Want to turn your internship into a job?
You’ve graduated (or you are soon), now what?
Are you a recent college grad struggling to find a job? It may not be the glitz and glam you imagined, and it may not even be paid, but an internship is a great way to test the waters and land the job of your dreams.
Do you feel like after you graduate, you’re supposed to have your life planned out?
Well, times have changed and most grads don’t even follow the path of their majors. You may not know what you really want to do with your life, and that’s okay. An internship is a great way to explore your options.
Intern to employee: Turning your internship into a full-time position
Aside from dipping your toes in an industry you might want to work in, you’re also starting your networking and getting your first opportunity to impress. Employers extend job offers to about 70 percent of their interns.
What you need to know
But what exactly does it take to get hired? First, you need to do some research to find the right internship:
-Who is the employer? What kind of opportunities do they have? Could you see yourself working for them?
-What kind of work do they want you to do?
-Is is challenging enough for you to learn from, or will you be filing papers all day?
-Is the internship paid? Unpaid? If it’s unpaid, can you get a travel stipend?
You will obviously need to make sure it fits your interests, but also be sure to review their hiring track record. Talk to previous interns or the company’s human resource department to inquire about their hiring policy.
Big or small: Choosing the right size company
Depending on your field, you may find yourself trying to decide between a big company and a small one. Big name corporations will be less likely to hire you, but having their name on your resume may be good for your experience, or at least make for great window dressing. If you’re looking to get a job immediately, a smaller company may be a better way to jump-start your career.
Come into your internship willing to exceed standards, and if you don’t know what your internship expects from you, figure this out up front. Contribute your own ideas if you have them, this is not the time to be shy. Be proactive with your work. Take the initiative to learn programs on your own, beat the deadlines, and ask for extra work (only if you have finished your assignments). The goal is to take as much from the experience as you can.
Done with your internship? Ask about a job!
Apart from an in-house job, internships offer many networking opportunities that can help lead to a full-time position. After you’ve spent time with your company, don’t be afraid to ask your boss or mentor what your future looks like with them. Set up a meeting, let them know that you have enjoyed working with them, and ask what your chances are of getting a position with the organization.
Spotlight On: IT Internships
Make that chip work!
You may be working hard studying to get a degree, you may have proven your smarts, but do you know what it’s like to work in a real IT position? Hiring managers will get plenty of applicants with the same qualifications as you. The key to getting an IT job is to get some hands-on experience with an IT internship.
Many major companies, such as the Vanguard Group, will take on small groups of interns to show them the ropes. These internship duties do not require grunt work like getting food and coffee. From day one you will get hands on experience. The senior HR manager Dawn Lindberg says, “Our internship program is highly structured. The group comes in as a class. They work together, network together, and present a class project in addition to their other assignments – programming, hardware, Web services or another technical area – from their supervisors. We involve students in the actual day-to-day duties of their department.”
The interviewing process is much like interviewing for a job. It’s yet another benefit to exploring internships — you’re getting practice with the procedures you’ll want to be comfortable with by the time you’re job-hunting.
Specifically for an IT internship, answer questions honestly. If you cannot answer technical questions that you have already claimed to have known, why would the hiring manager want to consider you? If you are up front about the skills you possess, companies know that you are looking to be an intern and know you will learn more through this experience. An awareness of what you know and recognizing what you don’t is good at this stage. Internships are meant to learning experiences, so don’t feel like you need to speak in 1′s and 0′s.
Be sure to show that you are eager to learn, because technology never stops changing. Programming languages some and go, so try to keep an open mind and avoid getting bogged down in learning just systems, or just networking, or just C+, PHP, MySQL, Ruby, etc. An internship is about dipping your toe in the water, not diving head-over-heels into a super-niche skill set.
One of the best things you can do, not only as a student but for the rest of your career, is contribute to open-source projects to hone your skills and add to your resume. Check out SourceForge for a list of open-source projects you can contribute to.