We often hear from recent graduates who have completed college internships while looking for their first steppingstones into a career. If you’re going back to school this fall, keeping your eyes and ears open to search for any paid or unpaid internships or mentorship opportunities and checking in with your career center can help you get ahead once you’ve got that degree in hand. Even asking your favorite professor if they need a teacher’s assistant or research assistant to help them get organized part time or caught up on their sabbatical prep can be an excellent boost to your resume if you’re interested in their field of study or wanting to polish your administrative skills. Make your early career goals go hand in hand with your college education, grow your professional network, and make the job searching easier on yourself once you graduate!
Volunteer organizations or philanthropic groups can offer valuable experience as well: can you organize and plan travel arrangements for a group trip? Work with a political sciences club to canvas for a local politician? Join an accounting club and assist members of your community with tax preparations? All these examples can be fantastic learning experiences and great internship opportunities to flaunt on your resume and cover letter later.
Another resume builder to keep in mind to help you land an internship in the first place is to talk up any group projects you’ve done in your major classes that would be applicable to your career goals. Some of the most common examples of experiential learning we seen on resumes daily include mock case studies in the classroom- valuable exposure to real-life work experience that is a surefire way to find college internships for business students, computer science students, and many others.
It’s no secret that this summer has been one of the most difficult seasons for college internships in recent times, but luckily there are many remote options for students looking to stay on track for their career goals. Forbes recently published an article of many college internship opportunities that can be done safely from home- and tapping into your network (professors, mentors, former bosses, family friends) can yield others from individuals looking for remote organizational assistance with their projects and businesses to teachers looking for research clerks the work experience of honing down source materials. Whether paid or unpaid, the college internship still holds a great deal of value in helping recent graduates secure their first job- make sure you set aside time to look for internship opportunities!
Beyond those options, staffing firms like our very own Suna Solutions are consistently seeking entry level candidates for opportunities over the summer or throughout a semester, much like a paid college internship. Another great way to build your professional network is to consider temporary work and glean additional learning experience on the job! Feel free to reach out to a recruiter today to see what openings in your area may be a good fit for you and get you on the right track to your ultimate career goal.
