Among the other harsh realities of a startup company is the ground reality that an average university student, looking for internships may prefer to intern at a larger company over startups because they know what they will get.
In a bid to make it easier for reputable startups to find students who want to work at a startup, Sydney co-working community Tank Stream Labs (TSL) has partnered with edutech startup Austern International to connect its resident companies to enthusiastic young talent for paid internships.
TSL houses more than 80 startups and over 270 inspiring entrepreneurs who benefit from the community and network that TSL offers. As a resident of TSL, Austern was co-founded to provide millennials with real-world training at some of the world’s largest tech companies and startups.
Since its inception in 2014, over 200 students from around the world have taken part in the Career Bootcamp, Austern’s signature program. The program consists of workshops, business interactions and applicable methods that will help interns stand out in a competitive job market. Unlike a common, run-of-the-mill internship, millennials can actually work on a real business challenge, learn how to handle tough situations and present their ideas to senior executives.
On the other hand, Austern also develops strategies to help organizations attract, engage and retain millennials. From the beginning, the Austern vision has been to connect entrepreneurial millennials to employers and help companies attract young talent in a different way.
The Millennial Career Bootcamp offers employers an opportunity to solve a challenge that the company is facing…using the company’s own business, marketing, design or coding skills. Austern also provides interns with ongoing coaching and feedback to drive forward their performance before they present their solutions back to the employer.
Witnessing the profitability and the tremendous potential of Austern, while also seeing increased demand for interns from resident startups, Tank Stream Labs’ CEO Bradley Delamare decided to approach Austern about a partnership to ensure startups get access to “a certain caliber of interns.”
Interns will be chosen from a network of Austern bootcamp alumni. They will be placed into eight week-long internships, with around 10 percent of Tank Stream Labs startups signing on to the program. These startups are looking for interns across a variety of disciplines, from law to marketing, design, and development. Delamare says,
The interns are all Austern alumni, so they have developed the agility and skills to thrive while working at a startup. We see this as a real win-win. The startups in TSL need interns and the interns need exposure to working life in all its forms – not just large corporates with 10 year old internship programs.
The internships will be paid and also, the deal will focus on providing interns with valuable learning and development experiences. Startups have more to offer interns than large corporations because they can easily make an obvious impact. With a small team, tasks are less segmented, and interns have the opportunity to contribute across the company.
This partnership is just the latest in a rapidly growing list for Austern. The growth of the program has been aided through official partnerships with Monash University and RMIT University, where participation can count for official course credit in the university’s arts degree and business degree respectively.
