Christina Pelka caught the travel bug as a Californian schoolgirl holidaying in Cuba. So when she heard through the college grapevine that KPMG, the professional services firm, was offering overseas internships to students she made sure she was part of the programme.
“Every dinner, basketball game and campus event they hosted, I was there. I knew that if they had interns travelling abroad, they must be serious about international opportunities,” Ms Pelka says. She completed a four-week internship in London in 2008 and now works at KPMG’s Chicago office, and is optimistic about a transfer to Europe.
KPMG is one of a number of organisations giving student interns an early taste of cross-border working. As more businesses operate globally, they want employees who have experience of working in other countries. Graduates, for their part, say they are up for overseas challenges. In a multi-country survey for professional services firm PwC, 71 per cent of recent graduates said they would like to work abroad at some stage.