Assignment task:
You work as the Director of Internship Programs at City College, and you currently have more students interested in participating in internships than internship positions. An internship is an employment program offering experience to early career professionals, like students, in an occupation.
You would like more local businesses to join City College's Internship Program and agree to offer internships to your students. Students benefit a great deal from internships: they gain valuable industry experience, develop their career goals, network with industry professionals, build their resumes, and so on. Companies benefit from having interns as well.
Your college requires companies that offer internships to meet the following requirements for interns. First, the internship must involve substantive work supervised by someone in the organization. (While it's okay to have students perform some routine work, like copying or delivering interoffice mail, your students shouldn't spend all their work time making copies or picking up coffee as the goal is for students to gain experience in their field.) Second, the internship should last a semester, and it must involve at least 150 hours of onsite work experience during the semester, preferably 15-19 hours a week. The company should work with the student to establish regular work hours. Finally, companies have to develop a job description for the internship and keep records of time the student spent working which are provided to City College.
To participate in City College's Internship Program, students also have to meet requirements, including being at least 16 years of age, being a junior with at least a 3.0/4.0 GPA, being able to work between 15 and 19 hours per week, and having taken at least two courses in the area of the internship. In some instances, students may be able to receive academic credit for the internship, and this will require additional work from the student in coordinating with their career counselor and designated faculty member.
Companies also have to offer some training to their interns. Internships can be paid or unpaid positions, and there does not need to be a guarantee or offer of permanent work when the internship concludes. Paid internships must make the Federal minimum wage at a minimum. Students cannot be asked to work more than 19 hours per week. The company should assign a supervisor that determines work priorities and evaluates the student's work.
While companies benefit from having interns, it does require extra work to have an intern or interns at a company.
Show a persuasive email to local businesses to provide information about internships and ask them to work with you to set up one or more internships. To get started with the process, the employer simply needs to email you back, and you will work with the employer to write a job description, and then you will start recruiting students to apply to the internship. The employer can interview and hire an intern based on the applications you forward.
Tips:
- This is a persuasive writing situation, so consider carefully what kinds of details are needed to persuade the reader to act. In particular, consider how research can help messages be more persuasive.
- The paragraphs above include a lot of useful details, but the details are poorly organized. Consider how to organize information to maximize reader understanding.
- Design options (like headings, lists, tables, etc.) may be used in correspondence. Consider whether they would be useful in this message.