<p>People ask me why I never did an internship when I was in college. Well, I applied for some internships, but didn’t get any.</p>
<p>I know it’s too late to be asking this question, but just out of curiosity, what should a college student have listed on his resume in order to be considered for an internship?</p>
<p>If a student never did any extracurricular, never had a job, etc, but is in good academic standing, does he have a realistic chance of getting an internship?</p>
<p>Sure. Many schools will help you with getting internships and co-ops through their career centers.</p>
<p>Your response does not answer my question, but as a side comment, let’s just say that my career center never helped me find anything. I think they just gave me the names of some websites where I could search for internships. That’s all.</p>
<p>You need to be more specific? What kind of internship? How many do you expect to apply to? What field are you applying in/would you like responses directed towards?</p>
<p>Did you ask your department?</p>
<p>It doesn’t really matter to me now because I am a college graduate, but back then my rationalization was that I did not obtain any internship because I never did anything to make myself competitive (no extracurriculars, no jobs, etc). I just want to know if my excuse is valid.</p>
<p>My son’s department sends him emails with internship opportunities. He hasn’t decided what he wants to do this summer and there are two pretty good internships that he could ask about.</p>
<p>Or he could do some research work for me.</p>
<p>i guess it depends on what kind of internships. it seems like it might be harder to get a business/accounting internship. whereas if you’re doing something like marketing and sending out promotional emails, they’ll definitely want someone for that for free work. or just apply to a bunch of internships till you find the right one. i didn’t have experiences in some of the internships i applied, but i showed interest in learning, and they took me in.</p>
<p>ECs and especially work experience are really important for internships…they don’t want to hire someone who’s really booksmart but turns out to be unreliable/antisocial or something…involvement outside of school proves your ability to handle the “real world” rather than just doing well on tests and papers. Almost all of us have to start from the bottom up…dude, I worked in manufacturing one summer, drilling holes in metal and assembling motors. I’m also a girl, haha…it paid well, though, and gave me good experience for the future! No shame in taking a non-glamorous job.</p>
<p>For internships, yes it’s very possible, since you have to start somewhere. </p>
<p>I got my internships mostly through people that I knew and not what was on my resume. I was also contacted for some internships/jobs after meeting with reps during career fairs at my schools. I’m not sure if I ever actually got any responses from cold-calling or sending out unsolicited emails, but I think I only sent out a dozen or so every year, so that’s not surprise.</p>
<p>If you have no previous work experience, you should definitely emphasize your education instead. List that first, mention your GPA if it’s high, any achievements, etc.</p>
<p>Okay, so you had no relevant experience. What would make them want to hire you? How competitive were the internships you applied for, and how many did you apply to? If you’re applying to a publicized internship at a well known company, and you’ve got nothing to bring to the table, especially when compared to the hundreds if not thousands of other students applying to that same internship with some sort of experience, it’s pretty easy for your empty resume to be tossed out the window.</p>
<p>People still ask me why I didn’t do an internship. It’s like they think all I had to do was sign my name somewhere and BAAAAM! I got an internship. I applied for internships at average companies, and didn’t get any.</p>
<p>At least I was right.</p>
<p>Not that it matters to me, because I plan (hope) on staying out of the “real world” for the rest of my life, but aren’t internships supposed to be at the bottom of the ladder? But you need to climb other steps to reach the bottom of the ladder? How are you supposed to get internships if you need experience, but you can only get experience if you start at the bottom (internships)?</p>
<p>And I thought Academia was silly…</p>
<p>Do on campus job (the one which is a part of financial aid package) helps when trying to get internships? Let’s say my on campus job will be my first job when I’m trying to get internships…</p>
<p>My first job was around 12 cleaning someones yard and house for ten cents an hour. And I had a bunch of other jobs through junior high and high school. Work has never been a problem after that.</p>
<p>A good department should funnel job postings for new grads, research internships at the university itself and summer internships from companies in the area and around the country. Professors and department heads with contacts in the community, both local and national should forward opportunities to the students in the major.</p>
<p>I know two of the schools I applied to had mandatory co-op after the sophomore year.</p>
<p>I did my first internship the summer after my sophomore year in college. I had good grades and extracurriculars, but that’s it. My career center was also useless. I sent out 50 resumes, got 2 interviews, and two offers. Just to show how much a difference just a bit of relavent experience makes, when I was looking for my second internship, I sent out 8 resumes and got 3 offers.</p>
<p>It varies some by major. I’m in Engineering.</p>
<p>If you’re personable you can land a low level internship without way too much trouble. I cold called the local department of highways and they took me without an in person interview.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>After graduation, start asking people what you should have done differently.</p></li>
<li><p>Invent a time machine.</p></li>
<li><p>Go back, lock your earlier self in a closet, and apply your newfound knowledge.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Since a lot of what you can do to get an internship will also be what you can do to get a job, why not focus on how to make yourself competitive for the sort of job you want now? At the end of the process you will have learned a lot of what you’re trying to learn now, but you will also have taken steps to improve a situation that you clearly find distressing.</p>
<p>Well, I didn’t end up taking the internship offered to me, as the stipend would have left me over $500 in debt if I lived like a hobo, and over $1k if I lived like a proper human being. But I did get an offer for the one internship I applied for. How did I do this? I applied at the national level for an organization that I had worked with locally on campus activism. Even though they are a major org, and the job involved lobbying in DC, what made the difference was not experience, but their familiarity with me, and the according certainty they had regarding my competence.</p>