Use Internship As An Opportunity To Secure A Top Job

By the time you are in the college, you have probably heard countless advice on how you should become serious about your career. That includes picking the right subjects, studying hard to get good marks and get an internship, all in order to land a respectable job. While every of these advises are indispensable to have a steady career, obtaining a good internship could provide with an extra shot in the arm, putting you on a pedestal from where the career journey ahead looks steady and full of promises.

How would you define internships? Is it just a method of on-the-job training for professional aspirants or there is more to it? While the term internship has broad application, at this point of time, the exact definition isn’t what one should be pursuing. There is no argument about the fact that Internship provides a pool of knowledge, numerous networking opportunities and in some cases, a foot in the door of a dream job. It provides graduates with a glimpse of the real professional world and a shortcut to climb the career ladder.

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There are many dignitaries who made it big through the internships route, which include the maverick Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and actor Tom Hanks. Even the computer czar Bill Gates started off his professional career as a Congressional page. Similar story is famous about the visionary founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, whose first interaction with professional life was at Hewlett-Packard, where he met Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple. He still remains probably the most famous intern at HP. These stories are proof enough to understand that internships do lead to great things in future.

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The advantages interns have

College education makes a student academically sound, conferring him with a degree that demonstrates his understanding of theoretical concepts that are applied to perform a particular job.  An internship places the student in a position where he has to put to use the acquired knowledge in real world situation with co-workers performing actual tasks, which the job requires.

Even if an internship is unpaid, it will payoff in terms of the vast and invaluable professional experience. This will provide a boost to your self-confidence and self-esteem, which would invariably affect your chances of getting a new job. Besides, every organization looking to increase its profitability and productivity needs a young workforce which is knowledgeable, efficient, is bursting with ideas and most importantly, has the capability to give a physical shape to those ideas.  Interns are positive answer to all of these requirements.

Internship is the most important factor that affects employer’s decision while evaluating a recent college graduate. Its importance supersedes even the college where they went, the degree that they pursued and the GPAs achieved.

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Points to remember while pursuing an internship

Internships can add immense value to your resume and career prospects as a whole, however, only if you make the right choice. An internship with a firm which doesn’t matches with your academic qualifications is nothing more than a waste of time and other resources. There are few points, if taken care of, can save you a lot of pain:

• Research: If you are interning at a reputed organization, research holds little relevance. However, owing to the cut-throat competition most have to settle for little lesser known firms. That actually means that you must conduct through research and background check on these organizations, so as to understand their work culture, values, mission and vision and whether it aligns with your goals or not. 
• Keep your aptitude in mind: Internships should only be pursued in a domain for which you have the right mental aptitude.  For instance, if you are good at math and numbers then you can pursue the internship in the banking and finance sector. To gauge your aptitude you can take the help of aptitude test tricks and formulas.
• Keep your academic qualifications in sight: While applying for an internship its essential that you must make sure that it is comparable with some aspects of your major. The whole point of pursuing an internship is to get a respectable job, and that will only be fulfilled if it is an extension of what you have already studied in college. For instance, a science graduates interning at a science laboratory or firm makes more sense than at a consumer goods company.

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