Students’ Speak: Know these 3 important benefits of an internship to advance your career

By: Srinivas Goud

Internships are crucial for college graduates to get hands-on experience in the professional world before taking up any particular vocation post-college. Srinivas Goud sheds light on some important advantages of an internship including skill enhancement and creating a strong professional network.

Internship offers a “Test Drive” opportunity to plan your career ahead. Internships offer a real-life environment to work under seasoned professionals and gain deeper insight into the kind of work environments and tasks you enjoy most. By applying what you’ve learned in your classrooms to professional projects, you’ll get a far better understanding of your vocation and targeted career options. You would possibly even discover some gaps between the classroom instruction and the knowledge & skills needed to improve your efficiency. By identifying gaps early, you’ll have time to plan and implement the actions needed to fix them. Moreover, your internship manager/ mentor may even offer you some suggestions about specific coursework or other experiential activities that might prove beneficial.

Internships definitely help you to achieve the following goals and bring you a step closer to your dream job:

1. Develop skills: Employers want to hire college graduates that have the required technical and soft skills needed for the work. Albeit, you already happen to possess exceptional work habits. You can sharpen the soft skills, employers expect to see on your resume, by interacting with working professionals during internship. In turn, you’ll become even more confident in your ability to land your first professional position.
2. Build your resume: Of course, any experience that is relevant to the kinds of post-college vocation you opt for will strengthen your resume. However, interviewers search for college grads who have participated in any number of internships or co-op programs. Without any internship or a leadership role in a student organization on your resume, you'll be at a definite disadvantage, whether you’re trying to find work or applying to graduate schools.
3. Build your professional network: You’ll have a manager or several managers depending on the nature of your internship and also have many co-workers. Get the opportunity to attend meetings. May find yourself working with a cross-functional team or two. Utilize all these opportunities to build a strong professional network that will serve you well in the future. Last but not least, you’ll make many new contacts during your internship period. A number of these people from your organization may function references once you apply for jobs. Well, you never know – one amongst them may even become a lifelong mentor, offering advice and guidance to you throughout your career.

Through the internships you pursue, you can succeed in one of the following:

• Get employment offer: Findings from NACE’s 2016 Internship and Co-op Survey indicated that 73 percent of college students who did an internship, received an offer from their employer for a full-time position upon completing.
• Earn college credit: Your institution may offer academic credit for internships. In fact, growing numbers of faculties require you to finish one or more as part of your specific course credits.

About the Author:

Srinivas Goud is a student at CMR Technical Campus pursuing BTech in Electronics and Communication Engineering.