Text/Hua Zhuoma Xu Yu

On the last day of July, Yi, a sophomore at Shenzhen University, began her fifth internship. In three months, she will also move on to her next internship.

Nowadays, like Yiyi, there are more and more college students who start "roll internships" in their freshman and sophomore years. While asking on social media whether freshman and sophomore "internships" were necessary, they were involved in companies large and small in their anxiety about being left behind.

Behind the "roll internship", there is the lack of college students' sense of professional security, and there are also reasons for the lag in college education.

Incoming: Being wrapped in employment anxiety can only roll up internships

"In the circle of friends, everyone was constantly studying for the exam for a smooth job in two or three years, and I was wrapped in anxiety and didn't want to take the exam, so I went to find an internship." In the first semester of his freshman year, Yiyi was affected by the atmosphere of "roll certificate" and "roll internship" of his classmates, and began to look for internship opportunities in his resume. But because most internships require work experience, it wasn't until the first semester of her sophomore year that she landed a position at a small business.

After getting started, Iichi's internship has not stopped. She has worked as a research assistant, an accounting firm auditor, Didi operation, etc., and is now engaged in Lalala products. After this internship, she will continue to accumulate Internet internship experience to prepare for joining Internet giants in two years.

About 40% of Yiyi's sophomore students have already had three to four internship experiences. She said that most of the students in the class who keep "rolling internships" are for the smooth employment after graduation.

Lin Lin, a sophomore student at Communication University of China, was also promoted by the atmosphere of "roll internship" on surrounding students and social media, and joined the "roll internship" team. In the second semester of her sophomore year, she began her first internship, working as a Xiaohongshu operation in an Internet factory. "I didn't start early, one-third of my classmates in the same major started their internships in the first semester of their sophomore year, and a small number started their freshman year."

There are also some college students who find their future career direction through "roll internships". Xiamen University's second-year graduate student in education is one of them. Today, she has seven internships and shares her internship experience on social media. "I want to know what I like and what I am suitable for through the internship."

At present, more and more junior college students are actively or passively "rolled" into the workplace, and then "rolled" head internships, and "rolled" internships. In order to pursue a "glamorous" resume and obtain a few "admission tickets" to the head units and enterprises, most interns will choose to work in an internship position for three months and then jump to another gradient. Gladly introduced that of his seven internships, they are basically three months, and the shortest is only half a month.

Missing sense of occupational security

Behind the "roll internship" of junior college students, there is the sense of occupational security that college students generally lack, and there is also the growing gap between college education and market demand.

Tong Zhigang, a career development broker with 12 years of experience in employment counseling, told China News Agency that the "roll internship" of junior college students shows that "post-00" college students generally lack a sense of professional security, in order to alleviate the psychological pressure caused by the lack of security, the most direct way is to join the internship as soon as possible to increase the so-called internship "halo".

This lack of occupational security is mainly caused by the current severe employment environment. In the past two years, every time we enter the graduation season and employment season, there will be news of a "record high" job seeker entering the market, and at the same time, the wave of layoffs such as "layoffs of Internet giants" has also continued. In this employment environment, employment anxiety is transmitted at the first level, and younger college students begin to prepare for employment in two or three years.

Chen Xiaoxia, a senior consultant of talent development who used to teach at Jiageng College of Xiamen University, told China News Service that the internship of college students shows that there are certain problems in the current training methods of colleges and universities. On the one hand, the textbooks of the entire university lag behind the development of the times and market demand; On the other hand, colleges and universities cultivate students with insufficient practical ability.

Tong Zhigang also said that as the efficiency of technological upgrading in various industries becomes higher and higher, the lag of college education itself is becoming more and more obvious. For example, some majors are very academic, but there are no very suitable positions in the job market, such as education, ancient Chinese literature, etc.

In the case of relatively lagging university education, companies began to screen job seekers based on internship experience.

Xie Zhao, who has 13 years of experience as a headhunting consultant and 3 years as a recruitment director of insurance companies, introduced to China News Service that for enterprises, three or four internship experiences are ideal, because these people may be stronger in terms of professional skills and practical ability.

Out: "Sky Garden" is ultimately unable to meet long-term challenges

Under the superposition of the dual factors of the grim employment environment and the lagging training mode of colleges and universities, college students can only roll academic qualifications and "roll internships". However, the result of "roll internship" may also be "out" in the workplace.

The above three interns introduced that when they go to internship in their freshman and sophomore years, they generally do not have access to the core work content of the post, and they rarely get professional skills upgraded. Iichi recalled that the busiest time during his internship was to work from morning until 12 o'clock. But after the internship, the most impressive thing was to label more than <>,<> doorknobs on the computer within a week, and see the glamorous part of the investment industry.

At the same time, freshman and sophomore years are the most scheduled courses in four years, but under the internship requirement of "at least three days a week", they can only ensure a smooth internship by skipping classes. On social media, college students shared how to practice while "taking water lessons" without losing grade points.

In order to successfully get the "admission ticket" to the ideal unit in two or three years, junior college students may also be "out" in the workplace in advance while not getting skills upgraded.

Bu Silin, headhunting director of Beijing Haywalker Management Consulting Co., Ltd., introduced to China News Agency Guoshi Direct that the company has docked more than 4000 Internet manufacturers, real estate, chemical and other fields of enterprises, more than <>,<> job seekers, now many graduates will have seven or eight or even a dozen internship experiences on their resumes, and general enterprises will bypass these graduates, because there will be insufficient knowledge accumulation and insufficient stamina after work.

At the same time, if you intern too early, you may not be able to cope with the professional challenges of the future. Tong Zhigang said that junior college students have insufficient professional reserves, and they may not get positive feedback from work during internships, which will consume their curiosity and interest in careers.

"Internships are originally the practice and extension of theoretical knowledge, and internships that are too early and have no relevant professional knowledge background seem to be rich in experience, but in fact they are like 'hanging gardens'. In the end, what is left may not be the 'halo' of professional background, but more likely to be a lack of career view caused by unhealthy experiences. And a professional without the support of a healthy and mature career outlook and an unstable foundation is difficult to cope with the cruel professional competition in the future. Tong Zhigang said.

How to reconcile the contradiction between college education and market demand?

It is not recommended for junior college students to "roll internship", so how should college students find their own career direction and form a correct career view, and how should enterprises and universities slowly reconcile the contradiction between market demand and the lagging training mode of colleges and universities?

In the face of the current situation that college education lags behind and enterprises cannot recruit suitable candidates. At present, the practice of many companies is to start recruiting one year in advance, train college students and select talents who are eventually retained through one year. For example, many Internet giants have summer internship programs, through summer and senior year internships, to determine the final retention and their positions.

Li Hong, deputy director of organization and development of the human resources department of Nova Health, introduced to China News Service that Nova Health began to recruit one year in advance four years ago, and after six months or one year of training, students can be converted to regular employees after rapid growth and matching Nova job standards. "Basically, through training, students will be familiar with the business processes of the enterprise, master the necessary skills for the position, integrate into the corporate culture, and the overall training effect is good."

However, in Tong Zhigang's view, this is a way for enterprises to "pay" for the slow transformation of college education, and the ideal way is for universities and enterprises to jointly cultivate talents.

For example, colleges and universities can invite more companies to explain the business logic, industry knowledge, common positions, and knowledge that each position needs to be reserved for students from freshman to junior year. After three years of training, students have an understanding of diversified positions, know their favorite industries and positions, and at the same time learn to have relatively strong thinking skills, form a relatively healthy and mature career view, and then go to internship, but will be twice as effective with half the effort.

Chen Xiaoxia also believes that colleges and universities should jointly cultivate talents with enterprises, for example, they can adopt a dual tutor system to combine textbooks with university experiments and cutting-edge applications of enterprises. "For example, the artificial intelligence laboratories of some universities have cooperated with Huawei, JD.com, etc., which is a relatively good trend." She said that compared with vocational education, ordinary colleges and universities cultivate research-oriented talents, but they should also increase the combination of production, education and research.

(Due to the requirements of the interviewee, Yiyi, Xinran, and Lin Lin in the text are pseudonyms)