Virtual Internship is More effective than On-Ground Internship

4 min readApr 23, 2021

**Virtual Internship is More effective than On-Ground Internship**

Virtual internship or remote internship is an opportunity for students to gain work experience from home. The pandemic has forced a lot of organizations to cancel on-ground internships and switch to virtual internships. Surprisingly, virtual internships have proven to be beneficial and effective. It provides an alternate option to those students who are unable to do the traditional on-ground internship.

Virtual internships provide benefits to both the organization and the intern. The organization can recruit a large number of applicants and therefore hire the most suitable and competent intern. At the same time, interns can also have the chance to work for any organization of their choice without any location issues. This benefit allows interns to work for international firms and gain a global working experience. Virtual internships remove location barriers.

Virtual internships save space, time, and cost. One of the main problems with hiring interns is accommodating them in their new workplace. Hiring interns require the organization to provide them with a working space and desk only for a short period. Hiring intern for on-site internships incurs cost. The interns can use their commuting time to do effective and productive office work. The flexible nature of virtual internship increases efficiency.

The interns can manage their time on their own. They are not constantly pressured by their superiors to complete their work. As the interns are mostly college students, they have to manage their academics and work. As the interns can do their work according to their schedule, their work turns out to be effective. A virtual internship allows interns to learn one of the most valuable lessons of life known as time management. On top of that, as they work in a familiar setting without any discomfort, interns can focus more on their work and therefore increase efficiency. According to research conducted by a professor at Ohio University, working at home increases efficiency than performing dull tasks in a cubicle.

According to Pew Research Center, internet literacy is an important career skill and interns can improve their internet literacy through virtual internships. Virtual internships are mainly offered in the areas of research and analysis, digital marketing, social media management, and digital communications. As the meetings take place on online platforms, it is necessary to be familiar with the technology. As most of the work is done using technology rather than manually, the work done tends to be highly accurate. Hence, it increases efficiency. Along with efficiency, virtual internships make interns become tech savvies.

Due to the pandemic, there has been a growth of three times in providing virtual internships and hiring virtual interns. According to a survey conducted by Internshala, in 2020, hiring virtual interns has increased from 39% — 63%. This trend is continuing to grow. Post Covid-19 it is expected that 29% of the organizations will provide virtual internships with newly implemented work from home policies. After trying virtual internships for the first time, a lot of organizations prefer to offer virtual internships due to their efficiency and effectiveness.

The working environment plays a vital role in working effectively. There are times when the office environment can reduce efficiency. Taking breaks when needed from time to time without anybody’s approval, makes it simpler for interns to work efficiently. Office politics, informal communication with colleagues, or a non-work-related event in the office can distract employees and reduce efficiency. In virtual internships, as there no such things, and interns can work in a peaceful environment without any distractions, and as said earlier, the work can be done swiftly and efficiently.

Coming to nature’s point of view, internships that provide working from home has lead to less wastage of time that was previously required for moving from one place to another. Reduced transport vehicles on the road have reduced the pollution level significantly and the respiratory system of people especially with breathing problems have been benefitted. The unfair amounts of money charged by the cab drivers during peak times have now been used for paying Wi-Fi bills at the minimum and led to money-saving.

Internships can be hard for newbies that are nervous to work in crowded areas. Noise levels and unpleasant conversations between colleagues can reduce their confidence and work pattern. Hence, having a cozy work environment with their choice of music and volume enables the interns to work with their best energy and efforts.