Tying up your loose ends: Tips for finishing up your summer internship

With about a month left until the beginning of the fall term, many of you may be looking at finishing up your summer internship. Here are a few tips on how to put those final touches on your experience:

1. Make a list of what you still need to accomplish before your last day.

When making this list also look at what you are 100% responsible for and what is a shared responsibility. Use your best judgment to prioritize your remaining tasks.

2. Meet with your supervisor to communicate your list of priorities and to find out if there is anything you have overlooked

Also use this meeting to confirm your final day at the organization

3. Collect contact information from those individuals that you are interested in staying in contact with.

Building your professional connections is one of the most important aspects of your internship experience. Don’t hesitate to let someone know that they have had a positive impact on your experience at their organization; keep in touch!

4. Consider asking supervisors or colleagues that you have connected with if they are willing to serve as references for you in the future

5. Create documentation of your experiences and collect artifacts that you can show at future interviews and other opportunities

Get copies of any projects you may have worked on, publications, campaigns etc.

6. Add your internship experience to your resume

Do this while the experiences are still fresh; you’d be amazed at how quickly we forget!

7. Graciously attend any thank you events and functions that may be planned at your site

8. Send a thank you note to your supervisors and co-workers in your work team

9. Last but not least, make sure to take home all of your belonging on the last day!

Best of luck with finishing your internship experience and make the most of the rest of the summer!

Please Vote

Good afternoon job/internship seekers!

Although trends in hiring have gone up in some industries over the past year, we know the current job market remains quite competitive.

We’d love to hear from you to find out what has been the biggest challenge of yours this summer as you’ve been searching for jobs/internships. This feedback can give us a better idea of what to focus on in our upcoming posts that will be useful to you.

Please participate in our live poll by clicking on your vote below.

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Hit the Ball Out of the Park!

Are you a recent grad in the midst of job searching? I recently found a great discussion on LinkedIn.com with an insightful tip that can help you shine in an interview- apart from your summer glow. Below I highlighted pieces of Stephen Jennings post, who is a professional speaker, author and coach at Graduate With A Job.

Guaranteed Way for Your Students to Stand Out During an Interview- 99.9% of People Don't do This!

The secret: Make contact with a customer of the company you will be interviewing with and find out why they like working with that company, what sets that company apart in their eyes, do they believe it would be a good place to work and why? You will be amazed at how helpful the people will be and willing to share.

Before I share the how’s let me give some credibility. The last time I was interviewing for a position with a top medical company, I reached out to a customer of the company and was able to meet with them for about 20 min. I asked them the above questions which led to them sharing even more information about the company. During my interview when I was asked “Tell me what you know about our company, why do you want to work here?” I was able to give the standard answers that everyone finds on the company website but I then said “I also believe in going the extra mile and so I wanted to see what your customers thought of you to make sure this would be a place I wanted to work. I met with XYZ Company (in this case it was McKesson Medical), would you like to know what they said?” At that moment you could have heard a pin drop. Guess how the rest of the interview went after that, GREAT! They were asking me all kinds of questions on how it went, what they liked about them, did they offer any suggestions for improvement etc…I was no longer just another person interviewing with them, I made myself stand out and they took notice.

I went on to get the offer and was told that they never had anyone go to one of their customers and talk with them about their company. In fact, they stated that after my interview they did not feel the need to interview anyone else.

How to find customers?
Search the company website. If you plan to connect in person, dress professionally and simply tell the person working the front desk that you have an upcoming interview with a company they did business with and that you're doing some research on that company. I said that I want to see what its customers think of it to help me know if I really want to work there. I’m looking to simply talk with someone here that works with that company and see what they think. Who would you suggest I talk with? I ended up getting put in contact with their head buyer, I was provided their name, contact number and e-mail. In fact, they contacted them while I was there, explained the situation for me and the buyer said for her to set up a time the following week for me to come and meet with him.

This same situation works great over the phone if there is not a customer site close by to visit.

Still having trouble just landing that interview? Call our office today to set up an appointment with a career counselor for resume and cover letter help as well as tips on the job search process.

Free Webinar Tomorrow for Job Seekers

Are you looking to land that first job?

Tomorrow from 12:00pm-1:30pm attend this FREE webinar and learn how to:

• Determine an action plan to attain the career you really want
• Pump up your brand to compete and win over more experienced job candidates
• Radically transform your resume to increase results
• Use LinkedIn and other powerful online tools to find jobs and impress hiring companies
• Maximize email messages, cover letters and samples to stand out
• Target your networking efforts to further your job search
• Interview with confidence and set up informational interviews to get you to your goals

Below is a link to register for the webinar for those who are recent or soon-to-be college graduates, as well as those who took survival jobs but still seek the careers they studied so hard to attain.

http://www.careercentertoolbox.com/personal-strategy/grad/to/work

Remember, we are always here to help! Come visit our office or call to set up an appointment with one of our career counselors today (608) 262- 3921.