Being a college student is hard. We all know this to be true, because not only do we have to worry about school, we also now have to think about our post-college life. I love my family just as much as anybody else, but I’m trying to get a job for after I gradate. But to get one, you have to have “experience,” and so comes the time to start applying for summer internships. Though it is a tough process, a process that requires some steps to get through, it’s potentially worth all the stress.
1. Finding the Perfect Internship
This might be the hardest of them all. We all want to be the person that works for a company like Google, but the reality is, we all can’t. So we search and search and search. That can be the biggest problem. There’s an internship that wants the prior experience you don’t have. Or the one that seems perfect, until you realize you’d somehow have to find a way to live in New York City for 12 weeks on a zero dollar salary. Until you finally find that perfect internship that, if you say so yourself, you’re pretty qualified for, and then you just have to actually start applying for it.
2. Creating the Perfect Resume
Resumes are difficult. It’s hard to express the value of your minimum wage, high school job. Plus, you have to worry about the way everything is worded and how all your information is presented. And even when you think you’ve finished it, you go back and realize there’s always something to be changed. It’s a continuous work in progress.
3. Writing the Perfect Cover Letter
As a person who’s been writing since forever, I thought my cover letter would be the easiest. However, I was quite wrong. The thing about cover letters is the struggle to write in a professional manner, but also to stand out. You want to be polite and professional, but sometimes, there just isn’t enough space to accurately and briefly express how qualified you are for the position.
4. Prepping for the Interview
Everyone loves to talk about themselves, but interviews make us so nervous we forget everything we’ve done. We can prep ourselves a millions times, but no matter what, we still get nervous, whether it’s in person, through Skype, or on the phone. Even if we’ve somehow mastered the process of talking ourselves up, then there comes a question that we didn’t prepare for, or worse yet, we didn’t prepare a question to ask the interview.
5. It’s All a Waiting Game
Getting any job is a waiting game, but with internships, it can be worse. You never know when you’ll get an email or a call. Because, at the end of the day, we can talk about how great a worker we are 'til we’re blue in the face, but there are always a hundred other college kids just like us applying to the same job. Still, though, the waiting can be worth it when someone decides we actually are the perfect candidate for the job. Then it’s worth the stress.
