5 Things You Won’t Hear From Your School’s Internship/Co-Op Office -#TalesOfAFormerIntern
In May 2020, I returned to Vancouver to finish up my final year of university after taking a year off to pursue internships/co-ops at the other side of the country in Canada. From August-December 2019, I was a Consumer Industries Communications Intern at SAP in Montreal, QC, and from January-April 2020, I was a Digital Marketing Co-Op at Rangle.io in Toronto, ON. What was only 8 months of me taking two semesters off from school, working the 9–5 life as an intern in two of the nation’s largest cities, really felt like an eternity. I will never be the person I once was compared to last year of Summer 2019, but all for good reasons.
Life became an adventure once I started my free trial of “adulting”. Remember sending hundreds of job applications to companies that just ended up ghosting you? The same would happen when I had to find a place to rent during my internships. Weather was also a huge culture shock for me, even though I would still be living in Canada. I will never forget sweating instantaneously in 35 C heat during the summer days in Montreal, and 4 months later, during my last week of my internship, walking through a snow blizzard in -30 C temperatures — I was probably 2 minutes away from getting frostbite on my ears from not wearing a toque. But my biggest, and oddest concern for me was trying to make new friends in the cities I would be moving to. While I have acquaintances in both Montreal and Toronto, I wasn’t comfortable with sending a random message to them out of the blue — that I would be moving to their city for 4 months. Thanks to Facebook groups, I have made so many long-lasting friendships that I will forever cherish and miss very near and dear to my heart.
As for professionally, the corporate life enabled me to work under immense pressure, sparking this hustler mentality I didn’t even know I had in me. From coming in to the office, I was expected to attend meetings and work on real-life projects that would deliver an impact to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Along the way, my self-esteem skills had gone up the roof. Even though I consider myself as an ENTJ, having taken the Myers-Briggs test a vast handful of times, I can confidently say I now have no problem honing in my public speaking skills and receiving feedback and constructive criticism from my colleagues.
While I am thankful for my school’s co-op office for preparing us upon heading out to our work terms, I felt like the Canvas courses I was required to take were watered down and I was spoonfed only the basics of how to job search, or how to write a resume and cover letter. I’m not saying my school’s co-op was not good in teaching us those assets, but I feel like the co-op program itself has so much potential and so much to improve on in order to produce this caliber of students and graduates working at their dream jobs, or having other tech companies from other major Canadian cities come acknowledge my school’s existence and visit us during student career fairs.
The following are all things I wish my school’s co-op/internship office had told me before I started my first-ever internship.
1) Make your resume only one page.
In a co-op workshop I was required to attend, my co-op coordinator asked us, “How long do you think a recruiter will spend time on your resume?” I quickly raised my hand and answered with, “5 seconds?” My coordinator said I was correct; in addition, she said some recruiters will even take only 2 seconds if they have a handful of resumes to look over.
But at the same time, the co-op coordinators at the workshop strongly emphasized to the rest of the students in the room that we should make our resume two pages, especially since many of us are seeking their first-ever co-op/internship.
2–5 seconds, yet we should be making 2-page resumes??? Make it make sense???
There are some professions that do want 2-pages or more (eg. senior academic or research positions), so I completely understand when students are starting out in the industry they plan on going into, by using the “dump everything” approach with all the volunteer and work experiences they think are relevant to document, in which they end up with a multiple page resume.
From a school alumnus I’ve talked to who is now working as a recruiter, he says he receives a huge PDF of 100+ resumes sorted by college/university. As he is scrolling down this gigantic PDF, each resume takes only 5–10 seconds for it to stand out before he moves on to the next one.
“If I only had 5–10 seconds to show my resume, what would be the most important takeaways that I can prioritize and put at the top? If you have taken the “dump everything” approach, then very likely you have not prioritized and the recruiter or hiring manager has potentially wasted your precious 5–10 seconds reading lower value items on your resume.”
His suggestion is to look at your resume, rank each item in terms of relevancy and importance to the role, and sort accordingly. Chop off the lowest priority items. The reason why he (and myself) are such a big proponent of the 1-page resume is because it forces you to prioritize.
2) School clubs and your local community are a great way to get involved and gain skills you can put on your resume, but you can also find tons of other cool communities via online!
In my first and second year of university, I was heavily involved in a number of student clubs and societies. You name it, I was probably in that club as an executive member working on graphic design or writing blog posts. And even before pre-COVID-19 era, I extended my search for volunteer organizations to include Facebook groups, Slack channels, and extended my reach to include my LinkedIn network, as there was only so much I could do on campus when it came to student and community outreach. Searching online was hard — I don’t think such communities existed yet. When you meet up with others in-person, you get to interact and converse with them in a way that cannot be replicated through a computer screen. (eg. video calls, going back & forth between email threads)
Thanks to the virus, it has really brought students from all over Canada, the US, and other parts of the world in congregating together and unifying in alignment with our professional & personal interests, as we head down the eventual path to success. If you want to work on a side project this Summer, or connect with fellow students going into the same industry as you, as a result of your co-op or internship getting cancelled or rescinded, shoutout to these amazing online communities that has made all of this possible, bringing all of us students closer than ever before — like Design Buddies, intern.club, Project Snapshot, and of course, Augment (1, 2).
3) Layoffs can happen at any time.
It’s all sunshine and rainbows until your work lays off a third of its staff on two separate instances during my most recent work term earlier this year.
After the first round of layoffs, I had a Skype chat with my co-op coordinator and told her about what happened at work that morning. I urged her to include layoffs in future co-op modules. Not to sound dramatic, but at this early, pivotal moment in my career, seeing my fellow co-workers getting the boot hit me like a train.
This all comes down to: Never swear loyalty for your company.
I think a very important lesson that must be shared and taught to all students is that you can be passionate about what you do for a living, but your identity is not tied to your profession. Take care of your mental health too; I had trouble eating that evening later, and knowing myself, I take everything waaaaay too seriously. Layoffs suck, but rest assured, the co-workers I was able to get a hold of and connect with on LinkedIn, all landed new jobs at new companies a month or so later.
4) Keep networking during your internship! Arrange coffee chats with your co-workers or those in other departments.
Once I landed my first internship, I thought that was the end for me when it came to networking. Turns out I was wrong — networking has no expiry date. It is never too late to start a coffee chat with your colleagues. The connections you make at your internship will last a lifetime, and it is probable that you could end up working with your colleagues again at some point, especially when you’re still at a young age in your professional career.
Forgot how to do the whole networking thing? Here is a short email template I like to send to those I’m interested in connecting with that gets to the point, and why I want to reach out to them:
Hi [subject’s first name],
My name is [your first name] and I am currently working as a [job title] Intern at [name of company you’re interning at]. I’d like to reach out to you for a 30 minute coffee chat, as I am curious to learn more about what your job role and what your position entails, as well as your background that led to where you are now.
Would you be available for an online coffee chat sometime this week? It would be greatly appreciated!
I look forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience!
Cheers,
[Your name here]
Networking doesn’t have to be all formal too. While it is informative to know about your colleague’s professional and academic background, do some research on their LinkedIn and break the ice! Perhaps the both of you have something in common you can bring up. Are the both of you from the same hometown? Did your colleague go to the same university that you did? Heck, if you happen to know that they are a huge NHL hockey fan, don’t hesitate to mention that in your coffee chat! I can recall some instances where I included in the “About Me” section of my portfolio website that I cheer for both the Vancouver Canucks and the Toronto Maple Leafs (shhh…), and it makes for a really great conversation towards the end.
I am finally catching up on networking by scheduling online coffee chats with people I come across on LinkedIn. This time though, I’m reaching out to students.
5) When you have completed your internship, seek mentorship.
I truly believe that the path to success is not a linear one, and it is integral to keep unremitting self-improvement in order to become the best possible version of yourself.
After two internships/co-ops in communications & marketing, I have gone back to my roots in design when I moved back to Vancouver in May 2020 to finish my last year of school. It is now the norm to see various disciplines being self-taught, such as design, but at times, it can be quite challenging and overwhelming to learn all of this information presented right in front of you. With such a transition from one industry to the next, it can be beneficial to connect with someone who is senior and has several years of experience down their belt, that can act and serve as your mentor.
Where can you find mentors, though? From 4), schedule as many coffee chats as you can while you are still working at your internship. To add, at both of the internships I worked at, sign up for internal events that your company might host. And if allowed, see what kinds of projects your workplace has done or is currently being worked on. At my first internship, I signed up for a design thinking workshop. In the afternoon session, we were given an activity in which I was put into a group — we were given a problem from an already existing app, and we had to design a solution, all in 5 mins. At my second co-op, one of the major projects that was, and is still being worked on, is on Design Systems. The topic of Design Systems was a real eye-opener for me in re-learning design and narrowing my focus to Visual and UX/UI Design.
A list of mentorship programs for:
- Design - ADPlist.org
- SWE - Rewriting the Code (RTC), BUILT BY GIRLS
- Business - I believe depending on your concentration at your university, each has their own mentorship program, or you can find a local chapter as part of a larger organization. (eg. CPA Canada for Accounting). I have also seen SCORE for those wanting to go into Entrepreneurship.
- In general - Project Snapshot
From all of these experiences from my co-ops & internships, has taught me more than school ever did! An important lesson I want to give is that learning never ever stops beyond the classroom. A common misbelief when you land your first internship is that you will be working the 9–5 life, like a typical full-time employee. While we embark on internships to gain work experience, companies do realize that you are still a student. They want to see what you’re capable of learning from Day 1, so that you’re able to perform your best work possible.
NOTE: #TalesOfAFormerIntern is a series I will be writing for Augment, a community of intern leaders who help empower & elevate students around the world. Check out Augment’s Medium page for other articles written by interns and students like me!
About the writer:
Nadia is going into her final year as a Communication Studies major and Publishing minor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC (wow that’s a mouthful to say). She was once a former intern, having worked at a Fortune 500, and then at a mid-sized company. Outside of the computer screen, you can find her attending hip-hop concerts, going to NHL hockey games (go Canucks and Leafs!), and napping.
Connect with Nadia:
Portfolio Website
LinkedIn
Medium
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