Field Placement vs. Internship

It’s that time of year when we’ve sent out our super-talented students to complete their Field Placement, the final requirement of their post-graduate certificate in public relations here at Centennial College.

Every year, I find myself educating employers and students alike on the difference between Field Placement and Internship. To be clear:

A Field Placement is a course, a requirement of the program in order to complete their certificate. As such the student has assignments — a reflective journal, a learning plan, and a mid-placement presentation for example — that will be evaluated and graded. The Placement is for eight-weeks , full time and students must report to a seasoned communications professional. It is the intention that students put into practice that which they have learned in the program: media relations, social media, communications planning, event management, writing, graphic design and visual communications. It’s experiential learning at it’s finest.

Because they are still students, legally, they should not be paid. In Ontario:

(1) The student exemption states that the Employment Standards Act does not apply to an individual who performs work as a part of a program approved by a secondary school board, college of applied arts and technology, private career college, or university. This includes co-ops, internships and other experiential learning placements approved by high schools, colleges of arts and technology, private career colleges, and universities. (Source)

As such, the College covers the student’s insurance during the eight-week period. Both employer and students sign a document to this effect.

At Centennial, we have a great reputation with our employer partners — agencies, corporate, government and non-profits — of providing exceptional students who are job-ready. Are they perfect? No, but that’s the point of the Placement: invaluable on-the-job learning in a safe environment working with supervisors who are committed to the profession and to ‘paying it forward’ and spending the time to mentor the student and give them a rewarding and robust experience during their eight weeks.

Does that mean every employer has to give a student a media release to write? Or a communications strategy? No, but they should be able to contribute, or try the first draft and learn from the approval process. The should not be doing filing, fetching coffee or dry cleaning, or walking the supervisor’s dog. That’s why we have students and supervisor complete a Learning Plan in the first two weeks of Placement. It’s a mutually agreed upon plan on what the student can try, learn and contribute. Coffee-fetching is not on the list.

I like to call the Field Placement ‘career dating’. It’s safe. They may love you and want a commitment at the end of eight weeks (a job offer) but you may not love them the same way so decide to amicably part company (usually with a reference). And vice versa. But sometimes, the timing is right, the budget is there and a student is offered employment and accepts. We LOVE when that happens. At the beginning of week nine, the student becomes an employee and is paid. Sometimes there is an offer to extend the Field Placement, maybe to 10 weeks because a particular account is busy. That’s when we make it clear: the Field Placement is ONLY EVER eight weeks. After that, the student is a graduate and as such should be offered a paid contract.

So what then is an Internship? In many organizations, there is an internship program. It is paid and is seen as the gateway into the organization. The company’s own ‘bootcamp’. There is usually the intent to offer full time employment but because the internship has a finite time period (usually four months), there is no obligation to hire, especially if it is not a right fit for either party. Because of the oft-confused concepts and payment obligations (student vs. graduate is the clearest way to determine), many organizations only offer internships to graduates. Students finish their field placement and look for a paid internship program as the first rung of their career ladder. Sometimes, our students go to a four month internship but for the first eight weeks, they complete their course requirements and submit a final supervisor’s assessment at the end, as is required.

A lot has been written on the ethics of paid vs unpaid and yes, sometimes it’s ambiguous. We’ve seen some organizations run a business model based on rotating stream of interns and in those cases, the experiences for the student are neither rewarding nor fruitful. For that reason, we vet the employers we partner with to ensure a real experiential learning opportunity for our students. We want students to know their value and what they are able to contribute. And it’s often more than what is expected by the employer. We listen carefully to our student’s feedback. If necessary, if there is conflict or something goes sideways, we are available for counsel to both the student and the employer — another benefit of the Field Placement model.

If you are a seasoned communications professional who can offer a talented post-grad PR student an eight-week experiential learning opportunity at your office, contact me at dlindell@centennialcollege.ca! We have two rounds of Field Placements per year: April 1 and August 1. Start dates are flexible.