The quality of internships varies greatly. It doesn’t really make a difference whether your internship is paid or unpaid. When an organization has a formal internship program, you may have opportunities that you wouldn’t get in the absence of one. This is generally because supervisory responsibility and duties are clearly outlined as part of a formal program. In a more unstructured environment, you may find that it’s difficult to maneuver without a designated boss and work stream.
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Both arrangements have pros and cons. If you’re lucky, you may be assigned a mentor or supervisor who will take you to meetings and answer your questions. However, you may find that you don’t have enough to keep you busy or you may not know who to reach out to with questions. If you are in that position, here are some ways you can get more out of your internship.
Find out where your support is. It may be uncomfortable to do or require digging, but you must figure out who can help you. If it’s completely unclear who you report to as an intern, talk with the human resources department. Ask a staff member to help you find out who should be assigning you work. While that person or people may not end up coming to you regularly with assignments, you will then know who to ask if there is work you can help them with.
Be proactive about obtaining work experience. An internship can be more than just doing drudge work. Be observant: Are there conferences, meetings or events the organization puts on or does participating in that interest you? Ask your mentor if you can attend. Consider the work going on around you. If you’d like to learn the whole process from intake of a client through the project management cycle and close out, ask if you can participate in different stages. If that’s not possible, ask if you can shadow your mentor throughout the process to see how it all works.
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Identify people who you want to talk to. There may be people in the company you learn about through conversations or observation. If you’re interested in talking to them about their career path or to get their advice, don’t be afraid to ask. You’ll want to ask your mentor or human resources how they’d advise you approach people with the request to have a brief conversation. Prepare for those meetings ahead of time by coming up with questions to ask each person. Not only are you learning more about the company, you may get ideas for your future career. The bonus is that you are building your professional network!
Perform your very best and be reliable. Internships are often not extremely challenging, but you should do your very best no matter what the task is. The pace of life and technology today has made us quick to finish tasks, which sometimes translates into lower quality final products. Take your time writing reports, emails and making copies. Take the approach that everything is equally as important and deserves your full attention. Scan emails and reports for mistakes before you submit them. Make sure your copies capture the full page and are legible. Turning in flawless projects brings great dividends as you’ll maintain a positive impression with those who you work with. That impression will extend throughout the entirety of your career and life because while those people probably will not remember exactly what task you did, they’ll remember you did terrific work.
Offer to help. Ask people if you can help them out. You cannot go wrong with this as long as you’re not going outside of your bounds as far as who you are contacting. Even though you may not always get an assignment from reaching out to different colleagues, your offer will likely be recalled positively. Someone may not need assistance at that moment, but may come back to you at a later time. It shows initiative, which will help you in your current and future career. And when you do help out, remember to do your very best.
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Once you figure out who your main supports are, you can begin to offer to help others and be proactive about getting work and learning new things. Also, work on building your network by reaching out to those with whom you want to connect and asking them to have a brief conversation. When you actively offer to help and perform well in everything you do, your co-workers will have a long-lasting good impression of you that will pay off in ways you probably won’t realize until further along in your career.
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How to Make the Most of Your Internship originally appeared on usnews.com
