{"id":5095,"date":"2012-10-30T09:35:28","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T22:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/?p=5095"},"modified":"2012-10-30T09:36:19","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T22:36:19","slug":"business-value-work-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2012\/10\/business-value-work-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Business value from work experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Work experience for teenage school students is a long established\u00a0practice, and my daughter is getting excited about the prospect of working for a week next year.<\/p>\n

\"FIling<\/a>

Work experience should be more than just filing and sorting pages<\/p><\/div>\n

As a parent and (previously!) student, I can see a lot of value in the\u00a0program.<\/p>\n

Kids get to try out potential careers\u00a0to make more informed\u00a0decisions and they get to see what ‘the real world’ is like. It also teaches them some responsibility and independence and gives them new experiences and contacts.<\/p>\n

My daughter is already starting to see the meaning of ‘it’s not what you know but who you know’.<\/p>\n

Mostly its value is that they are learning by doing<\/a>, not just listening to someone else’s knowledge.<\/p>\n

Work experience good for business?<\/h2>\n

The other side of the story is how work experience impacts on the businesses\u00a0hosting the students.<\/p>\n

Overall, it must be good or the program probably would have died out many years ago. Or at least it can’t be too bad or costly!<\/p>\n

How about in small and micro businesses, though?<\/h2>\n

A couple of years ago, my daughter’s school asked for business\u00a0contacts in the writing<\/a> and printing industries so I offered to take a work experience student. It fell through but it did get me thinking about the concept.<\/p>\n

Some of the issues I considered were:<\/p>\n