I Thought Slavery Was Illegal: Internships and You

An internship is usually a job in which you have to work a lot of hours for little or no money.

You should take part in an internship experience at least once before you leave college.

“What!” you say. "Why would I want to work for slave wage, or worse yet, no wages schlepping coffee, filing papers, and basically doing all of the crappy work no one else wants to do."

Because your about to spend upwards of $50,000 to $100,000 on and education that’s meant to get you ready for “the real world.” And only a fool pays that much for something without seeing what they’ll get for their money.

Imagine buying a car without ever driving it. Imagine buying all of your clothes without ever trying them on (and not being able to return them). Imagine buying a house without walking through it. All of these things are investments. Your car, your clothes, your house are things that will touch your life every single day.

But what about your job? Most students think nothing of jumping into a career without taking the time to learn what a company, a business, or a career path entails. And your educational institution has no refund policy.

A chance to “try on” a job or career

I had a student who was convinced she wanted to be in human resources. She thought it sounded like the greatest career: helping people get jobs, interviewing prospective candidates. I suggested a semester long internship with a major company in their HR department. It was unpaid, but she would learn a lot about what an HR professional does all day long. She was hesitant at first, noting that there were better paying internships she could try, even though they weren’t in her field. Eventually she relented and took the job.

At the end of the semester, she sat in my office and told me how glad she was that she had taken an internship in HR. She hated HR. She hated reviewing hundreds of resumes and matching them to jobs. She said interviewing was nothing like she thought it would be. And she felt a lot of pressure from the manager for whom she hired and the candidates who desperately wanted jobs. HR was not the career for her. Instead she went into pharmaceutical sales and did very well.

Now a semester of free labor sounds expensive, but spending a year or two of your precious youth in a job you hate is the most costly move you can make. Go out and ask people who hate their jobs what their life is like. Most likely you will hear tales of feeling trapped. And what does it take to change careers? Depending on how long you are on the wrong path, it can take a step down in salary and even more education. Cha ching!

Work experience

Experience is the catch 22 of job hunting for college students. Most companies want you to have experience before they will hire you, but how can you get experience if no one will hire you. Internships are the answer. Your internship can give you experience doing all sorts of tasks. You can learn everything from how an account organizes an office to how a computer programmer works with clients. These experiences translate into the answers you will give interviewers when they ask what you have to offer their organization.

Chance to make your mistakes in a lower risk environment

College insulates you, even as it opens your world up to new experiences. Compared to high school, college is a wealth of experimentation, opportunity, and innovation. You will meet people from every conceivable background with all sorts of strange ideas. But eventually, you will settle in with a crowd and a routine and the majority of your days will be spent with people who are either under 25. Your interactions with your professors will be minimal and many of them have never left a university existence themselves. It’s no wonder you have no idea what to do.

The outcome of four years of isolation is that you will screw up when you make the transition from school to work. It’s inevitable. Your clothes, your attitude, your communication skills, your behavior: there are so many things that change when you leave the confines of college. The worst time to learn is when you are in a job you need or really love. An internship gives you an opportunity to tweak your wardrobe, listen to how others communicate, practice your professional demeanor, and possibly even do some real work in your field. People know you are still learning and will be more likely to give you advice and help you learn the ropes. This will be an enormous advantage when you do finally land that first job.

To build contacts & references

The ultimate prize from an internship is the connections you can make in your chosen field. Letters of recommendation from friends and family won’t get you very far in the business world, but the director, vice president, manager, or owner of a company for which you actually worked?

Now that’s useful.

The people you meet will become your job seeking network. They will be the ones to recommend you to others, to tell you of job openings, to share secrets to getting into a certain career. There is no substitute for these people. Collect as many as you can and stay in touch with them all.Sassy Sanders, an executive with a major telecommunications company explains the value of her internship experience:

I interned at [major telecommunications company] for the year, and it was the best decision I ever made! It was 40 hrs/week in the summer for 3 months and although I received college credit, it was no-pay!

Eight years later I am still working there…I've also been lucky enough to have traveled to over 16 different countries with my work! I do owe all of this to what I learned throughout my internship and who I met.

Slavery is illegal, good internships are priceless.