4 Tips To Finding An Internship Without Dying Of Despair

By Jordan Bissell on July 19, 2014

If you are a business major, I don’t want to hear it. You can post complaining Instagram pics of your work buffet spread saying “#thegrindisreal” all you want, but just take your weekly stipend and go be happy munching on that gourmet cinnamon crunch bagel while you spin around in those awesome lumbar-supporting spinny chairs.

All of you liberal arts majors, draw near. My fellow English majors in particular, don’t despair when you mention that you’re searching for an internship and someone mentions that the Starbucks down the road is hiring.

I enjoy a nice coffee IV every morning just as much as the next person, but I want you to know that it IS possible to find an internship that teaches you skills that are relevant to your prospective field.

1. Go hog wild.

Find your university’s job/internship website board and apply to a ton of listings. Start your favorite Spotify playlist, make a little nest for yourself in your bed, and get ready to spend the next several hours searching.

Patiently look through page after page and submit at least 20 applications. I have submitted 27 through my school’s website and—although it sometimes makes me feel like an absolute loser when 80 percent of them go completely without a response—the more you send out, the better.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take your time to make yourself sound like the World’s Best Intern: Hire Me!

2. Apply to internships for little companies. 

Just because you may not get a Wall Street Journal internship or be the next hire for CNN doesn’t mean that you’ve failed. My time interning at a tech start-up taught me more about business and web design than any class I’ve ever taken.

Also, remember that sometimes you need the experience of a lesser-known internship to qualify you for that big-ticket company.

3. Consider a virtual internship. 

Most students (myself included) love the rush and importance of dressing up like a real live grownup and swiping your ID badge to let you into the skyscraper building.

For those who need time to work shifts at Chick-fil-A or even my fellow homebodies, working from your couch in a Cheeto-stained sweatshirt may be just as good if not better.

In my experience, virtual internships do require responsibility and good time management, so if you’re the kind of person who has 1,500 unread emails in your inbox, this may not be the style of internship for you.

But as long as you are willing to maintain regular communication with your supervisor, you can enjoy sharing your cubicle (unmade bed) with your coworker (your dog, Buddy).

4. Be patient.

I am so impatient that I sometimes pay for episodes on iTunes just because I don’t want to wait for them to come out on Hulu.

I considered chucking my laptop at the wall when 15 of my internship applications went unanswered, but luckily for my sanity and my bank account, I somehow found the peace to just sit back and wait.

And clearly my waiting paid off, because otherwise I wouldn’t be telling you this embarrassing and depressing story about myself.  At some point, you will get a phone call (or more likely an email) describing the next steps to move forward in the application process, and you will probably do some crazy celebration dance.

Of course, getting a prospective employer to reply to your application by no means guarantees you the internship, but next comes the interview process and that is a whole ‘nuther story …

So when the day comes that you’re proofreading at 3 a.m. or trying to figure out how to reset the company’s Facebook password because you entered it wrong 17 times, stop complaining about the $0 per week paycheck you’re getting (because something like 98.99 percent of internships are unfortunately unpaid) and stop for a minute.

You got to this point. You braved the internship battle and you won. You are the champion of internships.

Now you have to begin all over again because at this point you need a real, grocery-buying, rent-paying and insurance-providing job.

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