Graduate internship – characteristics, conditions, possibilities

At a time when finding a job after graduation is almost a miracle, a graduate internship may be a solution for an unemployed graduate. It is true that you cannot earn coconuts on an internship, but you gain professional experience and contacts in the industry, valuable on the labor market.

How to go about organizing an internship and who can apply for it? The internship itself can last from three months to a maximum of one year. The office pays the trainee the so-called The internship scholarship, which currently amounts to PLN 988, is 120 percent of the unemployment benefit, and also pays contributions to the Social Insurance Institution. There are two ways to get into an internship. You can express your readiness to take up an internship and wait for the PUP to send us for it.

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You can also look for an employer who will accept us for an internship and go to an intermediary with such an offer. This is a better solution, because you have a guarantee that you will get the internship at the company where you actually want to do it and which is interesting due to future career plans – the employment office can send you for an internship anywhere.

Contrary to appearances, finding a company that would agree to accept an intern is not difficult. The employer does not bear any costs of organizing the internship, and gains a “free” employee, sometimes for many months. However, it should be remembered that it is ultimately PUP that will decide whether to send the graduate for an internship or not. The chances for an internship are the greater, the more money the office has been granted for this form of activation of the unemployed.

The key factor, however, will be the declaration of the company in which the internship takes place, whether it will employ an intern after completing the internship under an employment contract or not. It is no secret that companies that repeatedly accept interns, but do not employ anyone after the internship, are not favorites in employment offices.

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The employers who offer a job after the internship are different – signing an internship agreement with such a company is almost a guarantee of getting it. A little hint – internships are most likely to be organized by public institutions – but they are the least frequently employed. Why? Because in order to hire an employee, they have to organize a competition for each position, and usually there will be candidates who have more experience and better references from the graduate.

What are the conditions for applying for an internship?

The basic condition is to register as unemployed at the employment office. Preferably with a master’s degree, possibly an engineer or bachelor’s degree in hand (remember that no more than a year should pass from the moment of defense). Also, you must not be 27 years of age on the date you apply for the traineeship. You must be registered at the place of operation of the office where the application is submitted. Of course, for example, the office from Bydgoszcz may finance a person registered in that city an internship with an employer based in Rzeszów or anywhere else. In the application for a referral for an internship (it can be downloaded from the office’s website), you must indicate the employer with whom the internship will take place (unless the application concerns an internship referral by the office itself).

The documents must be accompanied by the internship program, with a list of tasks that will be performed during it, as well as a list of skills that will be acquired during its duration. Depending on the office and its financial capabilities, waiting for a referral for an internship may take from two weeks to even several months.

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If something goes wrong during the internship

You should choose a company consciously. Ending the internship prematurely, violating the employee’s duties (and this is how a graduate of the internship is treated), for example by absenteeism or leaving the workplace, will make the PUP request the reimbursement of the costs of organizing the internship and the money paid as part of the scholarship. The only way to end the internship ahead of time without having to return money is to find a job – it does not matter whether we are hired by the employer with which the internship is taking place, or someone else. What matters for PUPs will be the fact that the trainee will lose the status of an unemployed person and will disappear from his records.

Katarzyna Piojda