I just spent the last week on vacation. It was so great to get away from work for a few days and go a few places I've never been before.
But, anyway, I am back now. And I would like to talk a little bit about internships. On Experience's Homepage, there is an article titled "Milking Your Internship." The most important point the author makes is "You may feel like a student, but you are expected to act like a professional."
That is so true. The way you land jobs from internships, especially in an economic environment like the one we are currently experiencing, is to act more professional than your boss.
One of my classmates had an internship for a Member of Congress last year, and the internship coordinator didn't really put a lot of effort in to his job. So my friend, thought "oh that's just the way it is in this office, you don't have to work very hard." Well, after a couple of weeks, he realized his boss was just lazy and started working as hard as possible at his internship. Well, once summer hit, the intern coordinator got let go, and guess who was offered the job? Yep. My classmate.
You really need to show them you are willing to do work that isn't super gratifying, yet needs to be done. And you need to have a great attitude and show you are interested, not only in your job, but also the entire industry. It's what has helped my of my peers land a job, including myself.
Photo from Carleton.edu
4 comments:
Kids should definitely get more chances of getting an internships, just so they learn the value of hard work early on. That's pretty amazing about your friend.
Acting "more professional than your boss" assumes that you are there to compete with your boss, (and others) for their work. Wrong!!! You are there to gain skills and experience, to learn from those who supervise you and your peers as well as from others coming up the ranks. If you want to act like a ROTTEN APPLE from some movie of late, don't apply!!
P.S. Entitlement IS dead. Work on being really GREAT at what you do. Professionalism will be learned as you MATURE.
One of the reasons wages have lost so much ground in the near term, regardless of the market downturn, has been the general lack of competence of young graduates. Linguistic skill and business acumen has been replaced, by and large, by tempestuous behavior, carnivorous office politics and unrealistic demands for over night success.
Most of us are not Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, much less Mozart or Steven Hawkings. Get used to that!! Be humble and supportive of others. Help the businesses you work FOR to maintain market share. The world of business is not about you. It is about business and the survival of the marketplace worldwide. America needs more team players than ever. Flashes in the pan will come and go. That's why we call them "flashes in the pan". Like tiny flecks of gold that get your hopes up and tease you when you're looking for a GOLD MINE.
I only had 10 weeks at my internship. They had me pushing papers for the first few days, but I had bigger plans. My goal from the beginning was to have "one million dollars worth of influence." That meant being indispensably helpful! In the end, I had managed seven million dollars in purchases, and helped out five different executives in analysis or just putting out fires.
Now that I'm graduating this semester, I'm definitely milking that opportunity! Remember, you're going to die in 60 years. Make them count!
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