Pros and Cons of a Virtual Internship Virtual internships are the new black. Many companies are converting to this method for many reasons First of all, they are cost effective, and in today’s economy, companies are always trying to find ways to lower their costs without damaging the integrity of their organization. However, virtual internships can also be tough if they are not facilitated correctly. As someone who has experience a virtual internship firsthand, I can tell you exactly what is great (and what’s not-so-great) about this kind of job. Pro: You Can Work Anywhere You Want You have Wi-Fi out by the pool? Perfect! You want to spend a week in Florida? Why not? You feel like grabbing a sandwich and people watching while you type up a spread sheet at Panera? Go for it! With a virtual internship, you aren’t confined to an office and can therefore work anywhere you can carry your laptop. Con: Working Anywhere You Want Can Get Distracting It’s a beautiful 75 degree day so you decide to bring your work to a local park and sit on a bench for a few hours to get some assignments done. It starts out fine and you bang out two tasks within the hour; but then a group of kids show up to play soccer and you can’t hear yourself think over their shrieks. And then a group of your friends stop by and you decide to take a few hours off to chat with them. Before you know it, you end the day with almost as much work as you started with. While it’s great being able to work where ever you want, sometimes it is much easier to focus on the tasks at hand when you are sitting at a desk in your quiet cubicle. Pro: You Can Work Any Time You Want Not cut out for the 9 to 5 work day? Who cares! If you want to sleep in and start your work at 3 in the afternoon, no one is stopping you. As long as you can get all of your work done before the deadline, it doesn’t really matter when you start. It is definitely a lot easier to plan any appointments or activities when you don’t have to stick to a strict work schedule. I am personally a late sleeper and a night owl, so I prefer to go through the better part of a day without even thinking about the work I need to complete. Alternatively, some people are early risers and will stress out all day if they know they have left a task unfinished and therefore want to get up and complete it before the school bus comes. There is nothing wrong with either of these methods and finding the time that works best for you can take a lot of pressure off of you! Con: Lack of Motivation to Get Work Done When you’re on your own clock, sometimes it’s a lot easier to just put work off until you feel like doing it. Eventually, it will get hard to motivate yourself to do anything when there isn’t a real schedule telling you when you should and shouldn’t be working. If you are anything like me, you’ll want to get through a season of Castle and a bowl of ice cream before you even want to think about starting your work. But then one season of a show on Netflix turns into an entire series and a bowl or ice cream turns into a pint and before you know it, a week has passed and you haven’t even looked at the emails from your boss asking for your draft of the presentation that was due three days ago. I think you can see where I am going with this one. When there is no one in your face telling you to complete your work, and in your mind you feel you have all the time in the world to complete it, sometimes no work gets done at all.
Pro: Almost Everything is Written Out For You When you’re working in an office setting, your boss is usually a few desks away from you or down the hall. However, with a virtual internship, this is never the case, which means they will communicate their tasks to your through phone calls and/or emails. This forces employers to be more explicit when describing an assignment so they can give you all of the relevant information and avoid constant phone calls and emails asking for clarification. It’s even better when your tasks are written in emails because you can always refer back to them when you forget part of an assignment. But if you are on the phone, make sure to write down notes and don’t hang up without being perfectly clear on what you are being asked to do. Con: Communication Isn’t Always Easy If you have an internship like mine, where your bosses are practically email-illiterate, it can be a real pain trying to communicate with them. Constantly waiting on emails and phone calls makes your job a much more difficult because you can’t just walk into their office and ask for an approval or clarity. Additionally, tone and voice are lost over email so it can sometimes be difficult to decipher how the person on the other end of the computer is feeling. Pro: The Experience It is definitely worth experiencing a virtual internship at least once in your career to decide whether or not it is the right fit for you. Many people feel as though this method better because they can work where and when they want, avoid daily commutes, and can spend more time at home with their family. Additionally, times are changing and technology is quickly taking over every industry on the planet. Many employers like to see that you have a familiarity with this type of internship and having that capability on your resume may help you stand out. Con: Virtual Internships Are Usually Unpaid While I can’t speak for every job or internship, I know that a majority of virtual internships are unpaid. It is too difficult to pay virtual employees without being able to log their hours and employers may also run into the issue of whether or not they believe how many hours the intern claimed they worked. All in all, whether or not you decide to apply for a virtual internship is entirely up to you and your personal preference. After taking a look at this list of pro’s and con’s, you may decide that this is definitely the right kind of job for you. If that’s the case, make sure you have some office experience as well. Virtual internships are great, but you can lose out on practicing your face to face communication abilities, public speaking skills, and human interaction in general. Alternatively, if you decide that you don’t ever want to experience this sort of internship or job, keep in mind that a lot of companies are utilizing this technique and you shouldn’t completely write off the notion until you have tried it.