To learn how to land an internship: 7 techniques to land an internship
Which internships are useful / what looks good on my profile?
With 1000's of companies offering internships across 100's of profiles, selecting the right internship becomes quite a challenge. At the first stage, you need to select which company and profiles to apply for. In the second stage, you need to select which offer to finally accept. This article will approach the selection keeping in mind three priorities:
Selecting an internship that looks good on your profile
Selecting an internship that is best for your learning curve
Selecting an internship to obtain a return offer
I have outlined the 7 key factors to be kept in mind while evaluating any internship opportunity:
(a) Brand name/prestige of the firm vs job profile
Here you need to see what is more important to you, your learning curve or profile building, in case there is a trade-off. This parameter has to be analyzed along with the nature of the work. If it's a big company and not a good profile, then it’ll only add a certain value to your profile but you might not actually learn much. On the other hand, a small company with a good profile gives you ample learning opportunities. Keep in mind that on your profile, more than just the name of the firm, the kind of work that you’ve done matters!
(b) Nature of work -
Any kind of analyst role, product development role, or a research role is useful both for your learning curve and your profile. Even live projects are very useful. Roles such as sales and marketing, digital marketing, advertisement, outreach, etc. are not as beneficial, unless they are being offered by a highly established company/institute or you want to pursue these fields post-college.
(c) Duration of the internship -
A minimum of 2 months should be the duration of an internship and ideally 4-6 months. Anything shorter than 8 weeks doesn’t give you enough time with the company to actually do meaningful work or for you to gain exposure to that industry. I will definitely recommend against the 15-day internship trend that many companies have started. What can you possibly learn/deliver within 15 days? Anyone seeing your profile may not pay a lot of emphasis to it.
(d) Stipend
If it's an established company: Don't care about the stipend, even if it's zero, it doesn't matter.
If it's a small company or startup: Be careful because if they’re not paying you they might not get meaningful work done by you. Observe on a case by case basis.
If it's a sales commission based stipend: It's not a very useful internship, unless you are looking at taking up a job as a sales/marketing person later. Otherwise, the internship will not add much value to you. It is essentially the firm hiring free manpower to make sales.
(e) Full time / part time
Full time is any-day better. Typically take up internships during your summer break so it can be a full-time internship.
(f) Remote / in-person internship
An in-person internship is a better option from both perspectives, you learn more during the internship and it adds more value to your profile.
(g) Understanding why the company/institute/professor is hiring interns in the first place
This is a difficult parameter to get data on, but if you can it’ll help you make a better decision.
(i) If the company is hiring you because it needs you to get certain work done, then that's not a good scenario, because the kind of work for which an intern with zero or minimal work experience is required is usually manual labor and repetitive tasks where you don’t learn much.
(ii) If the firm is hiring you as an intern because that is a part of their recruitment process to hire full-time employees, then that's a very good situation. In that case, they’ll actually make you do meaningful work (the work that the firm actually does) so that they can judge your caliber and suitability for the job role.
I, for instance, directly asked my interviewer at a top tier firm, why are you hiring interns with zero experience. I wouldn’t recommend always being so straight forward, but just giving you an option.
How to choose between different internship types?
As a student we are often conflicted between choosing from the following types of internships: corporate vs social vs governmental vs research-based internships
Case I - you know what you want to do after college:
In that case pick the type of internship in line with what you want to do post-college, easy.
Case II - the usual case, when you’re confused or you perceive multiple career paths post-college:
In this case, diversify and try different things in line with the multiple career trajectories you perceive as possibilities. This helps in two ways. First, it helps you to have certain experience and something on your profile in each of the different career paths you may pick, so that finally whatever you pick, you’ll be a good candidate for that. Second, with this exposure across the different areas, it will also significantly help you to decide upon a favorable career path.
At times you may not have many options to pick and select from. In those situations, you may need to compromise on some of the above factors.
In all the discussion so far, do not forget to look at your aptitude and interest while selecting the right internship for you.
To learn how to make a professional CV to get selected by top tier firms, read here.
To learn how to comprehensively prepare for your interviews, read here.
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Wishing you luck with finding the right opportunity for you. If you still have more queries, then feel free to get in touch or drop in a comment below.
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