After attending college for what is my fourth year currently, I constantly hear "internships, internships, internships!" Internships offer great opportunities to learn outside of a classroom and don't have a book to follow. Through taking classes with unique opportunities, and listening the the sound advice from my professors, I have gathered some key ingredients that will better prepare you and help you when seeking an internship and/or working as an intern.
Attitude. When first starting out, never feel like you are too good to do anything. A positive, hardworking attitude also shows your drive and will help you stand out.
Understand and learn the language of your field. Not only will this let your ideas be heard but it will allow you to better understand the goals and objectives your boss/mentor has for you.
Be informed. Read the news every day even if it is one hour a day. It is very simple to set up an online subscription/account with wsj.com or businessweek.com. These online news sources also make it incredibly easy to modify to your liking. If you are looking into getting a subscription with wsj.com they have student discounts which make it more affordable.
Hustle. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there and seek the opportunities that may not be seen. Being aggressive and confident in yourself and your skills can benefit you greatly by making you stand out in a crowd.
Clean up your online presence. Being perceived as professional is what you should portray on your online profiles, pages and websites. This is not to say that you cannot be yourself, but not everybody needs to hear, see, or read about all of your "business" online.
Move the ball forward. Only you are responsible for the decisions and actions you make. A common criticism for my generation, Gen Y, is that we are terrible at following up. It is easy to make the steps to actively communicate, not just via text or email, but in phone and in person.
Resume. Be creative!! I cannot stress this enough. If you are using the boring default templates offered by Microsoft Word are not going to make you stand out and will fail to show your personality. When applying for jobs be sure to tailor your resume to the specific job. Including words they use to describe the position also make your resume more appealing. Microsoft Publisher is a great program I have used for years to create not only resumes, but menus, personalized cards, and websites.
These are a some the key ingredients I have used in order to better prepare myself for opportunities that may come my way. If you have other points you think are crucial, let us know!
Jessica,
All good points. I especially liked the first point about attitude. Gen Y has this habit, myself included, in thinking that our college degree is somehow worth more than it really is. We want to jump right into the higher levels of management and have responsibilities higher than what we get offered. One very important to thing for recent college graduates to keep in mind is that your degree is not worth nerely as much as you think, remember, the people you are working with probably have the same degree and about 10 years experience to back it up. If you can keep a great attitude and show people that you are there to learn from them and that you are willing to work your way up you will get a lot further a lot faster.
The one thing I would add to your list is for anyone intersted in marketing, or anything for that matter, to build your personal brand. Get on message boards and discuss topics relevant to what you want to do, blog about things that interest you, network among those experts in your industry that you like.
A great book for building your personal brand that I have read is Me 2.0 by Dan Schawbel. I wish I would have read this when I was getting ready to graduate instead of 4 years down the road.
Anyways, good article and good luck to you.
Rogan McGillis
Rogan,
Glad you liked the post, and thanks for the book recommendation on buildilng your personal brand. I will also be sure to add buildling your personal brand to the list. It is easy to get lost in the mix with so many qualified people out there and knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are you can really stand out. Thanks again for the feedback!
~Jessica