How to get an internship — and other things I learned while career coaching my mentee
By: Ilana Krause
Tags: Career Advice, Advice, Internship Experience, Apply, Resume

How to get an internship — and other things I learned while career coaching my mentee Ilana Krause Nov 18, 2021·4 min read

Photo by Peter Fogden on Unsplash

You know the drill. It’s your sophomore year in college, and you know you should be doing everything in your power to secure a summer internship. This is the setup for your Junior year summer — your last chance in Undergrad to intern and get a full-time offer before you graduate.

Let’s set the stage for this drill. It is 2021, the pandemic has altered life as we know it for the last two years. Universities were disrupted with the shift to online schooling, and social clubs and extracurriculars faded away. Career fair comes around, and you have no idea how to prepare or showcase your unique skills and abilities to recruiters. When even was the last time you made small talk with a stranger? Let alone pitch yourself and your potential during the conversation?

During college, I was a part of extracurricular clubs that helped with coaching and preparation for upcoming career fairs. Freshman year, they whisked us away to talk with recruiters before the big event, organized numerous mock interviews, taught seminars on professionalism and resume writing…the list goes on. I was even given a professional name tag to wear during the event to help me stand out even more. Needless to say, I was very much prepared for the career showcase and felt confident when applying and interviewing for internships I was excited about.

This is in direct contrast to how my mentees felt preparing for an internship search. There were no coaching services, no upperclassmen reviewing resumes, no pre-showcase meetups with recruiters from different companies…there wasn’t even an easy-to-navigate website that had all of the relevant recruiting information. After many hours of coaching, I am elated to say that one of my mentees has received their first offer (to my great excitement and relief)! I hope my key learnings can help you along your career journey, especially if you are in a similar spot to where my mentee was earlier this year.

1. Your network plays an invaluable role in moving your application forward.

Do not underestimate the power of connecting with people. Is there any way you can make contact with a recruiter or individual who works at the company? Think of ways this can be done: recruiting events, career showcases, LinkedIn DMs, and using your network of family and friends to find a contact at the company you are interested in. This will greatly increase your chance of moving to the next step, as someone will be tracking your application instead of your online form waiting to be discovered in the ether.

2. Find ways to highlight your unique traits and how they build towards your success at the company.

When walking through resume editing, I found that often there was great content to include that usually wasn’t in the first draft because:

It was something taken for granted (not realizing that what you did was a valuable skill or ability to showcase). An example of this is someone organizing their friends to help mow lawns over the summer, not realizing the leadership, entrepreneurial, and people-management skills they are gaining that could be highlighted in their resume.

It was not communicated in an actionable or tangible way that captured your unique value add. Instead of “Worked at a summer lawn care service,” your resume could include anything you did to improve the business, like automating the scheduling of customer appointments that saved 5 hours of work per week, or developing new marketing plans that brought in a dozen customers.

Think about ways to be more specific in how you are communicating your contributions on your resume. Remember to begin your statements with action words like managed, led, developed, created, etc.

3. Come prepared.

This applies to all stages of the recruiting process. Here is what that looks like in terms of what you definitely need to do and what exceeding expectations looks like. ( I recommend always trying to exceed expectations…how else are you going to stand out against the hundreds of applicants going for the exact role you are interested in?)

Baseline Expectations

Know what the company does, what roles you are interested in, and have a good answer for why you are interested in this company.

Have your resume edited and ready to submit to online applications.

Practice your elevator pitch before giving it to recruiters.

Connect with recruiters before/during the career fair.

Be prepared to talk through your resume.

Above and Beyond