Student Resumes: Chapter Two – How to Secure Internships

In healthier economies, it was common practice for employers to offer internship positions to students in their senior and/or junior years of college.  So prevalent was this practice at one time that most students assumed an internship to be a “given,” an integral and once-unquestionable process of transitioning from the role of student to that of a contributing member of the workforce.  Today’s market landscape, however, has made internships more difficult to secure.  Grasping for solvency, companies undergoing downsizing and outsourcing initiatives can no longer afford to “give” anything away.

On-campus career counselors once serving as viable resources are hard pressed in this economy to negotiate internships for their constituencies.  Tomorrow’s business professionals must therefore be savvy, proactive, and creative in ferreting out opportunities for internships that represent the “make or break factor” on student resumes.  If your degree is on the horizon, you must construct and vigilantly follow through with a well-planned strategy designed to provide you with greater opportunities for securing an internship.

First, give serious consideration to the potential of entering a company on a voluntary basis.  While it may, at first, seem ludicrous to ask to work for no pay, consider the benefits of such a game plan.  Your competitors (the other members of your graduating class) are demanding salaries at a time when most companies are tightening the belt.  Make a good case for your request via a well-written resume and cover letter, and you will be perceived as resourceful and serious; your chances for gaining an internship will increase dramatically.  Once positioned among the workforce, you will have gained the valuable first-hand experience that employers demand.  Upon graduation, should you choose to apply to the same company for full-time status, you will retain an edge over other job seekers as you will have gained familiarity with the culture of the company, including its policies, procedures, expectations, and interpersonal dynamics.

Even if a job within the company in which you have served as a voluntary, unpaid intern does not materialize, your time with the company has proven extremely useful, for you can highlight that experience on your resume and cover letter.  Support those documents with a strong letter of recommendation from your immediate supervisor, and you will be able to present yourself as more marketable and competitive.

Whether you choose the route of a voluntary intern or pursue a traditional, paying internship, you should determine the companies to which you will apply.  As the number of jobs has become finite, broaden your search.  For example, if your college major is Chemistry and you aspire to join a pharmaceutical firm, by all means, apply to the drug manufacturers.  However, include within your search corporations that develop and produce other, chemical-based products, such as plastics, fragrances, cosmetics, and synthetic flavorings.  Although you may not land an internship with a pharmaceutical manufacturer, an internship in another environment will provide you with hands-on experience in setting up, conducting, analyzing, and recording results of laboratory tests that impact the development, validation, and manufacture of a product.  On student resumes, these general skills will demonstrate more value to a drug company than a resume lacking in practical laboratory experience.

In compiling your research concerning potential employers, determine, if at all possible, the decision makers with whom you wish to communicate. These would be the human resources manager accountable for the particular division in which you are interested or the manager currently assigned to that department. Although most opportunities necessitate communication with employers via general or industry-specific Internet job boards as well as companies’ proprietary job sites, some positions are not so evident and accessible in this manner.  Laser-printed on appropriate stationery, addressed to the appropriate parties, stamped, and mailed, well-crafted student resumes and cover letters have opened doors simply because their presentation cannot be overlooked in an electronic shuffle.

In the third and final chapter of this series, we will explore internships and their value from the perspective of graduates’ parents.