Internships

Get Ready to Find Your Next Internship

By Allison Kuehr, Assistant Director, Indiana INTERNnet, Inc.

Internships are a fantastic way to explore career options while building your skills. However, when it comes to landing one, a bit more work must go into the process than simply polishing up your resume. Here are some tips for finding an internship just in time for the summer session:

Visit your school’s internship coordinator, career center and/or guidance counselor

When you’re starting out in your internship search, it’s a good idea to have someone help you along the way. The perfect place to begin is by checking in with your school. Whether it’s an internship coordinator, career center or guidance counselor, they are there to lend a hand. They can edit your resume, structure your schedule so you have time to intern and point you in the direction of resources to find an internship.

Start searching early

If you’re hoping to intern during the summer, don’t wait until the last week of April to begin your search. Most summer internships are posted by March. That timeline can change depending on how competitive your desired industry is and the type of company you want to intern with. Industries like IT, manufacturing, finance and health care tend to be very competitive. Also, large, major corporations tend to make summer internship offers early in the year.

Explore!

Your heart may be set on interning with a certain company doing a specific role, and that’s OK! But you shouldn’t limit yourself. Explore smaller companies and internships outside of your dream industry. You may unexpectedly find something you enjoy. Plus, you should never apply to only one internship. Try to

have multiple backup plans in case things unfortunately don’t work out. Give yourself options and apply to a variety of positions.

Follow up with employers

After you submit your application, don’t be afraid to touch base with the employer to check on its status. You don’t want to pester or be too eager, though. Once you’ve applied, if you haven’t heard anything a week after the application deadline, reach out. Politely let the employer know that you’re still interested in the internship and would like to check on the status of your application.

Use every resource available to you

While your school may have connections, you should still use every resource available to you. Web sites like LinkedIn and Indeed have internships posted. Your family could have fantastic connections. You can also discover great opportunities through a simple Google search.

Finally, the last resource I want to highlight is IndianaINTERN.net. IndianaINTERN.net is a free web site where you’ll only find internships that take place in Indiana. We screen every single employer on the site and every internship that’s been posted. With an account, you can upload your resumé, search for internships and apply to them directly on the site. Visit IndianaINTERN.net today to get started. If you have any questions, email us at INTERNnet@indianachamber.com.