FCRE Internship Consultation

FCRE is considering launching an internship scheme, and is considering asking

internees to operate and manage an internet ‘forum’ in order to keep FCRE
members informed of their activity. The purpose of this site is to solicit comments
from the membership, and at the same time test your response to this way of
working.

The comments can be posted, and read by all. Please note that this test ‘forum’
is unprotected, i.e. can be accessed by anyone who locates the address. This
will be changed shortly.

The following notes provide a summary of the scheme.

SUITABLE CANDIDATES

The position would suit a person who has a demonstrable interest in, and ideally
understanding of, corporate real estate. Suitable candidates will hold, or be
pursuing, a relevant postgraduate degree. The desired academic background of
the intern has yet to be specified, as this depends on the subject and nature of
the internship, but could be directly related to the property industry, or perhaps
indirectly related in subjects such as economics, political and social sciences,
architecture or engineering. Clearly this depends on the subject and nature of the
internship.

STRUCTURE AND ORGANISATION

There are two approaches to organising the scheme:

a) Internship

An 'internship', with the appointee working continuously in the chosen field,

based in one or another member's offices, for a total of say 3 months continuous
employment.

b) Bursary

A 'bursary', with the appointee working on the chosen subject in their own time,
over an extended period of say 9 - 12 months.

As the scheme will be aligned with FCRE, and not with a specific FCRE member,
its structure and organisation will ideally reflect this. This could be achieved by
having mentors from different FCRE members, or/and a system of placements.
Another possibility is to utilise internet networking tools such as forums, blogs
and Facebook. For example blogs like this could be used by interns to tell the
rest of the federation about their activities, and by the rest of the federation to
communicate with the interns.

TOPICS

The scheme will require guiding topics. Here are some ideas:

a) New Ways of Working;

The intern reviews the relationship between technological innovation, changes in

working and employment practices and patterns on the use and occupation of
property, productivity, and the corporate real estate occupier and the wider real
estate industry.

b) Sustainability and Corporate Real Estate;

The intern reviews the implications of sustainable development and carbon

efficiency in relation to the corporate real estate industry.

c) Public Affairs and Corporate Real Estate;

The intern reviews the agendas of relevant public affairs organisations, such as
government departments, think tanks, NGOs and academics as these bear upon
the interests of the corporate real estate industry.

OBJECTIVES

It is necessary to establish clear aims and objectives for the intern.

Possibilities include:

writing a report and/or presentation for the rest of the federation.

FINDING THE INTERNS

The way in which the internship scheme is publicized can be an important

element in FCRE publicity, and to its recruitment of new members. This also
applies to how internees are selected, as illustrated buy the following options:

a) Introduced by FCRE members

The candidate could be sourced from within FCRE itself – in effect a benefit
gained from membership.
b) Press ‘advertisement’

Applications could be invited by conventional appointments pages of relevant

journals. More interesting, however, it might be that this could be announced via
press releases or editorial articles in industry magazines like Estates Gazette and
Property Week. Indeed these publications maybe interested in featuring the work
of FCRE and the internees.

c) Academic institutions

FCRE could find its interns through relevant academic institutions, such as the
University of Reading's School of Real Estate and Planning, or Oxford Brookes
University's Department of Real Estate and Construction. Indeed the scheme
could align itself with one of these institutions.

The benefit of some of these more sophisticated approaches is that they would
provide FCRE, and its internship, with greater exposure, and hence potentially
generate greater federation membership interest.

FUNDING

It is possible for the internees to be unpaid. However it would provide greater

access and support if there was funding. In this case the question is how much
and where from.

One suggestion is that each internee is sponsored by three or four ‘mentors’,

who each make a financial contribution. A suitable target might be a total of
£3,000 for a three month internship.

We hope this inspires a constructive discussion!