In a professional internship, the traditional issues of employment are combined with training.
Among the meanings of the notion of practice , is the meaning as a training or an exercise that is carried out to improve certain skills. A professional internship , therefore, consists of the temporary exercise of a profession under the tutelage of some type of coach or teacher.
Professional practice is usually the first step of a student or a recent graduate in the labor market . This is a stage that combines typical issues of a job (the need to achieve a certain degree of productivity, the obligation to obey the orders of a superior, etc.) with elements more linked to training and learning.
Advantages of professional internships for companies
For a company , offering a professional internship is the opportunity to train employees who will later join the permanent workforce. On the other hand, it is also a way to save costs, since interns can work ad honorem or receive a symbolic payment despite carrying out important tasks within the firm's daily work.
One of the fundamental objectives of many companies when carrying out professional practice campaigns is the search for personnel without vices coming from the way of working of their competitors; Training an individual who has never worked in a certain position before has the benefit of being able to explain to him the way in which he must work , the limits he must respect, etc.
This occurs especially in companies that are dedicated to the development of software or artistic content, such as computer animation or image and sound design. Given that many of the professionals in these fields tend to train on their own, it is inherently difficult to shape their way of working to adapt it to a large group of people; When you add to this a career of several years in another firm, there may be too many habits to change and many times managers prefer to avoid the investment of time and money that this entails.
Whoever carries out a professional internship is usually under the tutelage of a mentor or coach .
Benefits for students and young graduates
From the point of view of the student who accesses a professional internship, it can be a unique and invaluable opportunity to enter the market of interest and acquire a level of experience that allows them to better understand their own abilities, their own limits. Many times, a professional internship results in an employment contract that lasts many years, but it is also possible that it serves to discover new goals through a deeper and more realistic understanding of the doors that a certain career can open.
The training that a company offers to its interns may be provided by specific personnel or by some of its employees; In the latter case, it is possible to organize rotating shifts so that, for example, the supervisors of the corresponding department take advantage of their days of less work to train newcomers, with the advantage of being able to transmit relevant knowledge and experiences to them, which arise from work. and not of the theory.
Professional practices and labor law
It is important to highlight that labor law governs the links between companies and practitioners. In some cases, such as in medicine or engineering, professional internships are essential so that, once the young person graduates or enters the workforce on a stable basis, they have the necessary tools and experience to function successfully.
A professional practice can be developed in multiple ways. In some cases, the intern only works half a day while, in others, he or she works full time . Regarding the duration of the contract , it usually varies between six and twelve months.