Extern to Hire
We have an established network of externship sites, but I want to know how to improve our externship to hire rates. My management team believes we should have between 30-40% ETH, we are currently at 24%, last year ended at 28%. The school has been in the community for many years and is highly thought of, but I sometimes feel that we are using the same sites over and over for "free labor". Can someone help us establish a means to improve this metric?
Hi Vickey
Good point that maybe you need new externship sites. In that way you can set the expectation that hiring the extern is the goal. To that it is important that the student is super work ready and has great training in skills, theory, and work ethic. And reminder that every school needs someone performing community outreach tasks and be OUT in the community every day. Why don't you suggest trying this strategy for 6 months to show results? Susan
I too understand, What I have done is any site not hiring our students after having externs for 2 months I don't use them again for two month and ask the office manager are they seeking to hire if not I will not utilize them. I have my team when cold calling for externship asking are they also hiring at that time or in the near future. This kind of gives us an idea of what they are looking to do. We have really been utilizing urgent cares and hospitals for externship and seems to work out for our hiring needs.
This is great, Doris. What you are doing is educating your externship sites about your expectations. You are getting them to think beyond the free help they are getting. Maybe they need guidelines on how to evaluate the extern in relation to job openings. Surprisingly people don't always know how to do that. Of course your externs must be super prepared in terms of technical job skills and employment strategies. Thanks, Susan
Dr. Susan Schulz
We require externship sites for our students as well. It is easy to fall back on the same sites for training and end up with effective training(which is the goal) but not end up placing a student. We start early with our students and ask them to help locate their own externship sites. This gives the student the chance of externing where they feel comfortable. This also allows them to extern closer to home and allow us to cultivate a new externship site. Many times new externship sites are looking for employees and want a chance to get to know the student first. So my suggestion is get the student involved in the process early to cultivate new sites. Exposure is everything in placement.
Tom,
Good points about externship. You want students to have a great and meaningful experience. But it would be great if the experience were also an extended job interview! Making changes and doing new things is always a challenge. But there are so many opportunities to discover that you don't know are out there. It is also important to train the students so they know this can be a job interview. And to set the expectations of the externship coordinator that this is about hiring the student. A good reason to find out the specific skills and knowledge that is needed in each workplace. Then build your curriculum around that. Susan
Dr. Susan Schulz
I agree, we make it a point that if a site does not hire some of our externship students then we stop sending students until they have a job opening. At first the employer thought they would be ok, but now have realized that they do have an advantage in seeing a live resume (student)perform allowing them to identify the right person for their organization.
Leticia,
We have spoken with externship site coordinators who tell us all their students are placed from their externship placements. This interested us so much we decided to learn why. What this school did is made sure the students were fully trained and competent before starting their externships. The students were also well trained in employment skills. This made it easy for the company to see the value of hiring the student. Not sending students doesn't really solve the problem except if the company needed the students as free labor. Thanks, Susan
Dr. Susan Schulz
I agree, we have excellent experience with our externship sites. We planned 2 externship rotations depending on the course content. First rotation after completing basic knowledge ( motivation for students). Second at the end of the program (application of clinical skills),when they are fully trained and competent. Our experience, the site take 2 or 3 student as employees after last externship rotation.
jorge,
This is interesting to have 2 externships. We would like to know more. How does it increase retention? It seems that early on the first externship helps the student learn about the job and workplace. Ideally they get excited and motivated to continue their studies and get to externship 2 and ideally a job. Thanks for this innovative concept. Susan
Dr. Susan Schulz
