Internships traditionally are designed to provide high school and college students with wonderful workplace opportunities to gain experience in their career fields of interest. Students can gain firsthand experience in the professional world by learning the ins and outs of their potential careers.

Although predominantly filled by the 18-25 year old crowd, older students and workers who are looking for new careers are now strongly urged to intern. This is a terrific way for them to gain experience in a new field and to get solid references for a new position.

The secret of a successful internship program is to plan it well. Often, company personnel do not have the time to fashion an internship program so it is up to you to put together an internship plan that meets your career objectives and complements the company’s need to run its business more successfully. The closer that you can tie the internship to their corporate needs, the more excitement for the internship you’ll find from the folks you hope to be working with.

Here are the questions that you should answer in writing before signing on as an intern:

1. What do I want to learn and accomplish by the end of my internship?
2. Which specific projects or tasks will be expected of me and what is the length of time I think that these projects or tasks will take?
3. Do I already have to implement these projects or tasks? Which skills do I need to learn? How will I learn these new skills — on the job or through company training programs or on my own?
4. How much past experience is necessary before I start these projects or tasks? How much will the possible lack of experience interfere with my successfully implementing the internship?
5. Who will be managing me as an intern? What kinds of performance reviews will there be? Will I be paid a salary or a stipend?

Writing an Internship Resume

In preparing a resume for your internship, be sure to note your grades, relevant courses, volunteer work, leadership experience, hobbies, computer software programs, and professional association memberships and participation. You will also need to highlight character traits that double as qualifications; for example, dependability, flexibility, initiative, and independence. For more information, check out my previous articles on electronic resumes--here on BraveNewWorkWorld and look in http://www.1stbooks.com/cgi-bin/1st?partner~1st|type~3|Data1~1974 for hundreds of powerful keywords.

Resources & Websites to check out:

The Internship Bible offers 100,000+ opportunities for interning in the USA and overseas. There are also fascinating accounts of successful people and their experiences as interns. They also offer hundreds of internship possibilities in their online database.

The American Society of Association Executives lists thousands of professional and trade associations, many of whom will note internship possibilities on their individual websites.

The Chronicle of Higher Education offers weekly updates regarding internship positions on campuses around the country, in research institutes, foundations, and the nonprofit sector.

InternshipPrograms.com

The State University of West Georgia has quite a comprehensive list of organizations of all types that offer internships.

Labor Market Information in more than 40 different cities and states around the country will give you up-to-date information about employers and their willingness to hire interns. There’s also a mountain of material about current salaries for entry-level workers, skills requirements for hundreds of jobs, and material about the hot jobs wherever you’re looking.

CareerPlanit - Internship Opportunities

Colorado College Internships Links

Rising Star Internships

The Society for Human Resource Professionals maintains a national online list of internship opportunities. Check out http://www.shrm.org/students

Summer Internship Program in Biomedical Research

InternReview.com is operated by Carnegie Mellon to let students from any school anonymously post information on a company's dress policy, salary and perks, and give the experience an overall rating, from one to five stars.

NOW: National Organization for Women Internship Information

Inroads’ mission is to develop and place talented minority youth in business
and industry and prepare them for corporate and community leadership.

After Your Internship Finishes:

Be sure to get written performance reviews and recommendations from your employer. Send out hand written thank yous to all the people in the company who made your internship worthwhile.

If you'd like to work at the company after graduation, make sure you stay in touch with your contacts. Send them emails with updates on relevant courses or your future plans. Even if you decide on a different career direction, you will still have an excellent source of references.

Keep a copy of any reports, articles, or presentations you worked on and create a portfolio. When you go to job interviews, make sure that you highlight your internship experience–it will set you apart from applicants with no on-the-job experience.

Best of luck in finding your ideal internship! If you have questions, give me a shout at jlommel@WorkforceAssociates.com.

Next month we’ll be focusing on websites for community college and university graduates. See you then with your mortarboard in hand!

Other NetWorking with Jane Lommel columns

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