A Side of Blog: Creating a Successful Internship Experience

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Creating a Successful Internship Experience

By: Michele Ewing, Assistant Professor, Kent State University

Part One of Two: Students, this is for you.

By now, many college students are working at their internship jobs. I thought it might be helpful to start a dialogue about how students and employers can create successful internship experiences this summer. Based on my experiences as a professor and public relations executive, I’ve outlined a few tips that might be helpful. My first blog entry focuses on the students’ needs, and we’ll then post another entry from the employer’s perspective.

Advice for the students

Be proactive by taking the time to gauge your career interests, strengths and weaknesses. Develop a list of skills that you would like to enhance during your internship, and schedule a meeting with your intern supervisor to discuss these interests. Invest the time to create an internship experience that will jump-start your career. If you hear about a project you’d like to be involved in—speak up. Just make sure you’re on top of all other work before you request more responsibility.

Attitude is EVERYTHING. Show up willing and ready to work each day. Understand that you’ll be asked to perform mundane tasks like making hundreds of news clip copies. We all recognize that this isn't exciting work, but these tasks need done. Do them with great care and enthusiasm. If you approach every assignment with a good attitude, your supervisor and other staff members will be more likely to give you additional responsibilities and spend time mentoring you. We all want to work with people who are conscientious about their work and enjoy doing their work.

Look and act like a communications professional. My students and former colleagues know that I’m a big advocate for business dress. If interns look like communications professionals, they’ll more likely to be treated like staff members rather than college students. If you’re appropriately dressed to attend a client/executive meeting everyday, there will be more opportunities to be invited. You need to act the part, too. Gossiping and commiserating will take you down the wrong path. Don’t do it.

Ask for feedback. Organize a routine time with your supervisor to inquire about your performance. Often, edits may be made to your work without an explanation because of the fast pace of the work environment. Your supervisor and other staff members should be happy to critique your work and explain changes during less, hectic times. And, accept criticism with grace. Learn from it.

Always take a pen and notebook to meetings. Sounds trivial? However, many college students and entry-level employees often assume they can remember directions. This makes people nervous. Be a good listener. Take notes and spend a few minutes at the end of the meeting to confirm key details, next steps. If you have questions, ask. People would rather take a few minutes answering questions at the onset of a project than deal with confusion later.

Identify the “stars” and learn from them. In sports, you’ll usually find that you play your best game when you’re playing with better athletes. I used to play a lot of golf (before children), and I always played my best when I was golfing with a better golfer. The same principle applies in the work environment. Observe people who are successful at your company. Watch how they handle themselves in front of clients, colleagues and company executives. An internship is a wonderful opportunity to work with different people and learn from their work styles and communications expertise.

One side note: Consider taking up golf, if you haven’t already. During my agency life, I had the opportunity to have valuable hours of face-to-face time with senior executives because I could swing a golf club. I learned a great deal about my clients and their companies on the golf course, and they got to know me better.

Be a team player. Don’t be a “clock watcher” at the end of the day. If you observe your supervisor and/or others frantically working to meet a deadline, don’t just pack up and call it a day. Ask if you can help with something. If you have to go to class or make another commitment, offer to come in early or take something home. You’ve heard this before: you need to earn respect. Prove yourself by demonstrating commitment and doing your best work.

We welcome other suggestions about advice for interns. So, please chime in. Look for part two (Now, something for the intern employers) next Monday (6.26).

June 21, 2006 | Permalink

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Posted by: alex | July 14, 2007 at 04:07 PM

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