Free Advice
Ignite Your Internship: Tips to Making the Most out of Your 10-week Interview
That ever-so-important internship is finally yours. After painstakingly tailoring every cover letter to hundreds, if not thousands, of HR personnel at every agency, firm or corporation known to man and sitting through rounds of interviews, you finally landed your internship.
But now what? You are at your cubicle, the facebook.com addiction has gotten boring and there is nothing to do! Wrong. Sure your supervisors are busy and keep telling you the work load will pick up. Don’t worry though, sitting around doing “nothing,” isn’t some sort of test. You can use this opportunity to prove you have initiative.
1. Start Research on Your Competition
Prepare a short word document 3-5 pages on research you found in magazine articles, online or even in a book pertaining to your industry’s subject matter. Then send it to your supervisors or team. Rest assured, they’ll know they can place a load of responsibility upon you if you go off and begin your own project.
2. Ask Other Interns What They’re Doing
It’s all about networking! Maybe they were stuck in the same rut as you were one time. See? You’re not alone. You’ll not only gain valuable insight from one another but also make a friend on the job.
3. Speak Up!
Tell your supervisor, “Hey, I know I can do that TPS report if you could just take 10 minutes out to go over the outline and structure of it, I’m your man.” Then make sure you shine. Show your supervisor that his time was well invested. He may just open up the door to bigger and better projects.
4. Drop the Competitive Attitude
No one is out to get you or take your internship spot. You and the fellow interns all got to where you are because of proving yourself worthy to the firm you’re at. You aren’t going to be given a cumulative GPA at the end of the summer or be placed in some Honors Society. You’re all going to leave with relevant experience and some key colleagues in your industry.