UAE inducts interns into workforce

Ritika Sharma / Emirates Business

The days of interns standing near copying machines and doing trivial jobs assisting their seniors seem to
be on their way out in the UAE’s corporate sector, as more businesses
endeavour to create well-rounded
intern experiences.
Reports state that interns from year 2015-2017 will form around 25 percent of mainstream corporate workforce in the Middle East region by 2025. And, nearly 10 to 15 percent of them would hold a significant decision-making position in the corporate sector. UAE, as a pioneer in impressive trends within workforce, is living up to its commitment of empowering youth by giving them more meaningful internship opportunities.
“We are looking at becoming a knowledge economy in the coming decades and for this, the industry players are contributing in their own way. What echoes the UAE’s commitment for more empowered workforce is the fact that more number of
companies is offering tailor-made internship opportunities that can eventually benefit both the company and the intern,” said Alain Dehaze,
CEO of Adecco, a leading HR-solutions company and a global staffing
services firm.
One such recently-launched initiative of Adecco — ‘CEO for One Month’ — programme has garnered huge response from both local and expat students in the UAE. Under this programme, Adecco search for candidates to fill the latest edition of the innovative internship programme.
“Though the company received thousands of applications for the programme, only 50 were chosen to work alongside senior management in Adecco’s regional headquarters, and just one talented young professional was further chosen to serve as Adecco’s global CEO for a period of four weeks,” Dehaze pointed out.
The CEO for One Month internship programme, along with Adecco’s Way to Work Internship programme, is aimed at providing recent graduates with hands-on experience and real-world insight into the management and daily operations of a Fortune 500 company.
“Notably, with thousands of UAE students slated to graduate in 2016, young pre-professionals are set to flood the professional markets in search of productive internship opportunities in the coming months. We want to place them with top workplaces that offer them a chance to showcase their calibre in actual demanding conditions and a scope to convert the internship into a full-time job,” said Sagar Malhotra, who works a HR solutions company in Dubai.
From an employer’s point of view, internships are an effective way of spotting talent and encouraging interest in industries. Industry experts underline a growing demand for interns across industries as more and more employers seek to tap into the pool of fresh-skilled talent.