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    The Intern Files: How to Get, Keep, and Make the Most of Your Internship
    The Intern Files: How to Get, Keep, and Make the Most of Your Internship
    The Intern Files: How to Get, Keep, and Make the Most of Your Internship
    Ebook176 pages2 hours

    The Intern Files: How to Get, Keep, and Make the Most of Your Internship

    By Jamie Fedorko and Dwight Allott

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    About this ebook

    In today's highly competitive job market,
    an internship at the right company can be the first step to building a career.
    But how do you get the gig of your dreams?
    And once in the door, how do you
    figure out what to wear,
    whether it's okay to hook up with a coworker,
    and how to suck it up when you're smarter than your boss?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGallery Books
    Release dateMar 8, 2006
    ISBN9781416928270
    The Intern Files: How to Get, Keep, and Make the Most of Your Internship
    Author

    Jamie Fedorko

    Jamie Fedorko steers prospective interns along every step of the journey. He'll help you with the basic stuff -- hunting down internship leads, acing the interview, and making a great first impression. But this book takes it one step further, into understanding office politics and social etiquette, dealing with impossible bosses, making the most of time-wasting assignments, and drawing a line between being helpful and being a doormat. Hilarious, wry, and wise, The Intern Files will teach you how to enjoy the view from the bottom of the ladder -- and start climbing rapidly to the top.

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      Book preview

      The Intern Files - Jamie Fedorko

      Part I

      Getting the Internship

      Chapter 1

      Career Choices

      IF YOU’RE THE TYPICAL NINETEEN- OR TWENTY-YEAR-OLD, YOU PROBABLY HAVE A VAGUE IDEA OF WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, BUT YOU’RE NOT QUITE SURE. Right? Right.¹. In all likelihood, you have more than one passion, which makes it that much harder to decide where to start.

      Companies do exist that bring all of your passions together, but it’s possible they don’t offer internships, or aren’t located in your area. Don’t put all your eggs in one internship basket—make sure you have options and a plan of attack. Let’s say your lifelong dream is to play second base for the Cubs, headline a major stadium tour with twenty other famous bands, and run a Fortune 500 company, all at the same time. Well, take things step by step. Perhaps seek your first internship with an organization that deals with major league baseball. Then, for your next internship, look for a company that handles some of your favorite rock bands, and for your third internship, try to work at a financial group that will tie all your passion and your pragmatism into one tightly laced knot.

      There are a lot of resources to use to figure out what industry you want to intern in, but nobody will know what you want to do as well as you do. This means exploration. Dig deep into the six-year-old in you and remember what it is that you love. Even though college should be about figuring out what you want, a lot of students are just doing what they think they’re supposed to do, or what their parents told them to do. Interning should be a way to channel the real you. Whether the real you is a fledgling rock star or a future power broker, you won’t be able to figure these things out without experience. Don’t forget, you’re on a test drive—you have absolutely nothing to lose.

      FROM THE INTERN FILES OF THE INTERNSHIP DIRECTOR

      One of the most positive outcomes of an internship is career clarification: This is what I do want to do. This is what I don’t want to do. Imagine wanting to work in publishing, being an excellent writer, taking courses, having fabulous grades, graduating, starting a career in publishing, and being miserable. It happens. Career clarification is not to be overlooked.

      There are three ways to choose a field:

      Follow your passion.

      Follow your major, which might be your passion.

      Choose blindly in an attempt to pad your résumé (not recommended!).

      No matter how you decide on a field for your internship, don’t worry. You can try your hand at many things—you don’t have to make every vital career decision by the end of the year.

      Many schools have ways to incorporate your internship credits into your major. So if you’re majoring in art history, you might want to look for an internship at a museum. If you’re a business major who’s always wanted to work in the record industry, apply for an internship at a local record company or radio station. You’ll gain tangible experience in a field you love, and get some credits, too.

      Deciding on a career is a daunting task. Try to combine pragmatism with passion. You do have a lot of freedom, so it’s best to begin by trying your hand at something that you want to do, rather than something you feel you have to do.².

      I THOUGHT I KNEW WHAT I WANTED WHEN I WAS NINETEEN…. THANK GOD FOR INTERNSHIPS!—KELLY

      I was attending college in New York City and thought that I wanted to work in TV—you know, something glamorous, sexy, and hip. Well, I managed to land a couple of really high-powered internships, and I also got hired right out of college at a job any recent grad would have been thrilled to get.

      However, the TV world took its toll on me: It was shallow, low paying, low powered, and highly stressful. Well, most jobs are stressful, but I learned quickly that the stress is only worth it when you’re either really dedicated to a job, or it’s paying you enough that seeing that check justifies the stress! In my case, however, the bills weren’t paying themselves, and I felt damn near empty.

      I wasn’t working on anything I believed in, and I wasn’t doing anything for anyone else, either. I felt like I had put all this time and hard work into my internships; how could it all be for naught? Then one day it hit me: It wasn’t all for nothing. My hard work had paid off in a way that I may never have expected. I learned, after three internships and a few real gigs after college, that TV was the last place I wanted to be. THANK YOU, INTERNSHIPS!

      If I hadn’t interned, I probably would have spent years doing odd jobs while I tried to break into TV, where I’d eventually learn exactly what I’ve just now discovered: that I hate it! Now I’m working at a dance studio, and although I can’t say I’m sure of my future, I can guarantee you it will be far from the small screen. The difference is, I’m only twenty-five—had I not interned, I might have learned this when I was thirty!

      1. Those of you who think you know exactly what to do, good luck, and we’ll see you in the career counseling office in four years. Just kidding! You’ll make a fine rapper.

      2. If that’s the rule, the exception is for people who are determined to do one thing and one thing only: make money. If that’s your goal, simply follow the trail you think leads to the fattest wallet.

      Chapter 2

      The Résumé and Cover Letter

      (with Alexis Feldman)

      CREATING THE PERFECT RÉSUMÉ CAN SEEM IMPOSSIBLE. IT’S NOT. WHILE YOU DO NEED TO WORRY ABOUT FORMAT, CONTENT, WORD COUNT, AND PRESENTATION, calm down. Here are a few tips to ease your mind and guide you through the process.

      Tip #1: Relax, There is no Such Thing as the Perfect Résumé

      If there were such a thing as the perfect, ultimate résumé, then you wouldn’t see countless books and Web sites dedicated to them. There would be one book and one Web site, each saying, Here. This is it. That is not the case. There are many different formats, and one is not necessarily better than the next. The rules aren’t set in stone, so keep that in mind when you’re having an anxiety attack over the font size of your name or the spacing between your address and education.

      Tip #2: The More the Merrier

      Before you worry about the content, look at the presentation. Don’t listen to the old adage your mother probably told you a hundred times growing up, Don’t judge a book by its cover. She was wrong. Appearance counts. To create your ideal résumé, you should look at as many examples as you can get your hands on. With the invention of the Internet, this task has become much simpler. You can buy the books or look at the Web sites; either way, critiquing various résumés is the easiest way to separate what you like from what you don’t like. Ask some friends if you can see their résumés too; these are great resources because you know the authors personally and can see how they make themselves look good. And check with your career counseling office at school—some colleges help with résumé writing by offering seminars or one-on-one tutorials. Why not check them out? Worst-case scenario: You learn what you do not want your résumé to look like.

      Tip #3: Don’t Get Bogged Down by the Wording

      After you have completed your research and acquainted yourself with the résumé-writing world, it’s time for some writing of your own. This doesn’t mean organizing your contact information or educational background. Get a pen and paper and start writing down jobs you have held in the past that you plan on using for your résumé.

      This is the time to organize your thoughts and simplify the writing process. Think of it as your working outline. List all the résumé-appropriate jobs you’ve held (this means the work experience that will be useful at the job you are applying for; leave off your semilegal positions).

      For each job, you should note five things: job title, company/ organization you worked for, dates and location of employment, and responsibilities. The first four are simple; they don’t require much thought. The fifth, however, is where you need to focus most of your time. Remember, this is an outline, so don’t fret over wording or content. Write down as many of your day-to-day work tasks—and larger assignments—as you can remember. Once you have done so for all your jobs, you are ready for the next step.

      Tip #4: Sound Professional, Even if You’re not Yet a Professional

      Now that you’ve laid the groundwork, you must organize. Make every task you include in your responsibilities section sound important—even if it wasn’t. Use action verbs, and refer to other résumés for helpful wording. For example, instead of writing, Responsible for faxing, picking up phones, try, Responsible for interoffice communication. Sounds way more important, right? Try to express the simplest office tasks in the most impressive way. Don’t get too caught up with this and make photocopying seem like brain surgery. But find ways to make the most mundane tasks sound important.

      Most companies ask for your résumé and cover letter before they agree to interview you, so both documents need to represent you positively and do the speaking for you.

      It’s sad but true: Image is everything. You make yourself look good by making sure the writing in your résumé is sound, your spelling and grammar are spotless, and the format is perfect (things like spacing, punctuation, and underlining are used in the same manner throughout).

      Résumés are the deciding factor between getting an interview and getting absolutely nothing. They are the first way you present yourself to the person who will interview you.

      THE PERFECT RÉSUMÉ

      Jonathan Internstein

      555 Fordham Street, Apt.

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