Ronald Gibson and Raluca Marinciu
The current neo-liberal valuation of higher education views universities as the provider of labour market resources and improved student job prospects for those undertaking a business subject (Green, Hammer and Star, 2009; Holmes, 2013; Tomlinson, 2012; Tymon, 2013). Employability literature debates the postmodern internship as the answer to prepare students for work (Gault et al., 2000), gain transferable skills (Hillman and Rotham, 2007) and improve long-term employability (Hergert, 2009). However, not all internships are created equal, or lead to graduate level employment. In this piece we are referring to an internship as being a minimum of nine months of work experience, which can also be identified as a ‘placement year’.
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