Internship Program Offers Hope, Opportunity to Macedonian Graduates
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| Macedonian students explore the Internship and Job Placement Portal, developed through the USAID Competitiveness Project. |
Thirty-six percent of the unemployed in Macedonia are young people who have completed their high school or university degrees. Yet, companies, who are looking for recruits, complain about a permanent shortage of talented people.
The USAID Competitiveness Project recently designed and launched the National Internship and Job Placement Program as a tool to bridge this gap. This program provides students with structured, short-term supervised work experience that allows them to gain experience in occupational areas that they are considering.
To boost this initiative, the Internship and Job Placement Portal, a web-based application was created. The site offers free registration for students and unemployed people searching for internships and jobs, as well as companies seeking interns and skilled employees.
To date, 244 students have registered on the Portal; of these, 50 are now interning with several Macedonian companies. It is expected that internships will lead to new jobs. “If a student shows outstanding results during the internship, we see that individual as an asset to our company in the long run,” said Biljana Sanev, Human Resources and Administration Department Manager at Stopanska Bank, which is providing internship opportunities for 18 students.
The Ministry of Education and Science and seven Macedonian universities are active partners in this initiative. Students in their final year at these universities are participating in the internship program and see it as a real asset. “Before starting my internship I had no hope, I didn’t know what to do with my career, I didn’t see any professional opportunities” stated Elena K., a soon-to-be Economics graduate from Saints Cyril and Methodius University. She credits her five-month internship experience with helping to clarify her future plans. “I do want to continue my studies and to specialize in marketing,” she reports.
The USAID internship amd job placement program promotes transparent hiring practices, and is helping to prevent braindrain of the most talented graduates who often need to leave Macedonia country to find adequate employment.
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