IAESTE Annual Review 2018

“I suppose I was not mature enough for the professional aspect of my
internships, but the whole experience and managing my way through all
of them has made me realise what I want to do in life as a professional,
but also socially in the same area. I had a very exponential growth in
my career and have a lot of responsibilities that I wouldn’t be able to
work on if I hadn’t had my IAESTE experience. Thank you IAESTE!” [Intern
from Macedonia, internships in Poland (2007), Spain (2008) and Austria
(2009)]. Mostly the aspiration to work in the international context and to
work abroad from the knowing why aspect was affected by the IAESTE
internship.
Chart 2: Responders Group
dispersed team, carry out independent tasks and communicate mainly
through information and communication technologies. 11% are
international business travelers, who take multiple short international
business trips to various locations.
IAESTE internship impacts the Career Development
potential
The research has found that an international work experience provides
opportunities to develop knowing why, knowing how and knowing whom
career competencies, what, however, many of us could find as an obvious
outcome. The interesting finding is that the internships mostly impacted the
“Knowing-why” aspect of the career competencies, meaning that IAESTE
experience provides interns with the energy, sense of purpose, motivation,
and identification with the world of work (Chart 3). This finding was also
supported by many qualitative comments. One of the respondents said:
Knowing HOW, includes career-relevant skills and work-related
knowledge, and understanding what is needed for performance. While
the chance to get professional experience connected to the fields of study
of the intern described in the work offer is usually one of the most important
criteria checked by students before deciding on the internship, research
has found that the transversal skills (also called soft skills) such as selfconfidence,
global mindset and intercultural and interpersonal skills are
mostly developed during the internship (Chart 4). Surprisingly, foreign
language skills were not usually a big influence. It can be explained by
the IAESTE selection process, where knowledge of foreign language is
checked before the internship, so this is usually a skill developed before
the internship starts.
Knowing WHOM consists of a range of intrafirm, interfirm, professional,
and social relations combined in a network and providing information
and channels for self-promotion. This was the less influenced career
development competencies area, and the research found that the emphasis
was on building social relationship skills (Chart 5). As other researchers
have found and can also be used to explain these results - it may be that
the respondents had never even thought of their social networks from a
personal benefit (career capital) perspective and that they tended not
Chart 3: Knowing WHY is the most impacted aspect of the career potential
Chart 4: Knowing HOW - IAESTE internship helps to develop self-confidence
and global mindset
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