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For many students, an internship is still seen as one of the most important stepping stones into the world of work.
But career development is rarely that straightforward.
Students can gain valuable skills through part-time work, volunteering, consulting projects, student organizations, experiential learning, freelance work, research and countless other experiences. And even when students do secure internships, simply having the experience isn’t necessarily enough. They need support to reflect on what they learned, understand how it connects to their career goals and make informed decisions about what comes next.
This raises an important question for university career teams:
How can we help students make the most of work experiences—not just help them get an internship?
That’s the question we’ll be exploring in the next Career Leaders Show.
On August 27, 2026, CareerOS will bring together Jessica Londei-Shortall, Career Coach at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management, and Albert Segura Mollà, Career Educator & Speaker at CareerOS, for an open conversation about the future of student work experiences and early career development.
Internships can be incredibly valuable. They can give students exposure to a professional environment, help them develop practical skills and provide an opportunity to explore a potential career path.
But they aren’t the only way students can develop professionally.
For career services teams, broadening the conversation around “work experience” can create new opportunities to support students who may not have access to traditional internships or who are still figuring out what type of experience would be most valuable to them.
The question becomes less about simply helping every student secure an internship and more about helping students build a portfolio of meaningful experiences that support their career development.
That could mean helping students identify opportunities through experiential learning, campus activities, projects, part-time work or other forms of professional exploration.
One of the questions we’ll explore during the webinar is a surprisingly simple one:
Why do students pursue internships in the first place?
The answer isn’t necessarily just “to get experience.”
Students may be looking for clarity about their career direction, validation that they’ve chosen the right path, opportunities to build confidence, connections with professionals, or a better understanding of what working in a particular industry is actually like.
Understanding these motivations matters for career teams.
When advisors know what students are hoping to get from an experience, they can help them approach it more intentionally—and ultimately get more value from it.
Career support shouldn’t stop once a student accepts an internship.
There are opportunities for career teams to add value throughout the experience:
Before: Help students define what they want to learn, identify the skills they want to develop and think about what a successful experience would look like.
During: Encourage reflection, help students navigate challenges and support them as they learn to operate in a professional environment.
After: Help students translate their experience into career insights, articulate the skills they’ve developed and use what they’ve learned to inform their next steps.
This can transform an internship from something students simply complete into an experience they actively learn from.
Another topic we’ll explore is Job Crafting and how it can help students think differently about their early career experiences.
Rather than viewing a role as something completely fixed, Job Crafting encourages individuals to consider how they can proactively shape aspects of their work to better support their learning, wellbeing and professional growth.
For students entering their first professional experiences, this perspective can be particularly useful.
It can help them think beyond the question of:
“Is this the right internship for me?”
and start asking:
“How can I make this experience more meaningful and useful for my development?”
Jessica Londei-Shortall brings practical experience from her work supporting undergraduate business students at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management.
With a background in Organizational Psychology and experience across career coaching, talent development and leadership development, Jessica works with students as they explore career paths, build relevant experience and navigate early career decisions.
During the conversation, she’ll share observations and approaches from her work with students—including insights into experiential learning, internships, Job Crafting and early career engagement.
For career services professionals, this is an opportunity to hear what’s happening on the ground and consider how similar ideas could apply within their own institutions.
The world of work is changing, and so is the way students think about their careers.
For career services teams, this creates an opportunity to rethink what “career readiness” looks like and how institutions can support students throughout a much broader range of experiences.
Instead of treating career development as a linear path from degree → internship → job, we can help students see it as an ongoing process of exploration, experimentation, reflection and learning.
The most meaningful work experience might not always be the one with the most recognizable company name or the most conventional internship title.
Sometimes, it’s the experience that helps a student discover what they enjoy, understand what they’re good at, build a new connection or realize what they don’t want to do.
And career teams have an important role to play in helping students recognize and act on those insights.
Join us on Thursday, August 27 for the next Career Leaders Show:
The Future of Student Work Experiences: Rethinking Internships & Early Career Development
📅 August 27, 2026
⏰ 5:30–6:30 PM CEST | 11:30 AM–12:30 PM EDT | 8:30–9:30 AM PDT
We’ll be joined by Jessica Londei-Shortall from McGill Desautels and Albert Segura Mollà from CareerOS for an interactive conversation about how career services teams can help students build, navigate and make the most of meaningful work experiences.
We’ll also invite attendees to share what’s happening at their own institutions—because the future of student career development is something we’re all figuring out together.
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