Untapped Talent: Hillary Ehlen
Why Your Company Should Open Internships to International Students By Samantha Gust, Director – Career Development Center, Minnesota State University Moorhead
Internships are a wonderful thing. They provide students with an opportunity to put what they’ve learned in the classroom to use, develop career-specific skills, gain industry knowledge, grow their professional networks, and make sure the path they’ve chosen is the right one before they ever walk across the stage at graduation. For employers, internships are a perfect way to develop robust hiring pipelines, introduce fresh ideas to the company, increase productivity in a relatively costeffective way, and provide opportunities for your professional team to develop leadership and mentorship skills by working with student interns. In the eyes of Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM) and other local universities, it’s a win-win for both parties. The only problem? There’s a group of talented, engaged, highly educated students that are being overlooked by companies seeking to fill internships— international students. Earlier this semester, when working with a group of international students preparing for internships, they shared stories of the challenges they face. One described a position description that said the company has a policy of only hiring persons who will not require sponsorship for employment visa status in the future (e.g. H-1B) and to
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not submit your resume for an interview if you will, in the future, require sponsorship for employment visa status. Another talked about being turned down for interviews when the company learned they were an international student because the company didn’t think they had the resources to handle all the paperwork. These student’s stories are ones we hear all too often. There’s a common misconception that hiring international students for internships is a hassle. Many believe that sponsorship is required and with sponsorship comes legal fees, paperwork, and regulations that can be hard to navigate. Thankfully, that is simply not the case. At the end of the day, hiring international students for internships is just as easy as hiring domestic students. We want to break down some of the most common misconceptions, questions, and concerns we hear, hoping more employers will open their doors to our international students seeking internships. The following are questions employers often have about international students and internships.
How many international students are there in the Fargo-Moorhead Community? Here at MSUM, we’re home to over 150 international students from more than 40 countries including Ethiopia, Canada,
Japan, Germany, Brazil, and Nepal. These students are majoring in programs such as computer science, nursing, biochemistry and biotechnology, business, project management, finance, and psychology, all of which either require or recommend students engage in an internship or other experiential learning experience prior to graduation. When we add in the international student population from North Dakota State University and Concordia College, the Fargo-Moorhead community welcomes over 1,200 students from overseas. That’s a lot of students and a lot of underutilized talent waiting for an opportunity to shine. Those of us working in university career centers have seen employers struggling to fill internship roles and by opening up your opportunities to international students, you will increase your potential applicant pool by quite a bit.
Aren’t there a lot of requirements, cost, and paperwork associated with hiring an international student as an intern? The short answer to that question is no. The only cost associated is related to the time and effort put into interviewing, hiring, training, and supervising the student intern, the same as hiring a domestic student for the same role.