Internships are anecdote scavenger hunts

To use our interactive study guide product, visit InterviewX.co

Life is a game of incentives. You can predict, relatively accurately, how people will behave based on the incentive structure in place.

That’s why (unstructured) internships are so weird. Let’s look at the incentives at play when a full time position after the internship is NOT on the table (which is often the case):

1. interns are mostly incentivized to HAVE AN INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE ON THEIR RESUME, and once you secure the internship, there are no real positive or negative consequences for your performance as an intern
2. full time employees know that you’ll be gone after 3 months, so they don’t have a real incentive to try to coach or teach you
3. many internships are unpaid (which is a separate issue and debate, over whether this is ethical) which further clouds the intern’s incentives

So sometimes in internships, there can exist a dynamic where you don’t feel like anyone cares what you do during the day, you don’t feel that anyone cares enough to invest in your education or growth, and as a result, you spend 8 straight hours on the internet, sprinkle in a few meaningless clicks on a spreadsheet here and there, and start to dread life as an adult if this experience is a preview of what is to come.

When a job is on the line, everything seems to fall into place

If this internship is a direct audition for a full time job the following year, the incentive structure is sound on both sides. The company is focused and attentive to evaluating your skills, to putting you in a good position to succeed, and to hopefully gaining a full time employee that they can continue to invest in as time goes on.

As the intern, you’re incentivized to build strong relationships, do a great job, and end the uncertainty of what you’re going to do after college ends, which is basically the holy grail of why you even went to college in the first place. However, most of the time, this is not the dynamic- you pleaded your way into an internship, it’s on you to use your time wisely, and no one really seems to pay attention to what you’re doing.

What should you do if you’re in an unstructured, seemingly aimless internship?

Nearly every college internship I had fit this description- unpaid, unsupervised, and without a ton of engagement or scrutiny from my “bosses.” It made me dread graduating and getting a real job, because I was bored to tears as an intern, and it brought out all the worst qualities in me.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I should have been focused on two things above all else:

1. by far the most important, collecting stories and anecdotes around what I accomplished, and by extension, what I was capable of as an employee
2. winning over coworkers, and turning them into advocates who could serve as professional references

What makes for a good anecdote or story as an intern?

Doing manual gruntwork is not a story. Making copies or fetching coffee is not a story, and inputting data manually into a Microsoft Excel is not a story.

A story is something that has a beginning, middle and an end. Think of the STAR method:

Situation

Task

Action

Result

You should pursue tangible projects that have a legitimate effect on the company, even if it’s in a small way.

Requirements of a proper workplace accomplishment anecdote

• the story must have a beginning (situation and task), proactive action you took, and a positive result that you achieved through your hard work
• you should understand how what you worked on positively impacted those around you, and fit into the bigger picture
• the story should describe action you took over a legitimate period of time, not just a day or two

Bonus Points awarded if…

• you took the initiative either on this project as a whole, or by doing certain things within this project
• you have to push through serious roadblocks
• you have to work with several crossfunctional stakeholders
• you have to work with a difficult person, but are able to overcome it
• are able to convince someone around your line of thinking
• you’re recognized by those higher up for your work
• the project or initiative is strategic in nature, and is somewhat complex or nuanced to pull off
• if your work lived on even after you left the internship, and left a lasting impact

How to get started

If you find your internship doesn’t have a ton of structure, you should pick three goals that you want to accomplish by the end of the summer. These goals should require legitimate planning, and legitimate project time to complete. Propose those goals to your “boss” or whoever is supposed to be your supervisor, and ask if it’d be okay to meet once a week, or once every two weeks, to discuss your progress, ask questions, check in to make sure your work is sufficient.

Setting up a weekly or biweekly 1:1 will increase accountability and focus, and will start to earn buy in for the projects you want to pursue.

By the end of the summer, if you accomplish the three things you set out to accomplish, you’ll have three strong anecdotes to use in interviews. As far as interviews are concerned, your past roles become a collection of specific anecdotes, and you should aim to collect them consciously and with dedication.

Because anecdotes and examples are the only thing hiring managers have to go on, you should start building that bank as early as possible. If you aren’t focused on that task as an intern, and think you’re getting away with highway robbery by browsing Instagram for 8 hours a day and then leaving, you’re only cheating yourself out of stories that can get you the job you really want.

Take inspiration from Instagram

You ever get the sneaking suspicion that some people take a trip ENTIRELY for the Instagrams they’ll get when they’re there?

As an intern, that needs to be you, except the Instagrams are stories of the results you drove, and Hawaii is that real estate company that your Dad’s college best friend is the CEO of. When you find yourself in an unstructured internship, and you find yourself browsing the internet all day without any consequences, you should turn the entire experience into a scavenger hunt for accomplishments and anecdotes. As you uncover them, jot them down so you remember them later point by point.

As someone looking for a job right out of college, those examples of what you’ve done in the past are like gold. If you squander the opportunity to develop those stories in the little time you have to gain actual work experience, you will be at a serious disadvantage when it comes time to secure a full time job.

However, if you know what you’re looking for, and understand what you need to accomplish by the end of the summer, you’ll be far better positioned to getting there. Once you have some legitimate stories under your belt, you’ll be well on your way to the career you actually want. Finally, always remember that a real job is much more fun than an unpaid internship- the stakes are higher, you have more skin in the game, and the team around you is incentivized to invest in your development.