In Haaretz’s weekend edition, the article, “Interns are the new kibbutnikim” focuses on internship companies, including Career Israel, who help recent college grads nab top-notch internships in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
We are so excited that the journalist featured three of our superstar alumni who not only got great internships but were also asked to stay on. Below is an excerpt from the article:
For thousands of college graduates who still haven’t found their dream job, or any job for that matter, professional internships in Israel are becoming the option of choice. The opportunity to gain hands-on job experience is particularly beckoning to young Americans, who’ve discovered in recent years that a college degree is no longer a guaranteed ticket to gainful employment.
“Thirty years ago, these kids would come to Israel to milk cows on a kibbutz. Now they’re coming to work in high-tech companies in Tel Aviv,” says Avi Rubel, the executive director of Masa North America, which runs many of these internship programs. Masa is a joint venture of the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency.
Yet another interesting twist is that if in the past young Israelis would go to America to gain experience that would make them more attractive job candidates back home, today it is the Americans who are coming to Israel for that very same reason.
“Israel is known around the world as ‘start-up nation,’ and these college graduates want to boost their resumes, so having work experience in Israel gives them an edge, and it’s certainly a better option than working as a barista at Starbucks,” says Rubel.