Creating Your Own Internship
By Saleem Assaf and Rosanne Lurie
When you go out to eat, do you prefer to go to restaurants where you can get your food to order (sauce on the side, hold the anchovies, medium rare, etc.), or where you can actually prepare it yourself (salad bars, buffets, select your steak or lobster, build your own sundae, etc.)? If you think about it, how many restaurants don’t allow you to customize your meal in some way? Can’t think of any, can you?
When you go out to eat, do you prefer to go to restaurants where you can get your food to order (sauce on the side, hold the anchovies, medium rare, etc.), or where you can actually prepare it yourself (salad bars, buffets, select your steak or lobster, build your own sundae, etc.)? If you think about it, how many restaurants don’t allow you to customize your meal in some way? Can’t think of any, can you?
This exercise of customizing something to suit your wants and needs also translates—or should—to your work life. True, many of us have learned to mask or lose sight of our true professional goals and dreams (it’s called being stuck in the rat race). But, if given the opportunity, there are any number of things we could come up with if asked, “What would you change in your job if you could?” and/or “What are the elements that make up an ideal job?”
During the course of your career, and during stints with various employers, you will have ample opportunity to work yourself into your dream role. Carrying out a tailored internship, summer project, or volunteer work is just one way to get you there. It carries tremendous potential: Because you have a greater ability and flexibility to mold it into the shape and form you most want, an internship of your own making can get you that much closer to your goal.
That said, be sure to not only sell your abilities but also the idea of an internship as a vehicle through which you can add value to the business at hand.
Select Your Functional Area
Selecting the functional area in which you want to work is fundamental to your future career. For example, most MBAs starting B-school are willing to work in a variety of disciplines (finance, marketing, operations, systems, management, etc.). That said, you can’t be all things to all people.
To make the most impact on potential employers, pick one functional area as your key area of concentration. Without this focus, your message will be loose, your direction vague, your enthusiasm likely diluted. Once you’ve selected your key area of concentration, your messages are more likely to be tight and targeted, your direction focused, your enthusiasm genuine and strong, and your overall outlook realistic and healthy.
Select Your Industry/Employer
The tactic of creating an internship or summer project can work with almost any employer. The likelihood of being able to create your own project and get paid for it is better with employers who do not already have a formal internship program.
However, don’t give up on employers with formal internship programs if that’s where your interests lie. Many of these existing programs are coordinated from a regional or national headquarters office. These same employers may have branch offices that probably do not take part in their corporate offices’ internship program and could just as likely use some additional help during the summer or for particular projects.
Select Your Project
Find someone in the department where you would like to work. Talk with him or her about the projects that are sitting on the shelf gathering dust. Be prepared to discuss some of your project ideas or to at least jumpstart their thinking.
Once you start delving into the kind of work they need help with, begin to interject with some of the things you’d like to be doing as well and see if those pieces can be integrated with the work they want done. This way, you are helping solve the employer’s problem, while also tailoring the project against what you’d like to learn or gain experience in. Having a solid command of the terms or lingo used by the employer and that particular industry will give you a leg up in matching your needs against those of your potential employer’s.
If you are making contact with companies who have structured or centralized recruiting groups, be prepared to get directed to recruiting coordinators or campus liaisons in the companies’ attempts to shuffle you into their generic recruiting pipeline. If they try to redirect you, tell your contact you want to create a unique experience that wouldn’t be available through an internship program and that you prefer to trade some compensation in return for gaining more control over what work you will do.
Refer to the “Get Over Cold-Calling Cold Feet” worksheet in the WetFeet Insider Guide to Getting Your Ideal Internship to help you get your foot in the door and to start talking with prospective employers about individualized internships or short-term projects.
Saleem Assaf and Rosanne Lurie are career advisors who co-authored the book, Getting Your Ideal Internship.