Despite efforts by many career services offices to broaden their focus to less traditional job sectors, many schools are still geared primarily toward helping students find positions in sectors like finance, consulting and marketing. But at Oxford University – thanks to a new recruitment portal developed by a recent graduate – entrepreneurial students now have a more direct path to opportunities in the U.K.’s start-up community.
Enternships.com is the brainchild of Rajeeb Dey, who graduated from Oxford last year and was president of student club Oxford Entrepreneurs. The new online platform is the first of its kind to successfully recruit business students for roles in entrepreneurial companies, with a particular focus on small businesses.
Its design is simple: Employers sign up and post placements, and potential enterns upload their CVs and apply for them. Employers can then manage the entire recruitment process – from posting a vacancy to interviewing and selecting candidates – via the website.
Enternships launched this past week to coincide with Europe’s first-ever SME week (May 6th – 14th). It has the support of several high-profile U.K. entrepreneurs, including Luke Johnson and Lastminute.com co-founders Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman. In its pilot phase, the site featured more than 160 enternship postings, which were advertised to students through the Oxford Entrepreneurs network, one of the largest networks of student entrepreneurs in Europe.
Dey believes that an internship at a small entrepreneurial business is the best way for business students to build the skills they’ll need to start their own businesses. “If you want to be an entrepreneur, other than setting up your own venture the best way to learn is to work in a start-up/small firm,” he says. “In the current economic climate in particular there are fewer jobs available in big corporations, so it’s about time we shifted our attention to the ‘long tail’ of the recruitment industry and looked at the millions of small but exciting firms out there.”
Scott Cain, deputy CEO of Make Your Mark, the U.K.’s campaign to increase entrepreneurial behavior, praised the new site. “Enternships provides a brilliant match between young people hungry for experience and dynamic, entrepreneurial firms,” he said in a statement. “And like all good businesses, the timing is spot on.”
