Scaling work-based learning is a priority at most colleges and universities. From the President on down, the word is out to the alumni base: we want your internship opportunities. This is how you can help.
So then you have an alum or parent, usually someone engaged already serving on a board, who comes through first. She has an internship opportunity at her marketing agency. Huzzah. She’s doing her part and fully intends to hire a current student from her alma mater. She forwards the job posting on her company’s website to the alumni office. The internship isn’t exclusive to students from her college, but she’s going to prioritize a student from there anyway.
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Unfortunately, what happens next at most institutions is somewhere between nothing and passive activity, and it’s why schools struggle to scale work-based learning.
“I’ll put it in Handshake and forward it to the department chair.” - Alumni Career Pro, 2026
You see, at most colleges and universities, there’s no internal talent function that actively works to learn the unique skills and interests of their students. Without dedicated resources to understand what students are interested in and qualified for, there’s no way to put the right opportunities in front of students and connect the alum with the internship and the students who are a good fit.
So what actually happens next when an alum shares an internship opportunity is the equivalent of a shoulder shrug. Perhaps the internship makes it into Handshake or whatever CRM the career services team is using, and maybe the forwarded email reaches a faculty member or department chair who might share the opportunity with students in a e-blast along with other content.
The key system that’s needed on a college campus to scale work-based learning isn’t broken; it just doesn’t exist yet.
University leaders want desperately to make sure their students graduate with resume-caliber experiences like internships, and alumni involvement is crucial to that success. Schools around the country have started in the wrong place, though: by first asking their graduates to create or share opportunities.
This is an example of cart before the horse.
Before colleges and universities ask their alums to send internship opportunities, internal systems must be developed to ensure the right opportunities are sent to the students who are most likely to be interested.
Data collection on student skills and interests needs to be a campus priority.
Going back to the board member sharing the internship at her marketing firm, the details of the opportunity are actually more specific. This is a summer internship, based in Washington, DC, that involves editing audio content for podcasts. The student will be involved in creating content that’s aligned with a political party, and so not only are their specific skills involved, but there’s also a potential misalignment with the work from a values perspective. Values is often a defining but underappreciated factor.
Colleges need to know more about their students at the individual level. Each student needs to be asked a series of questions, perhaps more than once along their journey, that will help connect the right students with the right opportunities.
Questions like:
If the opportunity is in-person, where do you hope to live over the summer or after graduation?
Are you interested in, and have time to commit to, virtual opportunities during the school year?
If you had to brag on yourself, what would be the skills you’d most be willing to promote?
What type of work are you most excited about?
What types of brands or organizations do you most align with? Are there any organizations that you’d be against working for?
During your college experience so far, what’s the single achievement you’re most proud of?
These questions need some massaging, but I’d also ask about references. Who is a faculty, staff member, coach, or former supervisor that we might call and ask about your candidacy? I’d get a sample too — an assignment they’re proud of.
We now have AI that can help match students who answer these questions in certain ways with opportunities that can help colleges and universities create a much more targeted approach to scaling work-based learning. Using AI to surface the right students for alumni-supplied opportunities, we can alleviate the bottleneck in alumni shops and career services.
Colleges and universities are actively working to differentiate themselves as schools that can facilitate experiential learning at scale. The problem is that the bottleneck is not on the outside; it’s on the inside. Once systems are in place to understand each student uniquely, the potential to build a thriving work-based learning ecosystem can take shape. Then we go to the alumni and parents to share opportunities.
Now, imagine that board member again who shared the marketing internship opportunity with her alma mater. In a school that’s built the matching function I’ve described, three qualified applicants who have experience editing audio and are aligned with their values arrive in the candidate pool. She’s thrilled and hires two of the applicants, who are both a great fit, instead of the one she planned. She tells her friend group, containing both graduates and non-alums, about her alma mater’s capabilities. Suddenly, with a modest process improvement, the scaling of work-based learning begins to come to life.
About Speaking Engagement
Recently, I added a new question to the onboarding form for partner institutions. I’m looking for members who are interested in writing guest articles for the site. I’m trying to select members who represent a wide range of backgrounds and institutional roles to add their reflections to the discourse here on SE.
If you’re up for writing an article, please give me a shout at ryan@speakingengagement.org and let me know, and also a sentence or two about what you might like to write about. I’m offering a small honorarium for those selected.
About the next Keynote
Coming up next, my colleague Kristin Hanson has the reigns of the Keynote pod with a terrific special guest, Dayana Kibilds. Day is AVP, Marketing & Community at SimpsonScarborough and also co-author of the book, Mailed It! Kristin and Day get into a wide-ranging discussion with digital strategies at the heart of the convo.
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