Technology
Meta delay decision on intern regularization re-evaluates manpower needs
According to the report, for fresh college students in the United States, due to the high entry threshold, high salary, and generous benefits, the internship opportunities of Facebook parent company Meta are coveted. In the past, interns were also expected to have direct access to Meta by the end of the summer. But the uncertainty of turning positive this year is growing.
In early July, Meta told interns by email that it would delay deciding whether to formally onboard them because it needed more time to assess the company’s manpower needs, according to a spokesperson. Previously, many companies have made adjustments or cancellations to the original plans for the entry of interns. Personal social media Twitter and a number of start-ups also said they would delay hiring.
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Affected by the global economy, companies have begun to freeze hiring, lay off staff, and tighten budgets. Nearly one-third of companies said they were slowing hiring, up from 15 percent in May, according to a survey last month by market consultancy Gartner. Under such circumstances, some companies have quietly deleted the corresponding recruitment information, restricted interns from turning into full-time employees, and prevented full-time employees from being laid off.
But internships are key to providing companies with a pipeline of future talent and increasing their gender and diversity makeup. Meta has said maintaining diversity in the workforce will be a challenge as hiring slows. The job market for the class of 2021 is looking good for U.S. college graduates, fueled by a surge in the stock market. But just a year later, weak economic conditions are forcing companies to reassess their development.
In late May, Jenna Radwan, who just graduated from the University of San Francisco, received an email from a potential employer, Hirect, the recruiting app. She was notified by email that Hirect could no longer offer her a job, and she was only two weeks away from going to work. “All of a sudden I was dumped,” Radwan said.
In June, Anthony Zhao also received an invitation for a fall internship with the e-commerce platform Shopify. But four weeks later, he received an email informing him that the company was no longer hiring for the position. At the end of July this year, Shopify announced that it was laying off 1,000 jobs, accounting for 10% of its total workforce.
Anthony Zhao, 20, said he later found a job at another company and was still hopeful. “It’s not great in the short term, but I think in the long run, if done right, I can learn something and keep improving.” Despite Meta’s move, some recent graduates say they’re more likely to accept any job offers from big tech companies and banks, which are more financially stable after all.
Alphabet and Amazon, Google’s parent company, also recruit junior-level employees directly from the company’s interns, and company representatives have said they do not plan to change or reduce the established plan and scale of regular interns. Corporate representatives from prominent financial firms such as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase said they plan to issue roughly the same number of positive indicators to corporate interns as in previous years.
But overall corporate hiring in the U.S. is slowing. Goldman Sachs has said it will slow hiring, while Wells Fargo and Bank of America have also started laying off workers over the past year. Tech companies from Google to Microsoft have also said they will slow hiring. On an earnings call last week, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said they would continue to hire, but are “doing it more carefully given the realities of the environment.”
A summer intern at Morgan Stanley said that while it wasn’t her dream to go into finance, she hoped to get a job before the economy took a turn for the worse. Another intern at Amazon, who asked not to be named, expressed similar thoughts. So far, he has worked at Amazon for three summers. He thinks it’s better to stay, just to be on the safe side.
The Amazon intern became nervous as big tech companies slowed hiring and smaller companies canceled projects or canceled hiring. Earlier this summer, Coinbase canceled hiring invitations and announced a hiring freeze. Twitter also withdrew its original hiring plan in May when Elon Musk made an offer to buy the company.
Fewer jobs at top companies mean some graduates from top universities have had to go to less profitable companies to work in lower-paying jobs, said Hannes Schwandt, an economist at the Northwestern University Policy Institute. Work.
“This year’s interns are no worse than previous years,” Schwant said. “Even if the economic situation improves, it will affect them more or less.” Compared with college students who graduate when the job market situation is good, even if the economic situation improves later, the so-called “recession period” Graduates” also make less money.
Andrea Beasley, a spokeswoman for Meta, said the decision to temporarily delay hiring is because entry-level positions are being recruited much faster than senior positions. Now Meta will focus its hiring on management and senior roles, especially those related to fields such as machine learning and artificial intelligence.
A Meta software engineering intern explained that he and other interns were shocked by the news because Meta has a reputation for hiring heavily. He said project managers had lauded his work all summer, and he himself had become obsessed with the big tech lifestyle, with perks ranging from free sushi to subsidized gym memberships. He can’t wait to get back to working at Meta after finishing school.
But after Meta’s intern regularization plan was adjusted, he no longer dreamed of working and living in this company after graduation, but began to update his resume.