If someone has the authority to write a blog post about internships, then I think I would be the ideal candidate. After completing a number of internships in Dubai, I believe that I deserve an award for the best intern ever 🙂
I took up several internships in publishing and advertising, working towards a smooth career change. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. That’s why I’m back to University studying journalism to gain more credibility and learn the essential skills.
When I heard about InternsME, I was delighted to know that there’s an organization that helps students find suitable internships in the area that they are interested in. This concept is a great way to facilitate getting an internship and saves the student a huge amount of time and effort. Especially since media and other creative industries are quite challenging to get into – even as an intern!
Noor, our speaker at the InternsME workshop, gave us two choices for the topics that she could talk about. The majority of us chose the topic of “interviews”. Here are the main five points that I learned from Noor’s talk:
- Internships are a great way to meet people from the industry and learn new things. So even if you end up doing a lot of administrative tasks during the internship, don’t forget that at the same time you are making new connections from the industry and learning new things every day.
- Internships that offer the best experience are most likely unpaid. When I asked Noor whether the internships at InternsME were paid or unpaid. She explained to us that they offer both paid and unpaid ones. But the ones that offer the better experience and exposure (bigger companies) are usually unpaid.
- You should never pay any person or organization to get you an internship. I believe this advise goes for getting employment as well. It’s a well-known fact that you shouldn’t have to pay in order to get a position or to intern at an organization.
- In an interview, when asked a question that you can’t think of an immediate answer to, it is fine to tell the interviewer: “I need to think about it for a while.” It’s better to be honest than to be hasty and say the wrong thing.
- After the interview, send an e-mail to the person who interviewed you to thank them for their time and end it with: I look forward to hearing from you. Don’t be too assertive and say things like: when will I hear back if I’m successful? They probably still have to interview a number of candidates after you, and will get back to you once they are done with the process.
To register with InternsME and receive updates about internships that match your area of interest, simply go to their web site and fill in your details. I know I will use their services sometime soon. Possibly next semester – when I have less course work load.
Good Luck and have fun interning 🙂
