Internship Opportunities for Businesses

If your business is time or resource poor or looking to bring fresh ideas and a new perspective into your workplace - then it may be time to consider engaging with students from Deakin University.

Since 2009 Whitehorse City Council and Deakin Business School (DBS) have been industry partners and advocated for meaningful on-the-job training to ready students for their careers in the workforce. The Work Integrated Learning team has several opportunities available for local businesses to engage students and gain perspectives on the latest theory and techniques useful for running a business.

These opportunities are typically offered to penultimate or final year students as a credit toward their degree. Students must also complete assessment tasks, which explore and recognise their understanding and interpretation of the work opportunity they have experienced

Business Requirements

To be eligible to participate, the business/ organisation must meet the following criteria:

Key requirements:

Hosts must have more than 5 employees to ensure adequate student supervision and teamwork.
Unpaid internships must be between 80-160 hours.
Paid internships can be longer, but students are assessed by Deakin only for the first 80-160 hours.
Internships can include a range of operational business duties, discipline specific tasks, research, or project work.
Students should be supervised by a relevant professional in that area. E.g. HR interns should be supervised by an experienced HR professional or within a People & Culture team.
A nominated supervisor is required for any intern and will be required to complete a short evaluation of the student at the completion of the internship.

Eligible Discipline Areas

Other Consultancy Programs

If you do not have the capacity to undertake a formal internship, but have a project or area of the business which needs additional support, you can take part in one of our business consulting programs:

Australian Business Consultancy (ABC): 6-week student team-based consulting projects
Business Development Clinic: 8-week student team-based business growth projects

Consulting programs are all facilitated and supervised by a Deakin academic and only require 3-5 short online meetings over the program duration.

Students in their second year are encouraged to take part in these team-based programs, as a first step to engaging with industry and building their experience.

Benefits to Businesses

Increased capacity to take on organisational tasks and projects
Access to students who bring the latest theory, techniques and fresh perspectives to your organisation.
Enhancement of your staff’s mentoring and supervisory skills.
Greater diversity in your work environment.
Access to a pool of prospective candidates and recruitment opportunities through the free Deakin online Jobs and Internships board.
A strategic partnership with Deakin University and the Faculty of Business and Law.
Businesses have the opportunity to connect with and utilise skills, insights and the dedication of final year undergraduate and postgraduate students from Deakin Business School.

Internship Task Examples

View Tasks

Further Information

For business enquiries and expression of interest for future intakes, please make contact with the Investment and Economic Development Unit on business@whitehorse.vic.gov.au.

Deakin Business School have a range of internship programs and opportunities for businesses to be involved with, contact bl-wil@deakin.edu.au for more information.

For more information, please read Deakin University Work Integrated Learning Host Guide.

Deakin Business Development Clinic

Deakin Business School offer an additional program called the Deakin Business Development Clinic which is an innovative online program where business students, under the supervision of an academic mentor, conduct a business health check and provide practical outcomes to increase business profits.

To participate in this unique consulting opportunity, you will need to be available to:

Attend a pre-set 90-minute session to meet your student consultants.
Be available over 4–5 weeks for mutually beneficial calls and email correspondence with the student consultants.
Attend a 30-minute final pitch presentation.

The Business School often seeks businesses to be part of the program.

Contact the Deakin Business School to register your interest for the upcoming intakes and find out more.

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Internship Opportunities for Businesses

Internship Task Examples

Further Information