This could work for internships, I agree, but I think it will be a tough sell for permanent employment.
You are setting up a trade. Work somewhere that you normally wouldn't work, because you have other great options and very few Summers until graduation. In return, we will ensure you learn a lot, work on cool stuff, AND receive prestigious branding to put on your resume in the future. Here is why I'm skeptical on intern-to-fulltime conversion.
I remember when I was an undergrad, two of the most prestigious Summer internships in tech were IBM's Extreme Blue and Microsoft (hard to believe now). While I don't have the hard data, all my anecdotal evidence suggests the number of intern-to-fulltime conversions were amazingly high at Microsoft and atrocious at IBM.
Why? My theory is Microsoft interns expected their fulltime experience at Microsoft to be more or less the same as their internships (whether or not that's true is another story). However, all the Extreme Blue interns knew that they were in a special, experimental IBM program and if they were to join fulltime, it would definitely not feel like Extreme Blue all year long. However, as a resume brand and an educational Summer, both options were still attractive.
Which brings us back to the proposal. The program is giving the interns a taste of something they can't quite get by joining up full-time with the startups. If a guy had his pick of places to intern, he might intern at the "Extreme Startup Internship" to learn all about how to found his own startup while doing cool stuff, or he might go because it will help him land the Google / Facebook job. Either way, when graduation comes around, my guess is he's either founding a startup or acing his job interviews. The more he loves interning at the startup, the more he should love the thought of founding one, and the other cohorts in the Summer program are the perfect pool of co-founders.
Very cool idea though; it would be a great success to have the Extreme Blue of startups internships, and even a few conversions would be a big win.
Heh. I've worked on staff at IBM Extreme Blue for four years, and actually, our conversion rate is well above atrocious. (I'm guessing your undergrad years were a few years back, though, since you mention us & Microsoft but not our biggest rival for talent, Google).
In any case, though, you're right on the money in the bulk of what you're saying. Top-quality interns are highly aware of what they're doing, and what their goals are for a given internship. A prestigious internship should deliver on all of the following: exciting challenges, a high level of autonomy/entrepreneurship, a decent salary, and an impressive top line in the "experience" section of your resume.
From my perspective, here's what a company must do in order to attract top interns, and convert them to full-time hires:
* Be a great place to work (for interns and full-timers). Your interns will be with you for at least three months. They'll know within three days whether you treat your employees well.
* Give the interns real meaningful work to do, where they can clearly see the impact to the company's customers & its bottom line.
If you can do those two things, you'll attract great interns, and should be able to net some great full-timers as well.
You are setting up a trade. Work somewhere that you normally wouldn't work, because you have other great options and very few Summers until graduation. In return, we will ensure you learn a lot, work on cool stuff, AND receive prestigious branding to put on your resume in the future. Here is why I'm skeptical on intern-to-fulltime conversion.
I remember when I was an undergrad, two of the most prestigious Summer internships in tech were IBM's Extreme Blue and Microsoft (hard to believe now). While I don't have the hard data, all my anecdotal evidence suggests the number of intern-to-fulltime conversions were amazingly high at Microsoft and atrocious at IBM.
Why? My theory is Microsoft interns expected their fulltime experience at Microsoft to be more or less the same as their internships (whether or not that's true is another story). However, all the Extreme Blue interns knew that they were in a special, experimental IBM program and if they were to join fulltime, it would definitely not feel like Extreme Blue all year long. However, as a resume brand and an educational Summer, both options were still attractive.
Which brings us back to the proposal. The program is giving the interns a taste of something they can't quite get by joining up full-time with the startups. If a guy had his pick of places to intern, he might intern at the "Extreme Startup Internship" to learn all about how to found his own startup while doing cool stuff, or he might go because it will help him land the Google / Facebook job. Either way, when graduation comes around, my guess is he's either founding a startup or acing his job interviews. The more he loves interning at the startup, the more he should love the thought of founding one, and the other cohorts in the Summer program are the perfect pool of co-founders.
Very cool idea though; it would be a great success to have the Extreme Blue of startups internships, and even a few conversions would be a big win.