I am an American student currenty at junior at university. I am looking to come to Australia for an internship with some kind of business, but am having a hard time finding anything. There's lots of services that charge like 500 dollars to "help" you look for an internship but im not sure I trust that. Any suggestions? Thanks so much!

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hi cococarby

to the best of my knowledge, australia doesn't have such things as internships - interns are junior doctors. i am not completely sure but what you call internships might be the same as 'work experience'. however, over here, work experience is usually confined to high-school students (it is unpaid).

my understanding of internships might be wrong and we could indeed have this in australia - but i have never heard of them in my neck of the woods (i am in a regional city).

we have such things as traineeships and apprenticeships - this might be what you are after. if it is, i am don't know if they are open to overseas applicants because the companies that run them are subsidised by the commonwealth government (again - i am not sure of the facts)

that said, i guess you want to target the big firms in your area (ie, if you are looking for training in finance you would want to contact anz, westpac, nab; if your field is IT then the big firms would be csc australia, ibm australia, apple australia, microsoft australia and so on). perhaps if you tell us what industry you are interested in we could help by telling you the names of the big firms.

also, it would be worth speaking to large usa based companies that might have business in australia who would take you on while you are over here - companies such as csc, ibm, apple...

not sure if any of that is any use to you!

cheers, oz