To Intern or Not to Intern: Judging an Internship’s Worth

While professors may sell you the importance of internships like they are getting a cut of the profits, you must decide whether an internship is worth your time and energy. The one trait that internships typically share is that many of them involve no monetary compensation. Even if gaining experience overrides your financial needs, you owe it to yourself to consider how this voluntary commitment will affect your life.

This is not to devalue the importance of getting your hands on some professional experience; rather, I wish to offer ideas to keep in mind when searching for internships. While these are great opportunities to extend your resume and network with influential people, internships should not be accepted without seriously considering whether they will fit your life. These search tips will help you decide if an internship is feasible for you.

Room for growth: Read job descriptions closely (beyond salary mentions!) to see if there is any indication of the internship turning into a full-time position. Employers are often eager to fill holes with competent interns. This should not be critically important to your decision, but it is worthwhile to keep an eye out for anything that might suggest upward mobility.

While at the company’s website, check for entry-level openings either in your department of interest or another. Colleagues like to talk about impressive interns, and your supervisor could put in a good word for you with other departments who are hiring. Your professional interests may change over time anyway—or maybe after working pro bono long enough any paying job will sound appealing.

Commute: While you may not want to limit yourself to businesses within your immediate area, you have to consider how traveling to the internship will effect your daily life. Ask yourself:

• How will I get there?
• Will public transportation get expensive without a monthly pass?
• Assuming there is bad weather or another delay effecting one mode of transportation, are there other means of getting there?
• Can I handle the stress (physical and/or mental) or commuting?

The first three questions are straightforward, but the last may need explaining. Grad school courses presumably take place in the evening so that students can work during the day. Classes often last for hours, and then you have to commute back home—only to wake up bright and early the next morning. Even if your internship is two or three days a week, long morning commutes after long nights of class add up to extra long days at work. For the sake of your health, you have to consider the toll that a long commute may take on your body. Not everyone can gulp down several cups of coffee to counteract the sleepy effects of grad school.

Small vs. Large: Think about the benefits of either office environment related to your needs:

• Small offices might demand a heavy workload from interns, which can be stressful in addition to schoolwork, but great in terms of gaining extensive professional experience.

• Large office internships probably involve more clerical work, which may inspire frustration; however, a big company might be able to afford taking you on full-time. If it’s a prominent company in your industry, just having their name on your resume is worth the experience.

For other tips on the internship search, see Miranda's “Unpaid Internships: the Tough Questions” post. Happy hunting!

Top 7 Toughest Interview Questions I've Ever Been Asked

Since I started grad school, I've been on more interviews than in high school and college combined, easily. First, I relocated from Auburn, Alabama to Boston, Massachusetts (where I didn't know anyone) and had to find a job to pay my rent and living expenses. Once I reached a point that resembled financial stability, I started applying for internships and career-path jobs, both full time and part time. Anything I thought I might be qualified for. I went on lots of interviews, and I'm still working on that career-path job thing.

Last week, I went on an interview for an internship at Wiley Publishing. This was my first experience being interviewed by a panel—I sat at a conference table where four editorial assistants and one development editor took turns firing questions at me. That's right, I was interviewed by five people at once. As if the scenario itself weren't bad enough, they asked some seriously tough questions, too.

Here are the 7 toughest questions I remember from that nerve-wracking interview:

• Either in school or in a previous position, what's a mistake you made, and how did you deal with it?
• What about when things were prepared just right, but something went wrong through no fault of yours? How did you handle that?
  
• How have you worked with a difficult employer, supervisor, or client?
• When you're doing menial office tasks or grunt work, what strategies do you use to get through the day?
• What have you worked on at your current internship that has been meaningful or satisfying?
  
• In your previous jobs, when did you have to make a decision or take action beyond what you thought you were allowed to do?
• How did you improve a process or method of doing something?

Uhh . . . I don't know? It's not that I don't know at least one good answer to all of these questions; it's that I was completely unprepared to give the super specific examples they were asking for. When put on the spot, I don't remember the details about how I dealt with a major conflict with my boss last year, and it's difficult to frame such a scenario to put myself in a positive, professional light without preparation.

My advice: write down the toughest questions you've ever been asked in an interview and the trickiest ones you can think of. (And ask for input from friends and classmates, too!) Then, practice answering them. Try to remember difficult situations you've been in at past jobs so you can talk about them with fresh insight.

The less you let them put you on the spot, the better!

Don't Sweat the Job Stuff

It’s great when graduate students find a position in the field they are pursuing, but if you don’t land that dream job right away, don’t sweat it. I don’t anymore.

When I was accepted to Emerson College’s graduate program, I, like many other students, began to feel anxiety about finding a job…quickly. After a month of adjusting to living in a new state, while at the same time applying to numerous jobs at hospitals, other universities, and various offices around Boston, I finally consulted Emerson’s career services website. As soon as I was signed in as an official user, I spotted an office assistant position at a consulting firm just down the street from Emerson. I was hired within a week of my interview, and while now it is sometimes difficult hearing that many of my classmates have jobs in our desired field of study, I know that I am making the right decision by sticking with my job.

If you are offered an opportunity to take a job in your desired career field, you should definitely take it. But if you are someone who needs the security of a paycheck coming in every week, no matter what the field, here are my suggestions for your job search:

· Keep an open mind. Even if a job may not sound attractive, try to get an interview anyway. My job description consisted of moving office furniture, stocking the kitchen, and sorting mail—not terribly exciting stuff. What I found out after being hired was that I had full medical coverage and a free monthly pass for the train; two things WELL worth having in addition to a salary.

· Don’t be stingy about the hours you work. Everyone is bound to miss a social engagement or two because of work—there will be others! Having a steady job, even if it is only part-time, will help give you a schedule that will keep your academic, professional, and social lives organized.

· Utilize your college’s career services site—I mean it! My future boss was very impressed when he learned that I had found the job listing on Emerson’s site, and that I was a full-time student. Being a graduate student helps tremendously when applying for a job. Your potential employer sees that you are focused in pursuing a higher level of education, by your choice.

If you are having trouble finding a position, try not to panic. Consult your school’s career services center as well as the career sections of company websites. Exhaust all possibilities—jobs are out there. If you search thoroughly, you will succeed in finding a job that fits into your busy academic schedule.