Swift and simple way to boost business

Dunedin (Friday, 15 September 2017) – It’s as simple as a few quick conversations.

On 20 September, a ‘speed dating’ event between students and businesses will launch Dunedin’s Sexy Summer Jobs business internship programme for the 2017/2018 season. The event, to be held at the Otago Polytechnic, will provide an opportunity for students and businesses to discuss opportunities and cement internship placements.

Enterprise Dunedin Business Development Advisor Chanel O’Brien says the programme meets business needs, creates high value jobs, retains skills and talent in the city and contributes to the economic growth of Dunedin.

Since 2009, 93 businesses across a wide range of sectors have been involved with the programme. There have been 318 internships resulting in 216 positions. While the programme started with an ICT focus, it now attracts a wide range of sectors.

At this month’s event, small and medium sized businesses from sectors such as ICT, biotech and health technologies, education and research, creative, primary production, engineering and niche manufacturing will be able to meet students from the University of Otago and the Otago Polytechnic to find potential interns.

Ms O’Brien says, “Businesses use the programme to reduce the commercial risk in taking on an untried person. It provides the opportunity for market and product development which might not otherwise happen.”

The Tarn Group Marketing Executive Dan Thomas agrees. “The internship programme has been perfect for us. It connects us with keen students wanting to make the most of their summer break and enables us to bring someone into our team who has a different skill set that can help us in our business. The programme also gives us the opportunity to hire different people who, with the normal commitment of a full-time contract, we might not take the chance in hiring.”

TracMap Chief Operations Officer Grant Gibson says, "Without dedicated resource to keep our social media interesting, we had held off starting on the journey. Our intern has taken on the role and created the structure for our social media presence, generated a lot of great material and has started to train our sales team as to what content to provide. This has been a cultural shift for the company."

The 2016/17 season resulted in 46 interns placed in 31 businesses, with 32 of interns employed and of these 22 were new positions.

Businesses reported high levels of satisfaction with the quality of interns for 2016/17 (93% are very satisfied) and the quality of the programme (89% are very satisfied).

Interns are also impressed with the programme, reporting through the annual survey that the top three benefits of completing a Sexy Summer Jobs internship are building relationships with business people and industry experts, working with experienced teams and adding value to a business.

Adam Sherlaw came to Igtimi Ltd, an electronics and communications technology development business, through the programme and is now a full time employee.

“Having the chance to meet with local industry experts as an undergrad is invaluable. I participated in an internship four years ago and I am still enjoying my work today.”

Ms O’Brien says the most common internship roles for 2016/17 were client support, marketing and communications, and technical support and similar trends are emerging for the 2017/18 season.

© Scoop Media