Are you interning this summer? Here’s how to make the most of the experience in order to boost your future career
Challenge
The first week or so will be an exciting challenge. Prepare for this. Read about the department you are going to. Write down the names of the people you are being introduced to. Ask good questions in your first week so that you really understand what the team does and, specifically, what they want you to do. It can be very annoying for a supervisor if you only half understand what they want you to do and so produce something that is not right – they might as well have done it themselves. So, ask plenty of checking questions at the beginning – it’s harder to ask obvious things later on.
Make a good impression in your first few days. Do you need to buy one or two smart work pieces of clothing in the UK rather than be caught out in expensive Geneva or New York? Dress as they dress, work the hours they work. The intern who dresses in shorts and leaves at 3pm is unlikely to be offered a job at the end of their time at the company!
Boredom
This middle stage is bound to come. Why am I interning, potentially unpaid, checking a spreadsheet for the third time when it is lovely and sunny outside and I could be sitting on a beach?! Remind yourself what the boring jobs will lead to – what is the data going to be used for? Do the menial tasks as well as you can – if you can’t do those, the next jobs will be even more boring! If you don’t have enough to do, then ask for more work, offer your services around the office (previous interns have often picked up some great projects this way), and if all that fails, invent yourself a project that you could show to your supervisor at the end “I thought I’d review your web pages on x…” ; “I did an analysis of what other providers are offering.” An internship is a big time investment. If you are interning unpaid it will be a big financial investment, too. You want them to remember you well, write you a good reference if you need one, and possibly even offer you a job later. Don’t blow this just because you are having a bad day – aim to be sunny, willing and helpful. Offload a bad day with your fellow interns or friends if you need to, or call the Careers Service if something is going badly wrong.
Future
The last couple of weeks of your internship are key. You will know what you are doing and so be most useful to the organisation. Finish well. Write handover notes for the next intern. Make sure you have a record of everything you have done for your CV. Have you had coffee with everyone you wanted to meet? Thank your supervisor and/or team – bring in cake or chocolates on the last day. Send an email to the team to say what a great time you’ve had (even if it wasn’t as great as you’d hoped) – send it from your personal email so that they can contact you in the future. Write them a card afterwards. All these little things make a big difference in how you’ll be remembered.