An international edge

By ASHLEY CAMPBELL

Down the phone Nisarg Mehta projects an aura of confidence, authority and media savvy such that you imagine him to be a high-achieving 30-something executive just about to break into the really big time.

That he is a director in a national office of an organisation spanning 85 countries reinforces the impression.

But in reality the 22-year-old has been in New Zealand only a matter of months and is not long out of his honours degree in commerce, gained at Gujarat University in India.

He is a perfect ambassador for Aisec, an international organisation of students and recent graduates with at least one thing in common - they're all going somewhere.

Aisec's New Zealand website makes it all sound, to use Mehta's words, "fluffy and fuzzy". It speaks of "social responsibility", "a generation of leaders born out of the youth of today", "life-long learning", "peace", "community" and other feel-good things.

But while the organisation's young members (they're all under 30) undoubtedly value such concepts, they're also in it for a more tangible benefit: the opportunity to fast-track their career.

Aisec arranges commercial, teaching, technical and development internships for recent graduates (and from next year for undergraduates) in foreign organisations, to give them a taste of international business and a chance to experience how culture and commerce interact.

It began with management and economics students in postwar Europe, but has spread worldwide and this month celebrates its 25th anniversary in New Zealand. It also now accepts members from any academic discipline - as long as they have the desire to lead.

While the internships are Aisec's glamour gigs, that's not the whole story. Those student members are the ones who do the work - lobby businesses for support, arrange visas, accommodation and support for interns, run the local Aisec chapters - and so gain real experience in organisation and leadership before they've graduated.

Which is precisely what attracted Dainah Kibera. The 23-year-old Kenyan, who is about to head home after an 18-month internship with Audit New Zealand in Wellington, first heard of Aisec while she was in primary school, when her older sister joined.

Seeing her sister learn, among other things, time management, public speaking and presentation skills, Kibera decided she wanted a piece of the action. The lure of international travel didn't hurt either, so she joined Nairobi's Daystar University Aisec chapter in 1998.

As chapter president she got involved in planning and running diverse events, developing what she calls her strong organisational skills. Then, after graduating with a degree in accounting, she applied for an internship.

So has the experience met her expectations? "I think that it's over-met my expectations," she enthuses.

"Coming on this internship, having started my career in a different country, has been the most amazing thing I've ever done."

Starting at the same level and salary as Audit New Zealand's other graduates (the internships are paid positions), during her 18 months she moved up a step and by the time she left this week was supervising new staff.

New Zealand's auditing practices are, she says, "so far ahead of where Kenya is" that she believes she'll have a real career head start when she gets home.

"I'll get a lot more responsibility when they see what I've done."

She's also had a range of experiences that have opened her eyes to New Zealand's culture and work practices. "It's a much slower pace of life than Nairobi, which is survival of the fittest. [Here] everyone gets an equal opportunity."

She's had to adjust to strange ways of living - flatting with strangers, for example, is something you just wouldn't do in Nairobi because "they could rob you or kill you".

"Learning to trust people I don't know has been an enlightening experience."

And she's visited marae, spent time at Te Papa learning about New Zealand's history, and generally thrown herself into the experience.

The payback for New Zealand is that when interns such as Kibera return home they take an understanding of our culture with them so that "everyone will know New Zealand isn't just about sheep and All Blacks".

But the benefits to organisations that hire international interns can be much more specific.

Siemens New Zealand has hired two interns in the past two years - one from Canada, one from Colombia - both working on a customer satisfaction project.

Managing director Graeme Sumner - who started his working life with an Aisec internship with IBM in Stockholm in 1986 - is clear about the benefits.

There's the usual stuff of intelligent, enthusiastic young people with new ideas and fresh thinking, but that could apply equally well to local graduates.

However, says Sumner, "because they [interns] are not necessarily going to be careerists with Siemens, there's an element of independence in what they do, and the capacity for us to enjoy some of the benefits of the consultancy approach".

In other words, they may be more willing to take a few more risks, speak out, take on short-term projects and not be so worried about office politics and the like.

Then there's the way they have helped to develop local staff.

Siemens is an international company that thrives on diversity and international interaction, Sumner says. "Some New Zealanders take a while to adjust to what a global company we are, but people who come from outside adjust to that readily."

The interns, he says, are simply not fazed by virtual meetings across borders or international conference calls and "this rubs off".

Sumner is also motivated by the knowledge that when his organisation takes on a foreign intern it makes it easier for New Zealand graduates to go overseas. While the programme doesn't operate on a strict one-for-one system, Mehta says the international organisation prefers that New Zealand offers one internship for every 1.5 internships our graduates take overseas.

Twenty-seven-year-old Charin Singh is one young New Zealander who's benefited from that approach, having just spent 14 months in Prague with insurance and banking group ING.

After two years as office manager in a small firm, once he'd graduated with a business management degree from the University of Waikato, Singh applied for an internship because he wanted to experience working in a large multinational.

He wasn't disappointed. The Prague office was a particularly international one, he says, with English used as the common language, and he got to mingle with people he'd never have met in New Zealand.

"In my address book I've got people I would call friends who are CEOs and CFOs around the world."

As well as the obvious networking advantages, Singh gained some valuable personal insights - such as what he really enjoys doing. During his internship he had three different assignments, one of which involved a lot of computer-based analysis. That just wasn't him.

What he did excel at, though, was an assignment as an internal trainer.

He also experienced the importance of culture on the way people learn.

For example, he says, if you asked a group of New Zealanders for their opinion, they wouldn't have any difficulties speaking up. "But in the Czech Republic, you are coming from an era of communism when people didn't speak out - the tall poppy got cut down.

"From a training point of view, you ask people their opinions and they don't say anything.

"That gave me an understanding that I have to relate to people and learn the different quirks of their societies."

Neither Singh nor Kibera is certain what they'll do now, but they do know that their internships have given them an edge and broadened their knowledge of the world of business.

And Kibera's advice to any recent graduate considering an internship is simple: "Do it."

AIESEC