The FINANCIAL — The majority of companies in Tbilisi do not practice paid internships. While Georgian law limits the duration of internships to 6 months, it says that internships should be paid, but regulated by a written contract between the parties.
Graduates claim that job experience remains the main requirement for getting hired. The lack of paid internships is hampering the development of the job market as well as the careers of workers.
“I am a recent graduate of one of the leading universities in Georgia,” says Nino, 21, resident of Tbilisi. “I am currently jobseeking. During my BA programme I tried to devote my entire time to studying. However, at present I am facing the unfortunate practice whereby the majority of companies ask for job experience. Having an internship is a well-approved method on international markets. It gives you big experience and helps to transform your knowledge into practice. Unfortunately though, not many Georgian companies are offering internship programmes. Foreign companies are more active in this line.”
“I was an intern at a legal company, and I think that summer is a great period for students,” said Tekla Kenkishvili, 22 years old, recent graduate from Tbilisi State University, Faculty of Law. “Students can use their knowledge in practice. They can also get knowledge of what problems might crop up in reality. I think that a student who works as an intern, after continuing with their studies, will then more correctly and adequately analyse and deal with various issues. In terms of the direction of law, on the whole there are Georgian companies which announce internships, this is based on the fact that for foreign companies confidentiality is very important.”
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However, pay isn’t everything. According to a recent Glassdoor survey, interns report that when deciding on where to work, some factors most important to them include:
• Career growth (77%)
• Salary & compensation (74%)
• Location & commute (41%)
• Company culture and values (41%)
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“We have internships twice, in August and in October, we have already hired the students for both our October and August internships, and the number of students is 6,” said Ana Gotsiridze, Head of HR at KPMG in Georgia.
KPMG employs 152,000 people worldwide and has three lines of services: audit, tax, and advisory. Its tax and advisory services are further divided into various service groups.
“The departments in which the interns will work are: audit, tax and consultancy. We select the candidates with the appropriate education and the availability to work full time. The students can be last year students, and they should have appropriate education in finance. The period of the internship is 6 months, is payable, and if the students will work well, we will hire them for a permanent job afterwards.
The candidates are mostly from Caucasus University, Black Sea University, Free University of Tbilisi, and Georgian-American University.”
“We have our recruitment in May, for 4th year students, we hire them as interns,” Rusa Kvezereli-Kopadze, Administrative Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Georgia, told The FINANCIAL. “We have hired 3 new interns already. The departments in which we hire interns are audit and tax. The selection process is as follows: first of all one needs to answer the questions in the application test. English is the priority, because the work is done in English. Most of the applicants are called in for the test. The internship is payable. In winter there is very much work, for 5 months we observe the interns and if they have good recommendations, we will hire them for permanent work from 1 October.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is a multinational professional services network. It is the world’s second largest professional services network, as measured by 2013 revenues, and is one of the Big Four auditors. PwC is a network of firms in 157 countries with more than 184,000 people.
“The successful candidates are from the universities where education is in English, such are Black Sea University, Free University of Tbilisi, Caucasus University, Georgian-American University, and Tbilisi State University. If a candidate will pass the test successfully, then we hire them. We have had such a practice since 2006. Each year we hire new employees, we have specific methodology. Every year we have interns, we understand which students are good enough, and they also gain experience,” she added.
“We do hire students or recent graduates for constant work, they sign a document about the confidentiality of the information, also other factors are foreseen in this document and then they start working with us,” said Iza Gelashvili, representative of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited in Georgia. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, commonly referred to as Deloitte, is one of the Big Four professional services firms.
“Because of the fact that our work is very specific, and confidentiality is significant, we don’t have specific internship programmes, for example summer internship,” Iza Gelashvili, representative of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited in Georgia, told The FINANCIAL. “This fact is followed from the company’s policy. We now have 6 new employees, 2 of them work full-time, and the others work part-time, they are all 4th year students. The selection process is as follows, we have a professional test, then an interview with managers and after this an interview with a partner. When choosing from the CVs we receive, we examine the applicant’s school education, grades, additional education, certificates, and presentations.
Most of our employees, in reference to graduates and students, are from Free University of Tbilisi, Caucasus University, and Georgian-American University, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t hire students from other universities.”
“We hire interns twice a year, in the first half of the year and in the second half,” official representative from National Bank of Georgia told The FINANCIAL. “This year we hired 23 interns and at present there are places for them. Also, once a year we have summer internships for Georgian students from foreign universities (nowadays we have 5 interns). Besides that National Bank of Georgia has a summer internship for students of International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University (ISET), nowadays there are places for 10 students.”
“We hire interns in all departments, according to their professional interests. Most of the time we hire interns in the departments of the financial market and macroeconomics, and statistics. The selection process is in two stages, test and interview. During the test we understand the professional knowledge of the intern, and if they pass the exam successfully then we go on to interview them. During the interview we evaluate the candidate by the following criteria: the degree of motivation, responsibility, how organized they are, orientation on novelty, analytical thinking, and ability to solve problems. The internship is not paid. After the internship, hiring interns for permanent work is very common. For the moment 23 employees of National Bank are former interns,” he added.
“National Bank has a memorandum of cooperation with the following universities: Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgian Technical University, Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, University of Georgia, Black Sea University, Free University of Tbilisi, Georgian-American University, Caucasus University, ISET, and TEUSU.
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