Seeking a location to complete your
internship requires a bit of perseverance and and a bit of
determination. Afterall, it is your first experience
in the job market. Communication Studies does not
"place" students in internships because we want our majors
to have a trial run at the job search before they get to
graduation. Finding an internship is great practice
for the efforts you will make in seeking that first real
job. But we have some advice, support and resources for
you that should make finding a valuable internship easier.
If you are here and starting to look
for an internship site, but you haven't completed the steps
on the
Internship
Planning page, STOP!
Go back. If you have been to the Wackerle Center before
planning and talking with your COMM advisor and the
Internship Coordinator, you risk making the process more
difficult or focusing on an internship that doesn't work for
your major.
1. The best time to complete
your planning and begin searching for an internship is
the
semester before you intend to actually work at the
internship site. For summer intermnships that means
starting to search over Christmas or in January for highly
competitive internships. For most students March is
the time to get serious about the internship search -
perhaps at home during Spring Break or Easter Break.
But even if you don't have a summer internship set by the
time spring semester is over, don't panic. It is not
unusual for internships to get finalized until early/mid May,
perhaps not until early June. For internships during
the school year, try to make arrangments during the middle
or late part of the previous semester. Here are some suggestions
that may help you find the best location for your
internship.
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While students often turn first
to the internet for job and internship searches,
advertised internships typically attract large numbers
of applicants and may be very competitive and hard to
get. Further, they tend to be structured in ways
designed to benefit the internship site and so they may
not represent well what you want to learn or experience.
We have listed some
internship search sites on
our search page that you can try but
don't make
web searches the only method (or even the primary
method) you use to find an internship location.
Keep in mind, many places that will take on an intern
don't advertise but depend on referrals or only have
interns when someone approaches them.
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The
best place to start looking for an internship is through networking.
Tell people you know that you are looking for an
internship and what kinds of things you want to learn
about or experience. If you plan to do the
internship in the summer at home, tell all your friends
and family at home (and ask them to ask their friends).
You never can tell who may have a contact that could pay
off. A student several years ago found an
internship lead from a cousin who mowed lawns. One of
his homeowner clients was a manager at a broadcast
station. If you can get internship site ideas from
friends, family, recent MC alums, former teachers, etc.,
you can likely also get a contact name of a person to
call.
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Another effective approach
is to develop a list of organizations in your
area that engage in the kind of work you are interested
in and contact them to find out if they are
willing to discuss an internship. If you are interested
in broadcasting it should be easy to get contact
information on local radio or TV stations. If you
want experience doing PR work, local non-profit
agencies, hospitals, PR ormarketing firms, government
agencies and many more locations may have internship
possibilities. As you start to assemble a list of
possible contacts, chat with the COMM Internship
Coordinator or your faculty adviser to help you identify
the kinds of organizations to contact. The COMM
Department routinely finds that organizations that don't
regularly have internship are willing to discuss the
possibility with our students. It can be hard to
get the courage to make "cold calls" asking about
internship (or job) possibilities but it gets easier
after a few times and it is often well worth the effort.
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A fourth way to look for
internship sites (or jobs!) is "informational
interviewing." This process involves
finding an experienced professional contact (for
example, the Director of Public Relations at a local
firm) in the job field that interests you and asking
them if they would be willing to chat with you for a few
minutes (in their office or over coffee) so you could
get some advice about how to pursue a career in their
field. Note: you aren't asking them for a job or
an internship, you are just asking for advice. This
makes the conversation low risk for the professional you
get in touch with. Most experienced professionals
tend to feel honored when an energetic young person
seeks them out to share career advice. During the
course of the conversation you can ask if they know of
places for internships. Even though they may not
have one for you, there is a good chance they know some
people to contact and this way you can build your list
of possible sites with the names of the right people to
touch base with. Ask if you can use the name of
the person you are talking with for a referral.
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If you still seem to be
having problems, meet with the COMM Internship
Coordinator for ideas and assistance.
2. Once you have identified
some possibile internship locations, it's time to make
contact with them. While you could make your first
contact with the organization by mail or email, it is often
a good idea to phone first to see if there are internship
possibilities and to determine what person you should
address your materials to. In the phone call, try to
get past receptionists or personnel office folks so that you
can talk to a person who might be in a position to hire you
as an intern. That way the phone call becomes the
start of an interview. In most cases the internship
site will want you to send them a copy of your resume and
you need to accompany that with a cover letter (the email to
which you attach your resume or in the same USPS envelop you
send the resume in) although specific organizations may have
other requirements. If so, follow them carefully.
Once you have submitted an internship application, if you
haven't heard back from the organization in two or three
weeks (or after the application dealine has passed), make a
phone contact to ask if they have received your materials
and to let them know you are available for an interview and
are still interested.
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If you are ready for a
professional internship, you probably already have a
resume. If not, create one. You can get help
for this from your COMM adviser, the COMM Internship
coordinator or the Wackerle Center. In any case,
be sure the resume you send to a potential internship
site has been carefully proof read (NO ERRORS) and
emphasizes abilities you have that would make you
interesting to that organization. Pass the
finished resume by the eyes of a COMM faculty member
before sending it. Check out
UC Davis' Career Center for some
excellent resources on creating powerful resumes, cover
letters and more.
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The cover letter for your
materials should be addressed personally to the
individual who will make the decision or who you hope to
work with if at all possible. The cover letter can
be brief but it should indicate why you want to be an
intern at the organization and what abilities you have
that might cause the organization to want you as an
intern. Focus more on how you will fit in with
them than on what they can do for you. Conclude
with an indication that you would like a chance to meet
with people at the internship site to talk further about
the possibilities. Here are some tips on
Internship Cover Letters.
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Once you have submitted an
internship application, if you haven't heard back from
the organization in two or three weeks (or after the
application dealine has passed), make a phone contact to
ask if they have received your materials and to let them
know you are available for an interview and are still
interested. Persistent follow ups are usually a
good idea (every couple of weeksuntil you get a firm yes
or no). Most organizations want interns or
employees who are enthusiastic about working for them.
3. Once you have gotten a
favorable reply from a potenial internship site and a chance
to meet with them, prepare for your interview. Do some
research so that you can demonstrate that you know what the
organization does. While you will want to find out
what kinds of activities an intern might become involved
with (plan some questions in advance), don't come off as
someone who's only interested in "What's in it for me?" Be
able to explain characteristic or skills you have that could
be helpful to the organization. Dress professionally,
bring multiple copies of your resume, and show an
enthusiastic and positive attitude. Remember, the
people interviewing you are wondering whether or not you are
the sort of person they want to be around and work with for
some number of weeks.
You may get lucky on your first
internship contact or you may have to make many
applications, but eventually you will get an internship
opportunity and members of the COMM faculty are happy to
help.. At that point you are ready to
make the arrangements between the Department of
Communiction Studies at Monmouth and your
internship site.
If you have not already been approved by
the department to do an internship,
submit an application
now. You can be approved for an internship before you have
found a location and you should apply and be approved before you
accept an internship offer.
Return to
main internship page
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