The project on the workforce: Harvard research on the journey of young people in apprenticeship
Updated: Mar 15, 2023
Photo by Dylan Gillis
New research by Harvard’s Project on Workforce analyzes the journey of young people in an influential new apprenticeship program. The study looks at the ‘Career Wise’ program based on a successful Swiss model, which aims to increase the number of pathways to high-paying jobs. The results show how the 232 apprentices fared in this program.
It’s important to note that Internships and apprenticeships both give you hands-on training, but the key difference is the duration and the future long-term prospects. An apprenticeship guarantees you a job at the end of it. At the same time, an internship is a short stint of on-the-job training that ends after a short period, which varies in different organizations.
‘One way to think of an apprenticeship is as a super-charged internship. The employer is committed to paying you increased wages over time and dedicating capacity to your growth, and the work is better integrated into what you’re learning in the classroom. Being able to test out what kinds of jobs you might like and gain paid work experience—that’s good for everyone.’ Rachel Lipson
Internships are the transition between education and work.
Having great operational insights about various program designs and implementation on internships and their significance is critical.
Given the right resources, interns rated between 70-75% productivity of a traditional full-time trained employee in the first two years.
Based on the study, only 39% of the apprentices/Interns who started completed the entire three-year program. This means that the benefits of internships still need to be highlighted across various sectors to maximize the return on investment for any employee.
Another highlight from the research is that it doesn’t have to be either/or between getting work experience and going to college/university. You can do both, and it can pay off for you. Through apprenticeships, you can lower the cost of college attendance, reduce your debt, and increase the likelihood that you’ll be able to land a job after college.
Critical highlights for employers, hiring a youth apprentice/intern can make sense even as a relatively short-term investment. If interns can execute on the job at 70% productivity levels, they are delivering value to the firm at fairly low salary costs. Additionally, Interns who said they had an excellent supervisor were likelier to stay in the program. So how do we train and equip our managers and corporate cultures to be welcoming of young talent?
Talanta has over the past few years been at the forefront of ensuring the future of work
focuses on matching well-equipped, high-potential, international, interns with global organizations. Our unique model prepares interns and managers for success with a multi-dimensional focus on the soft skills necessary to thrive in the global (and remote) workplace. Our research has demonstrated that high-level talent is available all over the world, though the mechanisms to match talent with recruiters are often insufficient, particularly with respect to traditionally underrepresented areas, such as developing countries, first-generation university-educated students, and those that come from marginalized communities.
Talanta's ethos is to ensure that the ‘earn and learn’ model of talent acquisition is a tool for eliminating the recruitment and retention obstacles between forward-thinking organizations and global talent from all countries.
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