Placement Process & Procedure

It’s overwhelming to have a college student–with perhaps limited to zero non-profit work experience–suddenly jump into LA with an idea of what he/she wants to do for an internship. There are so many organizations out there and so many possibilities!

It’s difficult to choose an internship in just three weeks. We understand this completely. Selecting an internship site can be a difficult thing, especially when newly arrived students are just learning LA’s social, political, and cultural context.

Making the Best Match

Over the years the Los Angeles Term program has prided itself in giving students free rein on selecting any non-profit internship in the Greater Los Angeles area. Two years ago there was no formal process. Students would pick organizations they were most interested in, arrange their own appointments and interviews off-site, and confirm their own placement. If the organization and student were not carefully vetted by the start date, the placement could end up being a hit-or-miss experience for both parties.

Since Fall 2010, the LA Term staff has played a more critical facilitation role in exposing students to our participating organizations, carefully balancing student’s interests with organization’s needs, while managing a clear and structured process in which all students would be placed by the start date. Finding the right match between students and organizations includes a number of variables: interest, motivation, organization’s needs, organization’s capacity to train and supervise, student’s skills and qualification, management style, and organizational culture.

The New Placement Process 2010-2013

Below is our internship placement process, cut and dry:

Process is based on a ranking and matching system
Students have opportunities to re-rank their interests during the course of the 2-week process
Exposure and networking events are organized based on the student’s initial Top 5 interests
Organizations can accept or deny a student’s interview request based on their resume and networking opportunities
Organizations will rank their top students at Interview Day (no guarantees of receiving #1 choice)
Program staff proposes a student match and organizations can confirm placement (organization are under no obligation to receive a student intern)

Our goal in the Internship Placement Process is to increase the probability of the best possible match for the student and organization, placing 100% of students at one of their Top 3 choices by the internship start date.

Selecting the Initial Top 5

To start the Internship Placement Process, incoming students review the over 22 non-profit and community-based organizations that partner with the Los Angeles Term program. Students reviews all organization’s websites and reads student alumni feedback to create a better idea of what interests them the most. Students review this information upon acceptance into the program.

Once a student has narrowed down their interests, they will select their Top 5 organizations they wish interact with during the first weeks of the program. The LA Term staff coordinates several exposure and networking events based on the students’ Top 5. We organize events for students to meet face-to-face with potential supervisors, staff colleagues, and visit the office facilities. Many students meet with most, if not all, of their Top 5 in office site visits, presentations, personal meetings, and professional panel discussions with the 3-week process.

Long-Term Relationships

We understand that in order to develop long-term relationships with the participating non-profit organizations and increase the level of satisfaction students experience at their internship, the program needed to restructure the placement process in order to benefit both the student and the organization.

In previous years it was difficult to maintain consistency with the participating organizations because student interest changed with the tides. And the organizations bore the brunt. Likewise, the LA Term program needed to increase the quality of our internships by articulating our organizational requirements to the college course and structuring the internship program with careful assessment, follow-up, and feedback.