Hello all. The email below is from a young lady who didn’t give me a whole lot of info about herself but is looking for guidance on how to find an internship. Normally, I can come up with some good advice because the writer has given me a lot to go on, but, in this case, I had to keep it extra general to make sure it fit her needs. I hope this general advice is useful to her and possibly others who are in her situation.
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NP wrote:
“Hi ,
I am ‘NP’,I have come fro India currently I am in Kentucky.I am doing my MBA from a okay okay college.I would like to know how I can look for a good internship program in Summer 2008,how to go about applying for them.I worked fro 3years in a IT and have come here to do my MBA,currently I am finishing my prerequisites for MBA as I did not have a business backgroud.I am new to the education system and applying and all.I really want to do something worthwhile in Summer.Please whenevr you get time mail me on this.If you cannot and you can talk I can call you sometime whichever is feasible to you and would like to know.
Thanks, NP”
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My response:
NP,
Thanks for reading my blog and reaching out to me as a resource as you look for a summer internship. I won’t call myself an expert of doing the self-driven search for a summer position, but I did find my own MBA summer internship from an off-campus search, so I might be able to give you some good advice. Also, I’ve got to let you know that you didn’t give me many specifics on your profile, so this advice is going to be somewhat general. With that said, I hope you still find it useful.
It sounds like you’re starting from scratch on your internship search without many resources from your school…I know that’s a big assumption, but, based on what you gave me in your email, it’s a safe one. With that in mind, I’d suggest the following steps to help you in finding an internship:
1. Figure out what you want to do: This is rather basic and you’ve probably already figured out what types of internships you want, but I’m going to assume that you haven’t since you didn’t mention it in your email. There isn’t much guidance I can provide here except to tell you to take the time to make some specific choices about what you want to do for the summer. You should be thinking about the industry, function, role, and other basic characteristics of your desired internship…saying that you just want to do “something worthwhile” isn’t too helpful in this respect. You’ve got to get specific with this…
2. Develop your “story”: I’ve written a couple of entries on this before, so I won’t go into too many details about it here. What I’m referring to here is developing your positioning for why you’d be a good candidate to work in a particular industry or company. Your story would have to weave together your educational and professional background (and the skills gined through both) and your desired future career as a way of showing how you’re a fit for the job you’d like to pursue. Again, check through some of my archives for more guidance on this point.
3. Create a list of target employers: Once you know what you want to do and have a story for why, you’ll have to decide on the companies that you’d like to work for. A quick Google/Yahoo search on your desired industry could yield a long list of potential employers and, once you have that list, you can research each firm and figure out which ones are right for you. Some characteristics that might want to check into are corporate culture, geographic location, industry sub-specialty, reputation within the industry, and career trajectory.
4. Reach out to alums and other contacts to get an “in”: You didn’t tell me what school you’re at, so I don’t know what industries or positions it is known for. But, once you’ve decided upon an industry and/or a set of firms, you should try to find ways to get your resume in front of recruiters. You should look through the alumni directories of your business school and possibly your undergraduate university to see if you can find someone who works at one of your target firms. Once you’ve identified potential contacts, ask them for advice on how to apply for an internship at their firms…it is likely that they’ll give you insights that will prove helpful and, if you’re lucky, they may even pass your resume along to their firms’ recruiters. This isn’t a guaranteed way to find a summer internship, but it worked for me, so I can attest that it doesn’t hurt to try it out.
5. Prepare for the interviews: I can’t give you a whole lot of guidance here because I don’t know what industry you’d be working in, but you definitely need to make sure you’re prepared for the summer interview process. I’d recommend doing some research on the web on how to best practice for the interviews and find a collection of classmates and alums from your school to run you through mock interviews. By the time you get in front of a company, you will have done a lot of work to get there, so you shouldn’t ruin your shot by not being ready for it.
These steps are rather general, but, at a high level, this is how I would approach an off-campus internship search and I think the stages would work for most industries that you’d consider. Just make sure you start on this immediately because you’re getting into the recruiting game a little late.
Take care and good luck with your summer internship search. If you work hard, I’m sure that you can find something good.
-Marquis
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