The End of Intern Season
As summer winds to a close, so does the majority of intern season. At top companies like Google, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, etc. hoards of students will be leaving behind their badges and desks to return to school. This story is no different for myself; in two weeks, I will be turning in my badge, returning my corporate laptop, and flying back to school. Though not the first choice for almost any student — I mean who wants to give up their summer break, the one time to recuperate from a particularly awful school year, to go work some more — there is a lot to be said about the merits of internships.
In today’s corporate world, internships are your entrance to a full time job. Without internship experience (paid or not) on your resume, you’re likely not going to be glanced at twice. There is a student just like you, who will get that call back all because they have experience.
This isn’t to say that you should become discouraged if you don’t have experience. Experience and opportunities are easy to find; in fact, they are in abundance. As long as you’re open minded to trying any and everything, employers will love your enthusiasm and strong work ethic and take you under their wing. Email people at a local university if you’re interested in research, employees at small local companies if you’re interested in business, or whatever else suits you to get a conversation started. A lot of people won’t respond, but for every 15 emails you send, you’ll get at least 1 response. And that 1 response is more than enough. It’s the entrance you need to connect and really sell yourself as the potential-filled-employee you are.
The real heart of this article, however, is about the important of selling yourself while you’re at your internship. A lot of college students fail to realize that these companies aren’t simply paying you and providing you resume builders for free. These companies have an investment in it: you. By training interns and teaching them how to work the ropes of their company, they’re hoping to have you back next year/summer to continue excelling and providing talent to their organization.
Exactly, you read that right: for those who prove that they are serious about their work, companies are extremely loyal.
The thing is, by serious, we don’t mean experts. Organizations understand that their interns are still learning, and in fact, that’s exactly what they came there to do! To learn! The hope is that recruiters will be able to observe if their interns learned fast enough, implemented what they were taught, and contributed to the company in a meaningful way. In short, did they complete the project they were assigned?
Nothing about that requires that you’re the best student in your entire class or the top student in your major. But the rewards to reap from simply being an attentive intern and hard-working employee are innumerable. More than a likely return offer from the company you’re at, you will have a legitimate project to put down on your resume to talk about at any following interviews you may have. The doors that open through networking you did during your internship or simply because your resume is existent are countless and will prove beneficial.
And if you return to the company you interned at, you’ve already got a leg up compared to all the other entry-level employees. You know the company-specific technologies and models AND you’ve already worked on a project for them, so promotion and opportunities are infinitely closer to you than completely new hires.
In short, understand that internships are a two way street. Companies are extremely loyal to interns who are loyal to them. Take that information in stride, and pursue any opportunity that comes your away. Something is way better than nothing in this arena and once you’ve got an in, it can only be positive from there.
— Sravya Vishnubhatla, Founder & CEO
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