Internships Can Help Jumpstart Your Career
By Walter Cicchetti
SALEM, Mass., April 2, 2017 — We all know that when you walk across the stage at graduation, there won’t be a job offer in that folder next to your degree.
Finding a job after graduation in your chosen field takes time and isn’t always easy. In my early experience of looking at job postings in my field, most employers are looking for at least two to three years of experience. Working for free as an intern — sometimes even paying to work (I had to pay for the credits I earned) — felt absurd to me at first. But I quickly realized it was the way to go and that with the right internship, your resume might just set you apart.
My senior year of high school, I took part in my first internship: I was a production intern at a radio station in Plymouth. For much of this internship, I watched my supervisor and took notes; though I inevitably learned how commercials, called “spots” in the industry, are pre-recorded, edited, and scheduled to be aired on the station. As a result, I gained important knowledge regarding how a radio station operates. After this first experience, I felt confident to pursue more relevant internships in the future, which positioned me to make an impact on the field I love.
The biggest takeaway from my first internship were the communication skills that I learned, especially how to communicate productively with other professionals. This wasn’t always an easy learning curve, however. Once I got to edit and place commercial “spots” into the system on my own, I also set myself up to receive my first real-world criticism.
I came in one day to find out that I had messed up when placing a “spot” into the system the day before, and that the station had been left with “dead air” for over 30 minutes: nothing was playing — just silence. My supervisor wasn’t happy (it came back on him), but learning how to work through this incident with my colleagues turned out to be very helpful. In hindsight, I am incredibly grateful that this mistake came within the safe context of an internship rather than during a paid career!
Learning how to interact with coworkers is not the only benefit from internships.
According to Elisabeth Kramer-Simpson, a professor at New Mexico Tech University, pre-career internships can also help students learn how to interact with clients and potential customers. Specifically, Kramer-Simpson writes that scaffolded client interactions with a supervisor present go a long way in preparing college students for their own work with clients after graduation.
In most of the departments at Salem State University, internships are not required, so it can be hard to start the process of finding and applying for one. However, there are plenty of resources.
As student, Career Services can help you apply for an internship as graduation nears or even assist you with locating and applying for jobs. The office can also help you with resume-building and interview skills.
“We’re not an office that is required for graduation, so our philosophy continues to be to ‘meet the students where they are,’” said Joe Santacroce, Assistant Director of Career Services.
According to both Santacroce and Stephen Maser, the Associate Director of Employer Relations, the greatest challenge is getting students to visit the office in the first place.
Nationwide, 32 percent of graduates since 2009 reported they did not visit the Career Services office at their school even once while pursuing their undergraduate degree, according to the 2016 Gallup-Purdue Index Report.
In response, Maser and Santacroce said that they’ve been working with other departments and professors on campus to get students to use these services.
“As a starting point, we have increased classroom visits by collaborating with faculty members to allow us into the classroom to discuss and present on career topics,” Santacroce said. “We have also partnered with different offices and groups on campus to run workshops, host presentations, and promote the services available to all students.”
I have used Career Services many times myself. The staff members in the office have helped me perfect my resume for the many internships to which I’ve applied. They are great at taking your experience, transferring it onto paper, and tailoring it toward the internships you want. Moreover, I am not the only one who has caught on to the power of internships and the services that can help you get one.
“We’ve seen significant increases over the last few years and hope that the trend continues,” said Santacroce.
Most recently, the assistance I got from the Career Services office even helped me land an internship at Walt Disney World. While I was in Orlando last year, I got to work alongside Agent P. from the Disney Channel show “Phineas and Ferb” as I signed up new agents within the World Showcase at Epcot to help defeat the evil Doctor Doofenshmirtz.
Your mission then, if you so chose, is to participate in an internship for yourself! Find a relevant internship, gain real-world job and life experience, and head into your future job interviews with confidence.
