Photos by JOHN W. ADKISSON l The Roanoke Times

Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital intern Sarah Cohen, 18, uses a computer monitor while working on emergency room simulation.

Medical education department intern Jacqueline Zillioux, 20, of Roanoke, pauses while assisting Sonya Ranson, Ph.D., with simulation lab training at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

JOHN W. ADKISSON l The Roanoke Times

Medical education department intern Sarah Cohen pauses near a human patient simulator during training at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

Unpaid internships are allowing Roanoke-area companies to maintain a connection to future employees while maintaining strict budgets in the midst of a recession.

While some paid internships have remained, the trend for the summer has been to take on part-time interns without offering a paycheck.

"The biggest change I have seen with internships this summer is in the number of them that are no longer paid internships," said Toni McLawhorn, director of career services at Roanoke College.

Gary Kinder, director of career services at Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business, said he also saw the number of paid internships available this summer dwindle.

Both Kinder and McLawhorn said they spent time convincing students that even if they didn't land their dream internship, there are still ways to bolster resumes with work experience.

"For students, they have had to think very broadly about where they can get experience," Kinder said. "Selling is selling no matter what you are selling."

Efforts over the past five years to build stronger interest in establishing internship programs throughout the local and regional business community has helped to keep internship programs going despite the recession, McLawhorn said.

"Employers that I talked to are very interested in keeping the programs going," she said. "They see it as an initial try-out or training ground for employees."

About every other year McLawhorn has teamed up with the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce for a workshop to offer tips on providing internship programs and promote the value of interns. The last workshop, held a year ago, attracted nearly 100 people and led more companies to formally establish internship programs, she said.

That's what Advance Auto Parts has done this summer. While the company has always taken on interns, this is the first year a formal internship program has been run out of human resources to try to bring all the interns under one umbrella, said Shelly Whitaker, spokeswoman for Advance.

The change came at a time when more students were looking for positions, Whitaker said.

"We had more interest for internships this summer as students had graduated and are struggling to find that first job," she said.

The same was true at the region's largest employer, Carilion Clinic, where there are at least 35 interns and possibly more who have not gone through the official administrative process but instead worked with an individual department.

"We've not been able to offer as many paid positions as we have in the past, but it also seems the student requests have gone up," said Jennifer Altizer, education benefits specialist with Carilion's human resources department.

This year Advance Auto Parts has 21 interns working at the Roanoke headquarters and four others elsewhere. Some are paid, some are not.

At Carilion options for shadowing people in certain professions also allow students or people thinking about a career change to get a feel for the job, Altizer said. Those requests also have gone up with as many as 400 people taking advantage of the opportunity, she said. Job shadowing is often offered to people when Carilion can't find an internship position.

"These programs let us build relationships with the schools in the community and with possible future employees," Altizer said.

Carilion is looking to establish a more centralized internship program as it continues to put an emphasis on education.

At both Carilion and Advance Auto Parts, many of the unpaid interns are receiving college credit, an avenue that many companies have turned to in order to help students when they are unable to pay them a wage.

Kinder said the number of interns asking about college credit is probably up from years past.

"I think they are hearing from the employer, 'I can't pay you but we'd still love to have you, so maybe this is a way of getting some experience and making it beneficial.' "

Still, college credit means that not only is the intern unpaid, but he or she is also paying the university or college for the cost of the credit hours, Kinder said.

To accommodate interns' need for cash, many businesses are flexible in offering part-time internships so students have time to take on a paying summer job.

"I think employers realize they have to inherently be flexible, especially if they aren't paying [interns]," Kinder said. "It's a real complex and interesting time for people, both for students and employers."

Jacqueline Zillioux is holding down a job in retail while interning part time at Carilion. And she's thought about taking a second paying job.

"I really had a hard time finding a job," she said. "It's minimum wage and very little hours, but it's all I could get."

It also allows her to focus energy on learning about a profession she hopes to join. Zillioux is spending about 20 hours a week with Carilion's medical education department.

"This is a much better use of my time," she said of the internship.

She's gaining exposure to the training that many medical residents get and also finding out about different specialties.

About to enter her junior year at the University of Michigan, Zillioux is gearing up to apply to medical school, and she said the summer at Carilion will be valuable on both her application and in helping her test her interest in becoming a doctor.