Internships and Careers 2019 Abstracts
From Employers’ Perspective: The Relationship Between Internship Performance and Employment Intention in Communication Context • Fei Fan, Hong Kong Baptist University • Fresh university graduates, today, face more severe competition in job market compared with those at old days as the number of university graduates keep boosting. For instance, the number of fresh university graduates hit a new historic record, reaching 7.65 million in 2016 in China. To ensure fresh graduates effectively improve their competitive advantage in employment industry, educational institutions in China, particularly Hong Kong, design compulsory courses about internship to ask students to put knowledge and skills learnt in class into practical actions. Media- and communication-related programs or majors have no exception on this. Facing the popularity and increasing importance of internship, many scholars pay attention to internship-related studies. However, few studies have been done on how internship affects employers’ recruitment intention in discipline-specific areas of marketing, advertising and public relations. To fill in this literature gap, this quantitative study was conducted to explore direct work supervisors’ mindset. Altogether 44 responses from student interns’ direct supervisors were collected during 2016 and 2017. The results postulated that perceived interns’ personal quality determined supervisors’ judgement about student interns’ overall internship performance, which later would play a determining role to help employers screen out qualified job candidates and offer job positions to university graduates with better perceived internship performance. In this continuous causal relationship, professional competence was a bridge, mediating the relationship between personal quality and overall internship performance.
Welcome to the Big Leagues: Exploring Rookie Sports Broadcasters’ Adjustment to New Careers • Kevin Hull, University of South Carolina; Miles Romney, Brigham Young University • The purpose of this study is to understand how effectively sports journalism programs and internship experiences are preparing graduates for careers in local TV sportscasting. This study also examines how local sports broadcasters are adjusting to the profession. Results demonstrate the value of a sports journalism education and sports media internship when graduates are attempting to land their first jobs in a local television sports department. However, despite the value shown, many local sports broadcasters, while enjoying it, are still having a difficult time in their first few years on the job.
Intercultural competencies needed for evolving media professions: Educating the next generation of globally minded communicators • Pablo Mino, UNC-Chapel Hill; Rhonda Gibson, UNC Chapel Hill • This study investigated which global competencies are sought after in college students applying for internships and jobs that are international in scope. A survey of 40 global communicators and subsequent interviews revealed that respect for other cultures, listening/observation skills, and understanding others’ worldviews were highly valued. It was also recommended that college graduates have experience traveling abroad and a global network of contacts to enhance their job prospects. Implications for updating college curricula are explored.
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