Raise the Roof (and your Re­sumé)

If you think your stel­lar GPA, a beau­ti­fully for­mat­ted re­sume and a rock­ing cover let­ter will se­cure you a big-kid job af­ter grad­u­a­tion, you should open your plan­ner and write down ‘look for sum­mer in­tern­ship’ right now. It will change your life.

Don’t you be­lieve me? Keep read­ing.

Re­search shows that over 80 per­cent of com­pa­nies use in­tern­ships and sim­i­lar ex­ploratory ed­u­ca­tion pro­grams to re­cruit for their full-time work­forces.

In­tern­ships are of­fi­cial pro­grams of­fered by com­pa­nies, or­ga­ni­za­tions and in­sti­tu­tions to prospec­tive em­ploy­ees, which are usu­ally un­der­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate stu­dents. In­tern­ships can be ei­ther part-time, full-time or hourly com­mit­ments that, in most cases, last be­tween one and six months and can be paid or un­paid. In a nut­shell, in­tern­ships help in­di­vid­u­als gain prac­ti­cal work ex­pe­ri­ence; how­ever, they go way be­yond pro­vid­ing just train­ing.

“There are many ben­e­fits re­gard­ing per­sonal de­vel­op­ment in in­tern­ships,” Re­becca Dohrman, as­so­ci­ate pro­fes­sor of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, said. “When you se­cure an in­tern­ship, es­pe­cially when you are find­ing it your­self, ap­ply­ing for it for your­self, in­ter­view­ing for it and ob­tain­ing it, there’s growth that hap­pens re­gard­ing com­pe­tence level, and that can be a crit­i­cal foun­da­tion con­cern­ing ma­tu­rity and pro­fes­sional de­vel­op­ment.”

De­spite if you are a fresh­man, sopho­more, ju­nior or se­nior, you are ready to look for an in­tern­ship and give it a try.

 

The ben­e­fits that in­di­vid­u­als get from in­tern­ing sur­pass the skills most stu­dents think they will get when en­ter­ing their first in­tern­ship. An in­tern­ship ex­pe­ri­ence as­sists stu­dents to un­der­stand or­ga­ni­za­tional life, and how they re­spond to dif­fer­ent en­vi­ron­ments, along with the pos­i­tives and neg­a­tives from work­ing in var­i­ous or­ga­ni­za­tional cul­tures.

“I think the best ben­e­fit is be­ing able to work with real-world clients and un­der­stand­ing the busi­ness as­pect of your ca­reer,” Jenna En­dres, stu­dent, said. “In­stead of do­ing the­ory sit­u­a­tions, you are work­ing with real peo­ple; that teaches you so much about your de­gree, and it also helps you de­cide what you want to pur­sue when you grad­u­ate.”

When look­ing for that first ‘grown-up,’ full-time po­si­tion af­ter col­lege, grad­u­ates with pro­fes­sional ex­pe­ri­ence have a tremen­dous ad­van­tage over peo­ple with­out who are com­pet­ing for the same jobs. Em­ploy­ers strongly point to in­tern­ship ex­pe­ri­ence as the most in­flu­en­tial fac­tor when hir­ing new col­lege grad­u­ates for full-time po­si­tions.

When a candidate has ‘internship experience’ listed on their resumé, employers automatically know such applicants have been exposed to the real world and know how to succeed in a workplace environment, which is drastically different than an academic setting.

Some of the abil­i­ties in­terns ob­tain when work­ing are pro­fes­sional com­mu­ni­ca­tion, time-man­age­ment and in­ter­view­ing skills. In­tern­ships also help stu­dents have a ‘go-get­ter’ at­ti­tude and build a strong net­work of pro­fes­sion­als to help them tran­si­tion into the pro­fes­sional world upon grad­u­a­tion.

“I learned a lot about work­ing with a team, col­lab­o­rat­ing and be­ing able to com­mu­ni­cate my ideas in a pro­fes­sional way,” En­dres said.

Whether paid or un­paid, in­tern­ships are al­ways win­ning op­por­tu­ni­ties that cor­po­ra­tions pro­vide for in­di­vid­u­als to de­velop their pro­fes­sional skills. Un­paid in­tern­ships can sound point­less to peo­ple that fo­cus heav­ily on the fi­nan­cial as­pect. How­ever, un­paid in­tern­ships are great op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­di­vid­u­als who are afraid of work­ing in a pro­fes­sional en­vi­ron­ment for the first time. Un­paid in­tern­ships usu­ally in­volve less com­mit­ment and are less time-con­sum­ing. They are also short-lived while still al­low­ing hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence.

Don’t pro­cras­ti­nate any­more! Be a hus­tler this sum­mer and find an in­tern­ship to boost your pro­fes­sional skills and ex­pand your pro­fes­sional net­work. You won’t re­gret it.