InternshipRatings.com

By Heather Krasna, 

Director of Career Services, Evans School Of Public Affairs

University of Washington 

We’ve all had that dream where you see yourself sitting down to take a midterm exam, but you completely forgot to study for the class.  Second only to this nightmare is the one where you try really hard to get an internship, only to find out that the one you accepted wasn’t “worth the coffee.”™ 

Sometimes it’s easy to tell that the internship isn’t what you were expecting: your employer is asking you to pick up his/her laundry, it’s been made clear to you that you will continue filing papers no matter how much you’d like to learn, or the supervisor has said something downright disrespectful to you.  If that’s your situation, skip to the last paragraph of this post.  Sometimes, though, it’s worth taking a moment to think about what does make an internship worthworth doing and whether there might be something you could do to make your internship more worthwhile.

First off, try to be open-minded in the beginning of your internship.  Sometimes you have to prove yourself before the employer will trust you with juicy projects or recognize your capability, and sometimes an employer just hasn’t thought through what an intern like you might be capable of.  If you spend the first few weeks doing your best job, being eager to take on new projects, and trying to be enthusiastic, hopefully the employer will naturally begin to trust you with more and more interesting work.  Once you’ve been at the internship for a little while, though, the time it ripe to ask yourself some questions. 

Is your internship helping you: 

• • learn new skills, 
• • build networking contacts, 
• • build positive references, 
• • add to your resume, 
• • get a firsthand look at potential employers, 
• • possibly lead to a full-time job, 
• • decide whether or not you like this type of work, or 
• • decide if you like your possible major?  

If you said “no” to some of these questions, is there anything you could possibly do to change that answer to a yes?  For example, are you waiting for your boss to introduce you around, or do you think you could take the initiative and introduce yourself to some of your colleagues to improve your network?  Or, if you approach your supervisor in a polite and eager manner, and mention how much you would love to learn about their marketing plan (or whatever), could your internship supervisor perhaps be impressed with your initiative and give you more exciting things to do?

If, however, you said no to each question, and have also tried whatever you can to improve your situation, and have been gettinggotten nowhere, then you have to make a tough decision.  Is it worth suffering through this internship just to put something on your résumé?  Do you think you would at least get a good reference from your supervisor, or are things so bad that you should just cut your losses?  

If you actually feel so uncomfortable that you can’t bring yourself to continue working at the company, then it’s probably time to quit.  Try talking it over first with a friend, a professor, or a career counselor at your college’s career center.  If you are registered to receive college credit for the internship, definitely make your professor aware of the situation ASAP (you might get an incomplete grade in the class, but most professors won’t punish you for getting into a bad internship situation).  Start looking around for a new internship and see what’s available.  Many companies post internships throughout the year, so you may be surprised what’s available mid-semester.  If it’s too late to get another internship this semester, start looking at next semester and focus on your search for a new opportunity.  And  if you got your bad internship through your college’s career center, it’s essential to tell your college’s internship coordinator so that future students won’t also suffer– and don’t forget to rate your internship at InternshipRatings.com!

By Adam Zand
Consultant

Everything I learned about Interning, I learned during meetings – and from listening to Howard Stern.

On May 7 Antonio Pierce, a linebacker for the N.Y. Giants with an interest in broadcasting, did a one-day internship at “The Howard Stern Show.” His tasks included answering phones, teaching staffers how to throw a football and finally towel snapping “Sal and Richard” of the show who had scammed him earlier in the day with prank calls and requests for coffee. As he told the crew, “I figured, win the Super Bowl, do some more hard work.” Being a New England Patriots fan and someone who considers Stern and his crew to be members of my family, I’m even more jealous of this guy. My revenge is that I’m going to share some internship success advice (when you hear that “a” word, do as Chris Rock advises and “Run!!!”) with you. I’ll be upset if anyone shares it with Antonio.

Get invited to meetings
Asking to attend a meeting will get you noticed. Folks at your job will actually be shocked. They all hate meetings – it’s the time of day when they think nothing happens. They exhibit this by bringing in a laptop (“I’m taking notes”) or sneaking peeks under the table at their BlackBerry. If you can get into the room, the magic of meetings can happen for you.

Listen and take great notes at meetings
As mentioned, the staffers hate these things. They really only want to hear themselves talk or impress a supervisor or delegate a task and get back to the safety of their desks, Aeron chairs. They dread getting assigned a new initiative in the meeting. So, how do you as the office nOOb help them survive the process? You take amazing notes and offer to share them when you go to their offices after the meeting concludes. They will appreciate this act of kindness and organization as they can check to see the brilliant things they said and make sure they weren’t assigned something or required to report results back to the boss.

Mind meld during meetings
Here’s the key point in this entire goofy article - The mind meld analogy (any old school Star Trek fans exist on www.InternshipRatings.com?) isn’t too far off. Your most important career development task is imagining what everyone is thinking and what motivates them in the meeting. Once you’ve solved this puzzle, you get to pick a few people to probe (a different sci-fi procedure) with questions about their day jobs and career path. Check how they present themselves in the meetings and later if you like what they do for work. If you do, then you probably want to mirror their behavior, actions and maybe their career path. Pay particular attention when your mentor proposes a new idea at a meeting that will make the company some money or save money or make the bosses look good. That might be another article from me, but those are the only three things that us “professionals” actually need to do at work to prosper!

Some day you get to host your own meetings
So, if you’re cruising on a rudderless intern ship, take immediate action before the summer ends (and you forget everything under a College-mandated haze of Red Bulls and “flavorings.”)
1. Get invited to meetings – especially the ones that have food
2. Listen and take great notes – bring a pen as old-timers like me get nervous when faced with the backs of glowing laptops
3. Mind meld during meetings – don’t stare or zone out too much as the meeting will eventually end.

For more information on meeting etiquette check out this article I was quoted in from Boston Business Journal and better yet stay in touch with me on Facebook, TalkShoe or Utterz.

Enjoy the meeting!

Cheers,
Adam Zand
ThisDudeAbides.Zand@gmail.com

By Carol Cone
Chairman and Founder
Cone, Inc.

Early June marked the summer term for Cone’s internship program. How exciting to see so many bright young women and men gathering in our lobby. “Where are you at school?” I asked. BU, Emerson, Rochester, BC, Michigan State, among others. They were undergrads and graduate students joining our firm to get a deep immersion in a strategy and communications agency.

For a moment I reflected on the first day of my internship, 31 years ago. I joined Newsome and Company, New England’s top marketing communications firm. There I learned the business from the ground up. From copying and filing, to research and writing brochures, press releases, bios. From there, I moved up quickly and researched event sponsorship opportunities for clients.

Two months later fate crossed my office door, which was a glorified broom closet. Small. Windowless. (So your space doesn’t matter. It is the work you’re exposed to.)

Salomon, the ski equipment company, contacted us looking for a communications partner. As one of the few skiers on staff, and a good one I might say, I was assigned to a vice-president on the pitch team which is a the formal presentation to win the business. We slaved, what seemed to me hundreds of hours (probably not at all but when you are a rookie, who can keep track of time?) to prepare. And we prevailed!.

I was hired to be the agency’s account executive on Salomon. What joy and luck too. (Being in the right place at the right time doesn’t hurt a career.) I had to go to industry trade shows exhibiting the newest in ski equipment, attended conferences at ski resorts like Vail, and worked with editors and industry vips, to demonstrate new products. I even was part of the Salomon communications team at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.

I worked for that agency for three years until I was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and started Cone in 1980. I was the third generation in my family to start a business!

Today, we are 100 strong, focused on helping organizations, for profits and non profits build trusted relationships with their stakeholders. At the core of Cone is our work with causes. That is my true love and passion. Focused on cause marketing since 1982 (which we now call Cause Branding) has gained us the mantle of the nation’s top cause consultancy creating initiatives like the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade ( in 50 countries around the world), Reebok’s human rights programs, American Heart’s Go Red for Women and PNC Grow up Great are just a few. All told, our cause work has: started people walking for health and fitness, taking better care of themselves to lower their risk of heart disease, as well as helping children gain a solid early start on their education. Our programs have also raised more than $750 million for causes. (for more information go to www.coneinc.com or our blog: doyoustandforsomething.com)

I have been called the “Mother of Cause Marketing” and it all began with my internship.So you see, an internship can be the launching pad for a career, an industry and a means to change the world, one person at a time.

So when I met the founders and learned about Internshipratings.com I had to participate.

I am totally pro intern because of my experience.  Cone has a robust program, hosting approximately 15 students a semester, three times a year.  We take this responsibility very seriously, assigning our interns to accounts where they get real work in a team environment.  We even have mid term evaluations by our staff and make mid-course improvements to the internship experience, if necessary.

I also host a meeting each semester  – lunch or breakfast as we love meetings with food here — to tell my story and more importantly share my thoughts about how to get a job.

Companies who develop and manage robust intern programs create a wonderful opportunity for young professionals to trial their skills in differing environments. As most college grads leave school without a clear idea of a career path, internships provide a taste of industries, organization cultures, internal politics and various work-styles.

Below find some of my tips to get the most from your internship…..as you never know where the experience will take you.

1. Try multiple internships during college.  Test and learn the industries and working environments that are interesting to you.

2. Participate fully in the experience.  Arrive daily with enthusiasm and a can do attitude no matter what you are doing.

3.Ask for a full time staffer to be your mentor, no matter what their age.  Take them to lunch and ask for their help throughout your time with the firm.

4. Buddy up with another intern or a few.  Share the good and the not so good. Learn from each other and the work.

5. Keep a journal of your experience.  I did and I love to look back upon that time and see what I was feeling and learning.

6. Read. Read. Read.  Learn about the organization you are working for even before the first day.  Set up Google push alerts about the company and their industry.  Devour their website.  Read news about them.  What are their strengths?.  Where are they going?.  How might you help?.

7. While you may be short on experience, you do bring some great knowledge to the company.  First and foremost you are a millennial and a digital native (I assume.) You have consumer tastes you can share.  Perhaps you can help your workplace become more informed about social networking.  Perhaps you have an idea for the company website to enhance it via new media applications.

8. Write.  Write.  Write.  Unfortunately the art of persuasive writing is being lost.  And in business, the ability to write compelling copy is critical….whether a brief email, a speech, an analysis of a report or a topline of an industry.  Volunteer to write lots.

9. Start your portfolio now, if you haven’t already.  Anything that you do during your internship, writing, research, graphics, analysis, add to your portfolio.  Build it over your college years and be sure to make it very neat and as sophisticated a representation of how you think and what you know.  And if you are really a digital native, put your portfolio online.

10. Start building your contact database.  Linked In or others.  Even in an internship you are beginning to network. You never know when you will find someone who will offer to connect you with someone else to launch your career.

And lastly, ask for real work, as challenging as you can handle.  And work with your team – interns and full time staff – as the project evolves.  Collaboration is one of the secrets to my success and is more important than ever today. Nobody corners the market on new ideas and solutions.  Teams who can candidly question and share can create amazing results.

I could go on and on, but I was told to keep it short.  I hope this list helps you to gain a solid start with any of your internships.

And don’t forget to ask your workplace whether they hire from their intern pool.  We do. Some of our most talented staff have started as interns.

Enjoy. And Learn.  

Good luck with your quest to find your personal passion. 

By Nora K. Jemison  
Director, Experiential Education & Employer Outreach  
New York Institute of Technology

 Q. Yikes! It’s almost summer and I haven’t found an internship! What do I doooooooooo?

A. First and foremost, don’t panic. Keep looking. Thanks to the hot job market in the high tech fields, it’s possible to find “last minute” internship opportunities even right up through July. Think about it: sometimes a student who found an internship may have decided to turn down the opportunity for whatever reason, leaving a frustrated employer scrambling for a replacement. Also, employers are just like students — sometimes they procrastinate. If you’re prepared to take advantage of these opportunities, you can score a last-minute internship easily.

Visit your college’s career office ASAP to find out about still-available internships. Also, Craigslist.org is a great place to find “last minute” opportunities. There’s no fee or delay to post positions there, so employers who are in a bind will more often post there than someplace like Dice.com, Monster.com, or your local paper.

But okay. So let’s say for whatever reason that you still don’t find an internship for the summer. You can still gain experience via personal projects. Here are some examples.

The “Junior Bill Gates” Plan: Want to run your own tech startup someday? Start now — spend the summer researching how to write a successful business plan, and write up one for your dream business. For bonus points, go ahead and use this plan to pitch for a business loan at your bank, or with a potential investor (you might want to start with someone who’s currently investing in you… like a parent). If you’re really feeling daring, enlist friends to become part of your “development team” and get them involved — for example, a graphic design major can help you build a nice-looking website to showcase your product (and gain some useful experience herself). A business major can help you with the business plan and investor pitch.

The REALLY Hardcore Gamer Plan: Like video games? Try writing one of your own. You may have to teach yourself some skills that you don’t yet know, like computer graphics or advanced programming techniques — but that’s OK, because then you’ll be able to add these new skills to your resume at the end of the summer, and you’ll get better grades when you finally do take these classes. If your idea is really hot, enlist a team of other students to help you with it — other programmers, computer animation majors, maybe some business majors looking to build a business plan. For bonus points, start networking with professional gamers, by joining your local chapter of the International Game Developers Association (igda.org) and attending their networking functions. These events are usually fun and casual and welcoming to bright-eyed students, and pro game people love to talk about their work. You may even find some mentors willing to help you out… or buy your idea.

The Chatty Cathy Plan: If you’re a techie who’s a little more verbal/social than most, use your l33t communications skills to kick-start your career with a weblog. Come up with a catchy title and interesting subject matter, and write posts which showcase your ability to be articulate, witty, and to “hook” an audience. Try not to replicate the tech blogs that are already out there; put your own unique spin on things. For example, let’s say you’re a gamer who’s not part of the typical young white male demographic, and you want the world to know what you think about the latest hottest stuff. Or let’s say you have poetic leanings, and decide to post weekly haikus about circuit design. (Hey, I’d read it.) Bonus points: teach yourself how to use some blogging technology/technique that’s in high demand these days, like Movable Type, Wordpress, or search engine optimization. Your next internship search should go a lot better with those on your resume.

Hope this gives you some ideas. With a little passion and intiative — attributes that employers really love to see — you can get great experience whether you have a summer internship or not. And since personal projects can go on your resume (ask a career counselor how to showcase this experience), think of them as your own custom-built internship!

I recently read this short article in the Wells Fargo Daily Advantage publication. I have heard from professors and professionals the importance of a good handshake, but somewhat dismissed the tip. A new study conducted by Greg Stewart emphasizes the handshake as a major factor in the hiring process. Since the internship is considered a summer long interview, think about the kind of first impression your handshake will give.

Pssst, here’s a hot tip for people interviewing for jobs. When you meet the interviewer, give a good hearty handshake. A study conducted by Greg Stewart, a professor of management at the University of Iowa, found that a firm handshake is the key to getting the offer. The professor tested 98 students by having them interview with business people and also shake hands with people trained to rate handshakes. Both groups rated each student’s performance and hireability, and they rated the students with strong handshakes as the most hirable. Says Stewart: “We probably don’t consciously remember a person’s handshake or whether it was good or bad, but the handshake is one of the first non-verbal clues we get about the person’s overall personality. And that impression is what we remember.” (The full results of the study will be published in the September issue of The Journal of Applied Psychology.)

According to Stewart, you can execute a good handshake by following a few simple rules:

1. Form a complete and firm grip (no finger squeezers, no dead mice)

2. Make a vigorous up and down movement (but remember you’re not chopping wood)

3. Make eye contact (no I’m-the-dude sunglasses or redeye)

–Stephanie

By Joe Grimaldi
Chief Executive Officer
Mullen

Here are some thoughts from Joe Grimaldi who is the CEO at Mullen. Mullen is a renowned advertising agency with locations in Massachussetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan. As a huge supporter the internship program, Joe actively engages with interns on various occasions. He speaks to them during their first week during a lunch and learn session, judges their final new business presentation, and loves to get to know them in the cafeteria.

1. What do you feel is the most differentiating feature about Mullen’s internship program, and how has this benefited the students, and the agency?

“We care about the education the interns get and put time, energy and senior management involvement into it. We need the best people to come into the business if we are to be a competitive industry, and the best way to do that is to help shape them. It’s an industry cause.”

2. Did you intern anywhere before you started working? If so, where? What was it like?

“No. I got lucky and walked out of school in Manhattan and into the media department of a top 5 agency.”

3. Name one trait you love to see in your interns, but feel you don’t see enough of?

“Two things, actually: 1) Being a sponge that absorbs everything with unbridled enthusiasm and organized thought. 2) The ability to voice original thought and ideas in a way that is not easily dismissed by people with significantly more experience.”

By Michael R. Ratty
Director of Communications
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

One hand on the steering wheel, one hand on a hastily printed map, I nearly swerved into oncoming traffic on the two-lane bridge. It was a humid June afternoon and I was panicking on my first day of an internship with The Lowell Sun, a daily newspaper in Lowell, Mass. Only ten minutes earlier, I had been handed my first reporting assignment, covering a press conference announcing a new affordable housing measure for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I had expected my first day to be filled with inane duties like finding an empty cubicle and having my employee ID picture taken. I was wrong.

I was on summer break before my senior year at Ithaca College and, like most journalism majors, I had agonized over where I would intern. My first choice was the Boston Globe and my second choice was the Sun’s internship program, which had four paid, full-time positions. The Globe program, although unpaid (the Globe name was the payment…) was renowned for landing impressive placements for its graduates. Up against Ivy Leaguers and students from higher profile journalism programs like Syracuse and NYU, I was not offered a position. Disappointed but undaunted, I pursued the Sun’s program because of the experience I anticipated receiving. After two rounds of interviews, I was given the good news on the last day of classes. At the time, I felt like the last kid picked at gym class. That feeling would not last long.

Fast forward two weeks to my second day on the job, and that affordable housing article was published on the second page of the metro section. After being thrown into the fire and succeeding on that first day, there was no challenge I couldn’t handle over the next three months. There was no reason to be timid and every reason to be fearless. I knew that although the Sun’s name may not leap off the resume for a prospective employer, a thick stack of writing clips would.

At the Sun I wasn’t treated like a typical intern, and around the newsroom I was treated in accordance with my articles’ bylines: Michael R. Ratty – Staff Writer. Over the course of the summer I would publish over 25 articles for the newspaper, seven of which appeared on Page One. As you might expect, the topics of my articles ran the gamut:
-“’Up In Smoke Tour’ a rap lover’s paradise”
-“Hibernians give gift of green at Middlesex”
-“Taking aim at video-game violence”
-“State aiming to cut mercury levels in water”
-“Sovereign makes a solid first impression with Lowell leaders”

My articles appeared in every section of the newspaper and, more importantly, my editors gave me the freedom to come up with my own article ideas. A good example was when I wandered over to my editor’s desk and asked if he knew what Napster was. It sounds silly now, but in the summer of 2000 music downloading was still in its infancy and people were still taking sides on the issue. With a little cajoling, I convinced him there was a great feature waiting to be written. Three weeks and dozens of interviews later – I even tracked down the uncle of Napster founder Shawn Fanning on Cape Cod – the newspaper featured the story on its front page. I was getting my hands dirty on every article by doing all of my own research, fact checking, and even some photography.

By the time my last day arrived, I hadn’t fetched one fax or cup of coffee. I was simply a writer, something I had dreamed about as long as I could remember. I would be lying if I told you that, given the opportunity back in May 2000 to choose between the Globe and the Sun, I would have chosen the Sun. But the fact is that after graduating, those writing clips helped me land two jobs and various freelance opportunities. Although it wasn’t the flashiest or most prestigious internship, my time at the Sun turned out to be one of the most valuable experiences of my life.

In its own unique way, I did indeed land my dream internship. It just took a little creative driving to get me there.

Michael Ratty is the Director of Communications at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. He holds a BA in Print Journalism from Ithaca College, and resides in Boston’s North End. He can be reached at ratty.michael@gmail.com.

By Steve Raymund
Chairman of the Board of Directors
Tech Data Corporation

Working as an intern is a great opportunity to learn what it means to live inside the world and culture of corporate America. With open eyes and ears, you can acquire important skills and knowledge that will help you succeed in your future career. Perhaps more importantly, you can learn a lot about yourself and what kind of work environment best fits your own personality.

Quite often that first or second internship culminates in an exciting job offer and the chance to build a career inside a company you now know, and that knows and values your contribution in return. Here’s a few tips to maximizing your success in the corporate America:

You may be a stranger in a strange land, unfamiliar with its social conventions, so take your time to learn how things get done in this new world. Listen, watch, take notes, study and reflect on your experience. Remember, company cultures can differ remarkably from one another. Intel, for example, is renowned for its culture of confrontation, while HP, in contrast, places high value on collaboration. Although a company may have formal procedures and rules, quite often it’s through informal networks and processes that more can be accomplished. So be diligent in learning about your company’s social norms to avoid making a silly faux pas, and to ensure that you maximize your effectiveness.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and advice. If given an assignment, seek counsel and feedback along the way vs. waiting until your finished project is ready for formal unveiling. I’ve seen people waste weeks of work by misinterpreting their original instructions and finishing up with a worthless product. A better alternative is frequent checkpoints with your boss or colleagues during which you’re likely to hear great suggestions to improve your end product. That way you’re more likely to stay on track with the original assignment.

Be timely in everything you do. Show up to meetings a few minutes early. Deliver your reports when due. People don’t like to hear excuses for tardiness, delays and missed deadlines. To be sure, delays are sometimes unavoidable, but don’t wait until the last minute before informing your boss that you can’t deliver your work on time. It’s much better to provide an early heads up, which might in fact create an opportunity to enlist help in flattening the obstacles slowing your progress.

Be cordial, not saccharine. People spend more of their waking time at work than just about anywhere else, and would, in most cases, prefer it to be a pleasant experience. Sullen, negative attitudes are a real turn-off in and outside the workplace. The wrong attitude can put you on the bottom of everyone’s list for special assignments, project teams, and promotions, despite your technical skills. By the same token, it’s important not to go overboard in the other direction, annoying people with your garrulous chirping.

Always be honest and truthful. A number of years ago we were recruiting a senior financial executive for our Latin American operations. Our lead candidate had all the right qualifications: great experience, Ivy League MBA, and an easy and intelligent manner. Until reaching me, he had won over everyone who had met him. Our interview together was the last stop before offering him the job. In reviewing his resume, I noticed that our candidate had listed fluency in Portuguese as one of his skills, which for a Latin American job was quite relevant. His resume did not qualify his degree of fluency to reading only, or any other limitation. Since I once lived in Brazil and am reasonably comfortable in the language (at least one on one), I switched to Portuguese once formal introductions were complete. Poor guy, you could see his face fall as soon as he spoke, for he could barely assemble a complete sentence in the language, at which point our interview was over.

The lessons above seem like pretty basic common sense right? Pay attention; be curious; show up on time; be friendly but professional; tell the truth. You’d be surprised how many people have trouble with these things.

By Linda Greene
Executive Director
WISE Services

You’ve researched your field, contacted possible placements, made calls, and landed the internship you wanted. So you’re all set? Not quite! To make the most of your internship, here are some tips to turn your weeks or months as an intern into a truly worthwhile learning experience.

1) Set goals for your internship. What do you hope to get out of your experience?
What do you hope to learn? Which skills would you like to develop? Where in the organization would you like to work? Which people in the placement are those you wish to work with? Who else can help you? By setting goals, you will give your internship experience some direction and a way by which to measure the experience at its conclusion.

2) Meet with your supervisor and make sure you communicate what you hope to gain from your internship experience. Listen to his or her suggestions regarding how you will be used as an intern, but don’t be afraid to ask for what you want if it’s not initially offered to you. You will, of course, be more successful in this discussion if you are respectful and well prepared (here is another way setting some goals will be of use!)

3) Keep a journal of your experiences. By documenting your daily work activities and keeping track of the people you meet, you’ll have the information you need to summarize your experience in your resume and a record of your internship for future reference. Reflections on the experience will help you remember more about it and make the journal fun to read in the future. Keep updating your goals and make lists of things you hope to do and accomplish as the internship progresses. How are you doing on meeting the goals you set for your learning and for skill development?

4) Try to make contacts and develop relationships within the organization. These will be of use in the future when you’re looking for a job (perhaps within this same organization!) and when you need references. Respect people’s need to get their job done – they might not have time to chat with you, but if they do, use that time to learn as much as you can about the work they do and what preparation they have had. What recommendations would they make to you as you get ready for the job world?

5) Keep the communication lines open. If you’re not happy with your placement or the duties assigned to you, try to find ways to demonstrate your abilities and your knowledge.
Talk to your supervisor so they know you’re seeking another type of experience or more hands-on opportunities.

6) Stay positive. No matter how good or not so good your internship is, it still counts as experience. Some times internships help you realize you’ve been on the wrong track with your job interests. Maybe the fit isn’t good and you should think about changing your focus and direction. That’s a good thing to learn early in your career, so don’t feel “down” about it. It’s a job to add to your resume and a set of experiences you can draw on in the future. Be sure to thank those people who have helped you and keep in touch with them for the future. Good luck and enjoy your internship!

Linda Greene is the Executive Director of WISE Services, a not-for-profit organization which assists schools in developing a program of individualized, student-designed, and interest-driven projects and internships. Over 80 high schools across the U.S. have started WISE Programs. If you are interested in the program, please contact wiselindag@optonline.net.

Welcome to the newest InternshipRatings.com addition!

As students ourselves, we understand the need for advice from professionals. After our internships last summer, we realized how many questions arise before, during and after an internship. What makes a good resume? How do I ask for a letter of recommendation? How do I make my internships “worth the coffee”?

Take Note: Expert Advice from Industry Professionals will feature articles from various contributors of different backgrounds and specialties, offering advice about internships. You will see posts by career counselors, HR personnel and company executives. Whether you are a sports intern, finance intern or just looking for an internship, Take Note will answer some of the questions you might be too afraid to ask and didn’t know to ask.

We encourage you to post comments and interact with our writers. Please feel free to ask more questions or even suggest topics. This column is for you, so let us know what advice you really need! For now just take note…

Enjoy,

Lauren and Stephanie
Founders

P.S. Don’t forget to rate your internship!