Employers Are Ready to Say Yes. Let's Make It Easy.

Somewhere right now, a student is walking out of a building after hearing “we don’t have anything for you.” I know that walk. I took it in college, from a marina office back to my car. A few minutes later, up the road, a marina owner said yes. He started me washing boats, and that one yes gave me a mentor, a career, and the place where I met my wife.

I’ve spent my career chasing that yes for other people. So I read Strada Education Foundation’s new report, Employer Views on Work Based Learning: What They Value and What Would Help Them Scale, with real gratitude. Andrew Hanson, Stacy Delapenha, Jin Jang-Tucci, and the team at Strada Institute for the Future of Work asked 2,500 hiring leaders, across every industry and company size, what it would take to bring more students into real work. Their answers are one of the most useful roadmaps I’ve seen.

Here’s the good news in the data: employers are ready to say yes. What they need is help saying it. That’s where intermediaries come in, and it’s the work InternCrew was built to do.

Point 1: The belief is already there.

Among employers that offer work based learning, 96 percent call it valuable. Four in five offer some form of it. Yet for most, participants are still less than 5 percent of their U.S. workforce. Only 29 percent reach 5 percent or more.

The question isn’t whether. It’s how.

That’s a hopeful finding. Nobody has to be talked into this. The gap between valuing work based learning and scaling it is operational, and operational problems have solutions. When the work around a student hire gets lighter, more yeses follow. That’s why InternCrew exists.

Point 2: Experience is the currency.

For entry level roles, employers are more than three times as likely to prioritize a candidate with work experience over one with a strong GPA and awards. Work experience was rated important by 85 percent of employers, the top factor Strada measured. Internship or apprenticeship experience was rated important by 61 percent. Meanwhile, fewer than half of graduating seniors at public four year colleges complete even one paid work based learning experience.

Every employer can be the place where experience begins.

Put those facts side by side. The thing employers value most is the thing most students never get a paid chance to build. Employers are the ones who can change that. Real work, real pay, and a patient person beside them who cares how they do. A student who gets that chance walks into the next interview with stories instead of hopes, and the employer who gave it often gets first claim on that talent.

Point 3: The barriers are real, and they’re solvable.

Strada’s top barrier, cited by 71 percent of employers, is resource and operational constraints: the cost of wages and stipends, supervisor time, and administrative burden. Next come ROI and business environment concerns at 58 percent, and finding candidates with baseline skills at 50 percent.

That weight belongs with a partner, not the owner.

I hear the same questions from employers over and over. Who runs payroll for someone here for a semester? What if a student gets hurt? What are the rules for a student under 18? Who on my team has time? Every one of those questions is fair, and not one of them is about the student. A large company has departments for this. A small shop has an owner already doing three jobs. Lifting that weight is exactly what an intermediary is for, and it’s why InternCrew exists.

Point 4: Strada described the intermediary employers need.

Employers told Strada what would help most. Two answers tied at the top, each ranked first or second by 58 percent: financial incentives paired with turnkey administrative help, and program design and talent fit, led by a vetted shortlist of prescreened candidates. Strada encourages intermediaries to build vetted pipelines, prepare supervisors and mentors, help with program design, and handle the administration, and it notes that this support matters most for small and midsize employers.

We’re proud to play that role.

Vetted pipelines. We source and screen students before they reach your door, so you meet people ready to work.

The administration. We are the employer of record. Onboarding, payroll, HR, and workers’ comp are ours. Students are W-2 employees on our payroll doing real paid work in your business.

Small and midsize employers. That’s who we built this for. The shop with no HR department. The practice where the owner signs every check. You get the capacity without the overhead of managing it.

Mentors. Here’s what I’ve learned. Your best mentor usually isn’t your most skilled person. It’s the patient one who remembers someone taking a chance on them and wants to pass it on. Skill can be taught. Patience can’t be faked.

Your part. Teach the craft. Your standards, your judgment, your way of doing it right. Nobody can do that for you, and nobody should.

Strada laid out what intermediaries should do for employers. It’s the role InternCrew exists to play, and we’re glad to stand alongside the educators, funders, and employers working toward the same goal.

Point 5: Build the skills. Measure the return. Make the hire.

Half of employers say they struggle to find candidates with baseline skills, and ROI concerns are close behind. Strada recommends that employers assess their early talent programs and track measures like retention, engagement, and productivity, and that policymakers help underwrite startup costs, especially for small and midsize businesses.

Grow the skills inside your business, then count what they return.

Baseline skills aren’t found. They’re built, inside your business, with your tools and your standards. Then measure it, just as Strada suggests. Count the whole ledger: what it costs to recruit an experienced hire, and what it costs when that hire leaves. The right student with the right mentor cuts both, because people stay where they were built. Watch engagement too. Put a hungry student next to a veteran who gets to teach again and see what happens to morale.

When policymakers help small employers with startup costs, more doors open. An intermediary helps employers walk through them.

Strada has given all of us a clear picture of what employers value and what would help them scale. Now it’s on us to act on it. Pick the role. Pick the mentor. Make the first hire this semester.

I know what one yes did for my life. Every student deserves a chance at theirs, and every employer deserves help giving it.

That’s what InternCrew helps employers do. We handle the sourcing, screening, onboarding, payroll, HR, and workers’ comp so you can put a student to work this semester and start building the people your business will need next. Let’s talk.

Ready to say yes to your first student hire? Book time with Corey

Source: Strada Education Foundation, Employer Views on Work Based Learning: What They Value and What Would Help Them Scale (October 2026). Full report available at strada.org.