside a strong foundation of skills was “a pivotal moment” in his transition from being a student to a full-time employee.”

          Overall, from this information I’ve learned that Florida State University students who want to go into corporate entrepreneurship will find internships valuable for two main reasons.  First, it will help them get connected to already established businesses that could potentially hire them once they graduate. It will also allow them to get acclimated to the work environment and the employees that already working there.  Second, it will provide them with real-life work experience that, in turn, will help them develop their entrepreneurial skills, making them significantly more likely to get hired in other businesses.

 

SOLO FOUNDING JOB OPPORTUNITIES:

 

          Down this path of entrepreneurship, job opportunities are virtually endless. Any idea - whether it is the innovation of a new product or improvement of an already created product - is a job opportunity. Any idea that can be physically made and sold to the public for a return on investment is an entrepreneurial job opportunity. However, these jobs are not guaranteed and can create a heavy burden on anybody who risks taking this entrepreneurial path.  According to the US Small Business Administration, in 2016, 433,000 start-up businesses were created and had a 79.4% survival rate going into 2017 and a 78.7% survival rate going into 2018.  Within all these new businesses created in 2016, in the high-tech industry, 47% of these businesses went into computer systems design, 36% went into the Architecture and engineering sector, and 17% went into other high-tech sectors.  These statistics exemplify how diverse and flexible job opportunities are for students studying entrepreneurship through solo founding. They can enter any field or industry they wish, but on many occasions, they will need to bring in partners/co-founders who are more knowledgeable in specific industries for a higher chance of survival.  A perfect example of this would be Tim Westergren, the co-founder of Pandora.  According to Noam Wasserman, in his book The Founders Dilemma, Tim Westergren was an entrepreneur with a political science degree from Stanford and was also a member of a rock band.  When he conceived the idea of Pandora Radio, he “lacked substantive knowledge of the complex technologies required for his idea,” but with the help of two college peers, Jon Kraft and Will Glaser, they were able to bring the product to life.  This example also further demonstrates how important internships are for students in the sense of creating a network of valuable contacts for job opportunities.  If Tim Wasserman had never met Jon Kraft or Will Glaser, he probably would not have had the ability to become a self-employed entrepreneur, as he lacked the knowledge to create such sophisticated technology. 

          In the United States, it is relatively easy for anyone to start their own business, making it a very viable option for anyone interested. According to The World Bank, the United States of America has the fourth best “business-friendly climate,” when taking into consideration factors such as “number of procedures, time, cost as a percent of income per capita, and minimum capital required.” However, this alone is not enough. According to a study focusing on the effects of education and experience on self-employment success, conducted by Peter B. Robinson and Edwin A. Sexton, from The University of Calgary Canada and Virginia Military Institute USA respectively, found that experience had a  “strong positive influence” on a self-employed entrepreneurs ability to become successful.  According to their report, it is crucial that students “carefully plan the specifics of the education in terms of adding experience.”  This means that education is an excellent source of knowledge, as it can have many benefits. However, it must be paired with experience or practice for it to actually be able to make an impact on an individual’s job opportunities.  

 

 

 

LINKEDIN:

 

        For this research study, an observation was conducted on the digital discourse community of LinkedIn, the online platform used to connect people looking for jobs with potential employers.  The observations were focused on the jobs listed under "corporate entrepreneurship." There was a massive variety of job listings, ranging from "lecturer on Management, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship" at the University of North Carolina, to "investment director" and "Co-Founder" of a small startup.  Despite all this variety in terms of job positions, all of the job listings had two aspects in common. The first one was that they all called for some innovation or creativity, and the second one was that they all required past working experience.  This requirement makes it much more evident how vital internships are for entrepreneurial students at FSU.  Without the college’s internships and the working experience that comes along with them, the job opportunities available to them would shrink drastically. Out of a sample size of 20 entry-level jobs posted under corporate entrepreneurship, only six jobs did not explicitly state that they required prior experience.  In comparison, the other 14 jobs required business experience, ranging between at least one year to upwards of 5 years of experience.  If this ratio were to remain consistent, students who do not take internships would only be able to apply for roughly 30% of the jobs. While in contrast, students with at least one year of experience would be able to apply for 75% of the jobs, and students with two to three years of experience would be able to apply for 85% of the jobs listed.   These percentages demonstrate that experience opens the doors for job opportunities. The more experience a student has, the more likely he or she is to get hired, and also have a larger pool of job opportunities to pick from.

 

 

FINDINGS

 

             Prior to starting my research, I had a great deal of skepticism over the benefit that internships can have on us entrepreneurial students.  I had a narrow-minded preconception of what job opportunities entrepreneurial students had, and how we could benefit from internships.  I believed that the whole point of entrepreneurship was to start your own business and I could not see how working as an employee for another business would help me.  After researching, analyzing, and speaking with primary sources, it is apparent that I was wrong.  The internships provided by The Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship significantly impact student’s ability to not just become successful solo entrepreneurs, but also find corporate jobs.

           I’ve learned the experience is the key to success, and without it, students will likely struggle to find jobs or materialize success.   Examples such as Mr. Cordero, Ms. Elicain, and Ms. Lassin, have all shown to me that internships are a perfect way for graduating entrepreneurial students to build a foundation that will propel them forward in their careers.   Not to mention the important benefits that networking can have on young entrepreneurs’ careers. However, even if a student had a horrible experience during an internship, I failed to find any information to show that it could be detrimental to their job opportunities. It’s a benefit because it  allows them to tryout an industry and mentally confirm if it something they wish to continue doing or not.

           Overall, The Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship is on the right path of helping their students obtain job through internships.  Not only is this exemplified with the information provided above, but also through their track record of 90% of the entrepreneurial leave already employed.