Our society today puts pressure on its millennials to score well on SATs, get into college, maintain a high college GPA, and land multiple internships to ensure they have all the “qualities” future employers notice when hiring.
From personal experience, I have watched my peers and myself stress over landing those prestigious internships that are oh-so-important in getting a real job one day. Don’t get me wrong, experience is essential in preparing us for the real world jobs we work so hard to get one day. However, it is almost disturbing to see how societal pressures to get internships really affect the mentalities of students who might not be able to land their first internship.
Being denied or not even hearing back from employers can make a student feel like he or she is not good enough after all of their efforts. Joining clubs and other on-campus organizations to gain that experience companies look for when hiring are just some of the efforts students make to ensure employers they are qualified candidates for that summer job. And let’s not mention the countless times students edit their resumes to perfection.
We complete our applications making sure we stand out, appear qualified, while still looking professional. After we submit our apps in a pool of thousands of other applicants, we wait for weeks (sometimes months) to hear back. And unfortunately sometimes when we finally hear back, we don’t like the response.
So, if you are one of the many students out there who didn’t land that summer job as you thought you would have at the beginning of the year, don’t fret. There are many other ways to gain experience other than internships.
Search for jobs near you that can give you real-world experience, even if it is not an internship specific to your major. Work at a restaurant, retail store, or a delivery job. These jobs, although not those reputable internships in that big city near you, will still give you real-world experience as well as teach you how to interact with people in a workplace.
What society doesn’t realize is that the expectations placed on our college students to get their feet in the doors of real-world workplaces truly does have an effect on their confidence, determination, and future work ethic if they aren’t hired the first year they attempt to land an internship.
So, don’t stress if you didn’t find a summer internship this year. Search for something you are passionate about and willing to work hard at. There’s always next year.
