I am subscribed to many forums on aiesec.net, including quality exchange. I have been very interested in quality since going to my first international conference in Venezuela. At the time I was Madison's VPOGX. Madison had 3 exchanges the entire year before I joined. We had no trainees. We were virtually starting from scratch. The main priority, as told to me, was exchange. Afterall, how can an organization like AIESEC survive and be considered legitimate if we aren't exchanging people. No one in our LC at the time, including me, had any experience with even matching someone, TN or SN. I took it upon myself to research what traineeships were available, and who we should start recruiting on campus. At this time, QXB (Quality Exchange Board) was still in the beginning stages of development and the DAAL files were not reliable.
To my astonishent, there were a TON of TN forms that I considered rediculous. The job pay was extremely low, the work was beyond tedious, and the form still required at the person to at least have graduated from a 4-year program. Since I was pretty much the only one that was looking into this, I just steared my LC away from these forms and pushed, what I considered better quality traineeships. We got 4 exchanges in the first half of the year. Then one trainee got the 'token' traineeship in India. Another got a similar one in Brazil. So much for that idea. Then a member of our LC, Bizzo, decided to find his own traineeship. He found an English teaching traineeship in Thailand. It seemed a little sketchy to me, so I told him. I made sure that he knew that it may not be the best work environment, or even job, but that he should make the most of the experience. He just finished his first year. It turned out the job was, a little sketchy, but he had a blast. The AIESECers there helped him and I know he would never trade that experience.
I am bringing this up because a little over 24 hours ago on the quality exchange community, a debate began about whether two traineeships raised in China was worthy of AIESEC's time (TN-In-CN-RU-2005-1004/1003). In this time period over 40 people from around the world have posted. Some people are saying that AIESEC should not take traineeships, such as bag handlers. Others say that the LC is just starting so these traineeships are a first step through the door. I agree with both statements, each under specific cercumstances. Both sides make good arguments, but I belive the bigger debate should be focused on one thing: EXPECTATIONS. That first semester as VP proves that expectations are what determine the quality of the traineeship. If the SN is expecting this awesome job, and they get a good one instead, there's a letdown. The exchange is weak. On the other hand, if a person is expecting the job to be kind of tedious and underachieving and they find out it is, the is no letdown and the trainee is allowed to fully experience their surroundings. The exchange is beautiful.
For me, it really hit home as my LC just went against our members wishes for the last 2 years and switched to common induction, AKA SNs are not called members. To me, as I've said many times, this solves no problems and only creates bigger ones. Quality exchange is not done because a person that calls themself an AIESECer goes on it. The quality exchange is done when the trainee is given the correct expecations of what their traineeship is about AND the company is given the correct expecations of what services AIESEC and the trainee will provide. Right now I am a trainee and AIESECer; they are not the same thing. Great trainees are not always AIESECers. A great trainee just has to be a person that wants to learn about a new culture, spread their own, and do their job. AIESECers take pride in raising traineeships. Why should a person that is already working at least full time in a completely new environment have the responsibily/EXPECTATION to re-raise their traineeship. Should they help, yes. Will they already be helping re-raise the traineeship by just being a great trainee, yes. Also, the trainee is the last line to re-raising the job. If the trainee believes the job should not be re-raised, then gosh darn it, it better not be re-raised. The low REPAR rates have very little to do with trainees being called AIESECers. We are raising bad jobs and giving SNs bad expectations. This is what needs to be changed. Whether a trainee is called an AIESECer or not does not solve either of the two issues.
This also means the switch to Common Induction, yes common induction not common recruitment, is not a step backwars, merely a step to the side. I am still in support of my LC and I believe it will do fine in the future.
To my astonishent, there were a TON of TN forms that I considered rediculous. The job pay was extremely low, the work was beyond tedious, and the form still required at the person to at least have graduated from a 4-year program. Since I was pretty much the only one that was looking into this, I just steared my LC away from these forms and pushed, what I considered better quality traineeships. We got 4 exchanges in the first half of the year. Then one trainee got the 'token' traineeship in India. Another got a similar one in Brazil. So much for that idea. Then a member of our LC, Bizzo, decided to find his own traineeship. He found an English teaching traineeship in Thailand. It seemed a little sketchy to me, so I told him. I made sure that he knew that it may not be the best work environment, or even job, but that he should make the most of the experience. He just finished his first year. It turned out the job was, a little sketchy, but he had a blast. The AIESECers there helped him and I know he would never trade that experience.
I am bringing this up because a little over 24 hours ago on the quality exchange community, a debate began about whether two traineeships raised in China was worthy of AIESEC's time (TN-In-CN-RU-2005-1004/1003). In this time period over 40 people from around the world have posted. Some people are saying that AIESEC should not take traineeships, such as bag handlers. Others say that the LC is just starting so these traineeships are a first step through the door. I agree with both statements, each under specific cercumstances. Both sides make good arguments, but I belive the bigger debate should be focused on one thing: EXPECTATIONS. That first semester as VP proves that expectations are what determine the quality of the traineeship. If the SN is expecting this awesome job, and they get a good one instead, there's a letdown. The exchange is weak. On the other hand, if a person is expecting the job to be kind of tedious and underachieving and they find out it is, the is no letdown and the trainee is allowed to fully experience their surroundings. The exchange is beautiful.
For me, it really hit home as my LC just went against our members wishes for the last 2 years and switched to common induction, AKA SNs are not called members. To me, as I've said many times, this solves no problems and only creates bigger ones. Quality exchange is not done because a person that calls themself an AIESECer goes on it. The quality exchange is done when the trainee is given the correct expecations of what their traineeship is about AND the company is given the correct expecations of what services AIESEC and the trainee will provide. Right now I am a trainee and AIESECer; they are not the same thing. Great trainees are not always AIESECers. A great trainee just has to be a person that wants to learn about a new culture, spread their own, and do their job. AIESECers take pride in raising traineeships. Why should a person that is already working at least full time in a completely new environment have the responsibily/EXPECTATION to re-raise their traineeship. Should they help, yes. Will they already be helping re-raise the traineeship by just being a great trainee, yes. Also, the trainee is the last line to re-raising the job. If the trainee believes the job should not be re-raised, then gosh darn it, it better not be re-raised. The low REPAR rates have very little to do with trainees being called AIESECers. We are raising bad jobs and giving SNs bad expectations. This is what needs to be changed. Whether a trainee is called an AIESECer or not does not solve either of the two issues.
This also means the switch to Common Induction, yes common induction not common recruitment, is not a step backwars, merely a step to the side. I am still in support of my LC and I believe it will do fine in the future.
posted by Bruhaha at 10:27 PM
11 Comments:
Hey Bruni,
I'd really like to talk to you more about this issue and your experiences with it. I am in complete agreement with you that exchange should be completely based on the quality of the traineeship, but also on the quality of the trainee. I find that a lot of the problems we've been having have stemmed not only from the lack of expectation setting, but also from the lack of understanding that exchange participants of AIESEC's mission, culture, mindset. While we can pile cultural prep sessions, info sessions, etc on SNS, we all know how hard AIESEC is to fully grasp at first, especially if you don't really feel inclined to do so. If our goal is to truly impact people and develop individuals, we should step back from pushing a large number of exchange participants who don't know much about the organization and are looking simply to experience working in a different country. While this is a great thing to want to do, it is not the sole reason why AIESEC exists. A major part of this organization is the development of future leaders. While an SN may get the experience of being abroad, being in a cool place, meeting awesome people,being immersed in a culture they're less familiar with, they are still missing out on the big picture of why we AIESECERS do what they do: they are missing out on the opportunities available through AIESEC...on the impact we're trying to create...on the scope of this network...and our organization turns into a service instead of an opportunity, focused more on the exchange numbers rather than on sending quality trainees who have a much larger impact both while abroad and upon their return. Telemaco,our new trainee, is a phenomenal success, and I think a large part of that is because he was an active member of AIESEC in Mexico. Your thoughts?
It´s going to be interesting to see what the LC´s like next semester...who decided on the changes? What changes were made? I´m a little scared to be honest...especially reading emails that make it seem like RoKS and GMMs aren´t mandatory things...makes me a little nervous, but who knows...I feel so out of the loop
On Sara´s note, how can we say Telemaco is a huge success? hasn´t he only been there for a month or two? What are your qualifications for being a huge success?
I feel like a lot of times we focus too much on AIESEC (sounds weird but)...Are we trying to create global leaders and cultural understanding or are we trying to create AIESECers? Those things are not synonomous.
About Telemaco, I know he's only been here a for a bit, but he's already met most of our members, been to ROKS, been to GMM, and even hosted his own event. So maybe successful isn't the right word, because not everyone that comes is going to be interested in getting as active/involved as Telemaco, which is totally fine, but I feel it's at least important to have exchangers understand AIESEC more than just as an organization that provided a means for them to get where they wanted to go, and Telemaco never came in with that perspective.
i thank you both for actually finishing that novel of an entry. sara, I do not disagree with your first statements about having exchange numbers be any kind of a focus of AIESEC. What I'm saying is that calling a trainee a member, does not make them ... a member. This was and still is my biggest problem with the CO3 output. I don't feel the problems we are facing with 'bad' SNs are solved. Did you know that Australia and a handful of other South American countries have been doing common induction for over 3 years now? Did you also know that before 1997, AIESEC's exchange WORLDWIDE was with AIESEC members only? We had problems with trainees then; we have problems with trainees now. Also, I believe you are missing a big part of the trainee's role. The main purpose of the trainee is to bring a new cultural understanding to the COMPANY. Yes it is nice when the trainees come and meet us and talk to us, but the trainee's purpose is to reach out to those people AIESECers(students) cannot.
Yes the trainees supposed to reach out to people AIESECERS can't...and I agree impacting the company they work for is a huge component. And bringing their experiences back home and impacting family, friends, etc. is important. I don't think we disagree on any of that.
And yes I know that other countries have been doing common recruitment for a long time, and I don't think we can ever eliminate the trainee problems that come up. What we can do is eliminate sending trainees to other countries who don't understand AIESEC as an organization with a mission, but understand it as a service. From what I have gathered, @ US has pissed off a lot of LCS by sending poor quality trainees.
On a side note, I don't think the way we are doing things this semester is ideal in any way, but I think we've figured out a lot of the holes that need fixing. I do think, however, that common recruitment is the one part of CO3 I agree with.
I think this all goes back to expectation setting. If an LC expects a trainee to come to GMMs, that needs to be stated. same with cultural presentations yadda yadda yadda. These things need to be stated, and perhaps need to be facilitated by the LCs in US since we are the ones having problems with this. I´m not sure what changes have been made. I´m not sure what CO3 is now. I am sure that back when I knew what the hell was going on, I did not agree with common recruitment. STRONGLY not agree. Oh well, guess we´ll see what the fruits of this semester´s labor produce.
Sara, your reply to my note made me think a bit...is Telemaco a success if he only impacts AIESECers? The greatest change can probably be made by impacting those outside AIESEC...
Like I said, "Yes the trainee is supposed to reach out to people AIESECERS can't...and I agree impacting the company they work for is a huge component. And bringing their experiences back home and impacting family, friends, etc. is important. I don't think we disagree on any of that."
Basically, because Telemaco is proactive within AIESEC, I can gaurantee he is proactive outside of, meaning he will impact many people, both here back home, that aren't part of the organization.
I feel like this conversation would be easier in person...
I think @US should come up with a metric for gauging a "high quality" vs "Low quality" traineeship.
It'll be tough and based at least partly on subjectivity, but its just too obvious to compare impact with 30yr trainee who stays at home with his family (a la Delphi) and, say, Hikmet, who was during his traineeship a visible member impacting both the turks, AIESECers and his coworkers in Madison. He porbably impacted 30-60 people, and Mr. Delphi maybe impacted no one (including himself).
ps I am currently posting while vacationing in a hostel in Buenos Aires and Sara is posting during Halloween in Madison...something may be wrong with this picture...or I just haven{t had a good passionate AIESEC talk in too many months. (what{s sara{s excuse? and why won{t the apostraphe button work in this damn hostel?)
jenna:
I took Halloween off Friday and went home to the fam for the night, just got back in from Saturday's halloween happenings and the @ party...
I was a superhero.
I had a cape.
I wish i was in Buenos Aires.
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