Susan Sandberg

You and your colleagues are working hard to ensure that all your students have summer internships lined up. “Internships are being sought by more and more KU students because they realize how important internships are in their future job search,” said Erin Wolfram, assistant director of career networks at the University Career Center at Kansas University. The number of students involved in internships is difficult to monitor, Wolfram said, due to the variety of ways students find them. Some find internships through professors, family members, or career services, such as internships.com, which was recently listed as #1 of 6 Best Sites to find Summer Internships on makeuseof.com. Students still searching for summer internships might find the following opportunities on internships.com helpful:

•    Accounting Internship:  CampGroup, LLC, Monmouth, ME. 2 Full-Time, Paid;  05/29/12 – 08/18/12.  Accounting intern to assist Controller in the management of CampGroup, LLC, which owns and operates 15 children’s resident summer camps in lakeside locations.  Assignments will involve routine accounting practices such as entering invoices & cash receipts, paying bills, recording manual checks & journal entries. You will also be involved in the preparation of staff payroll and tracking of staff advances. Requirements:  Academic concentration in Accounting or Finance required. Must have completed 2 semesters of accounting, must be detail oriented and have solid computer skills with working knowledge of Microsoft Excel and Word.

•    Advertising Copywriter:  Internet Webpages Newspaper, Inc., Chicago, IL.  Part-Time, Paid  05/07/12 – ? (Dates Flexible.) Internet Webpages Newspaper, Inc. (IWN), a downtown Chicago-based print, online and events company, is seeking an Advertising Copywriter intern for an exciting opportunity at our Chicago Loop office. The primary responsibility is to execute the vision and direction of IWN’s Brand strategy. Specifically you will 1. Create Ad Copy for Print Publications, Event Signage and Graphics 2. Write AIDA oriented copy for a network of up to 80+ company websites and online stores. Requirements:  The ideal candidate is outgoing, friendly and works well in a collaborative office setting. Detail-oriented with excellent grammar and writing ability. Multilingual is desired but not mandatory.

•    Development Assistant, Marketing/Development Department:  Student Support Center, 1003 K St. NW Washington, DC.   Part-Time, Unpaid (College Credit Required) 06/01/12 – 09/01/12 (Dates Flexible). The Development Intern is responsible for assisting the Director of Development with maintaining the organization’s donor database, tracking and evaluating fundraising efforts, researching donor prospects and grant opportunities.

•    Tech start-up intern:  VenueTap, New York, NY. Full-Time, Unpaid, 06/04/12 – 09/04/12 (Dates Flexible). VenueTap is looking for a creative-minded go-getter to assist in developing our party planning platform. Your primary responsibilities will be managing the quality of our releases and sketching out future functionality. A good candidate will be able to work independently and follow directions well and be responsible for Quality Assurance and System Monitoring, Bug troubleshooting, and UI development and design. Requirements:   Familiarity with MySQL, JavaScript, C#, .NET, HTML, organized, strong attention to detail, ability to multi-task in a fast-paced environment,  previous start-up experience is a plus, and proficiency in MS Office Suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel).

•    Mobile App Graphic Designer:  TapWalk, Boston, MA. Part-Time, Unpaid (College Credit Required), 06/01/12 – 10/01/12 (Dates Flexible). This internship starts ASAP. The July 1st start date and submission end time was just to keep the post open to allow for continuous submissions. TapWalk is a technology-based startup and a world leader in the geo-based custom mobile application. Requirements:  1. Portfolio 2. Pursuing or graduated with a degree in Graphic Design.

•    NIH internships:   The National Institutes of Health (NIH) consists of 27 institutes with more than 1200 laboratories; some of the institutes include the National Institute of Cancer, National Eye Institute, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and the NIH Clinical Center. NIH offers stipends for trainees. The positions are highly competitive and are considered on a rolling basis. In one period, out of 6,700 applicants, only 1,200 interns were selected. You’ll need references.

•    Keswick Theatre Internships:  AEG Live, Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA , 2 Part-Time, Unpaid (College Credit Required),  05/14/12 – 08/14/12 (Dates Flexible).The Keswick Theatre – nationally recognized by audiences and performing artists as the most comfortable, friendly, acoustically-perfect listening room in the Philadelphia area-presents a broad range of internationally acclaimed performers geared to virtually every entertainment taste and interest. Requirements: Must be a junior or senior at a full-time and accredited college or university. Must provide proof of college credit within first week of internship. Previous work experience (industry-related experience) is encouraged and a commitment to 16-20 hours’ work per week is required.

Susan Sandberg

AT&T plans to hire more than 600 young workers this year, and roughly half of those positions will be for internships that could lead to entry-level full-time jobs. The company reports that it has been hiring interns for its summer program since the fall, but that positions remain. AT&T has made its internship program more robust. Interns will be paired with a mentor, receive mid- and end-of-program feedback on their performance and be given opportunities to shadow executives. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor, some three dozen companies, government agencies and nonprofits have committed to creating 180,000 summer jobs this year, and more organizations could sign on as the summer nears. (The jobs bank is expected to be available in early May at dol.gov/summerjobs.) Here’s a sample of what your colleagues at other colleges are doing to promote successful internships:

• University of Denver:  The Career Center hosted its quarterly Career and Internship Fair last Wednesday at the Gates Field House, with tables representing 50 government and non-profit employers. According to Pat O’Keefe, assistant director of the Career Center, about 350 students and alumni attended the spring fair, while 500 usually attend each of the fall and winter fairs. Employers included organizations like the Colorado Department of Revenue, the Salvation Army, the Peace Corps and Teach for America. “The spring fair is unusual because of this government and non-profit focus,” said O’Keefe. “The fall and winter fairs are more business-oriented.” According to O’Keefe, there were 13 more employers at this year’s fair than last year. She said the increase in employers from previous years could be a sign of the beginning of U.S. economic recovery.
• University of Houston:  The treatment of unpaid interns has recently come under fire, but UH students are continuing to apply for and accept these positions with the hope they will gain experience.  Marketing junior Colleen Seitz currently has an internship with UH’s Athletics and Marketing Department. Seitz says she has gained valuable insight into the inner workings of a sports marketing position and is receiving hands-on experience. For journalism junior Jennifer Pearson, her experience with the Houston Chronicle is much different. She has done photo galleries, but she has not received direct credit for her work. She is obtaining credit through UH for the internship, but Pearson is not sure whether the experience is helpful. Anthropology senior Jene Harper holds an internship at Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and helps veterans adjust to civilian life.  “The trade-off in spending that time and having the chance to gain the currency of human experience is far more valuable than getting $10 an hour.”
• University of Louisiana:  An alumnus from the University of Louisiana at Monroe has donated $10,000 to the College of Business Internship Support Fund. Freeman Stamper, who graduated from ULM’s College of Business in 1968, presented the donation Friday morning. The Internship Support Fund provides financial support to students participating in internships in high cost areas, such as Boston, Hong Kong, London, Dallas and New Orleans. Stamper is an executive consultant in the San Francisco area. He has made numerous contributions to the university over the years, including establishing the Frances Morris Memorial Endowed Scholarship, bestowing $1 million to benefit the endowed scholarship and naming the Charles Freeman Stamper Assistant Director’s Office in the Clarke M. Williams Student Success Center. Stamper said he is passionate about giving back to the university that helped launch his career.
• Bethel College:  Bethel College celebrates its emphasis on undergraduate research with the annual URICA Symposium on campus. URICA stands for Undergraduate Research, Internships and Creative Activity. This year’s symposium has expanded to include the fine arts and theater in addition to presentations from student research in science and social science. John McCabe-Juhnke, professor of communication arts, and Marla Krell, director of experiential learning, will moderate two panel discussions on “Experiential Learning through Internships.” Members of the panels are juniors and seniors. Bethel College is the only private, liberal arts college in Kansas listed in the 2011-12 Forbes.com analysis of top colleges and universities in the United States and is the highest-ranked Kansas college in the Washington Monthly annual college guide for 2011-12. The four-year liberal arts college is affiliated with Mennonite Church USA.

Susan Sandberg

Hiring is back in a big way on many college campuses, one of several signs a recovery in the U.S. jobs market is gaining traction, according to a recent article by Reuters. A survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found 2012 hiring is expected to climb 10.2 percent, above a previous estimate of 9.5 percent. At University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the career service office has seen up to now a 7.4 percent increase in the number of interviews of students by potential employers from last year and the number of companies seeking to recruit for full-time jobs is up 9.2 percent. Career experts at a dozen of U.S. schools said they have seen an increase of 15 to 30 percent in the number of companies attending campus career fairs. Here’s what some colleges are doing to ramp up for the increased demand:

• University of Maine:  The University of Maine is starting up a new internship program to help place students in the internship that will work best for the student and the company. This new program is part of the Innovation Engineering program which U Maine students can minor in during their time there. The Director of Economic Development of Initiatives Renee Kelly said this minor is not just for engineering students. This minor is open to all students and the goal is to teach students how to come up with new ideas, test them and see if those ideas work. Nate Wildes is getting ready to graduate; he is getting his major in political science a minor in innovation engineering, which is one of the reasons why he came to U Maine. He got that hands on experience during two internships as part of the innovation engineering program. Innovation engineering is expanding its program and is taking applications from all Maine college students who are looking for a summer internship.
• University of Rhode Island:  The University of Rhode Island celebrated its new Office of Experiential Education and Community Engagement in a ceremony that included presentations from President David M. Dooley and Gov. Lincoln Chafee. The office was previously known as the Office of Internships and Experiential Education, and, before that, University Year for Action. Along with the change in title, the office features a new set of “experiential coordinators,” one for each college in the university, who work as liaisons between the academic departments and experiential learning programs, according to Director Kim Washer. “This is a way for us to streamline information,” she said. “By designating experiential coordinators for each college, we can work collaboratively with faculty on their current and future plans.” Washer explained that while most students and employers associate experiential education with internships, some students do not have room in their schedules to fit in a full-time or even part-time internship outside of the university. “What we’ve done is create an office that can meet the needs of the changing industry communities and work with faculty to increase this kind of experiential learning taking place in classrooms.”
• The Ohio State University:  With summer quickly approaching, some students might find themselves turning to the Spring Career Day and other services in order to land a summer internship or job. Randy Dineen, an internship adviser for the College of Arts and Sciences Career Services, said that while the career services available to students differ based on the student’s major, many schools of enrollment offer similar services, including resume critiques, mock interviews, networking workshops and online job postings. The Spring Career Day April 3 will be the last career fair offered to students this school year. For Dineen, preparation is key for the event. “Research is always important to find out who is going to be there and what they’re hiring for,” Dineen said. “With 1,000 students and more than 100 organizations there, you’d be wasting your time without a plan.” Margaret Bogenschutz, senior director of undergraduate career management at the Fisher College of Business, said students should have a strategy going into career day. “Make a couple lists of 10 companies that you must see, and an additional 10 you’ll see if you get around to them to introduce yourself,” Bogenschutz said.
• University of Connecticut:  Many students seeking advice to make the most of their internship experience are given frustratingly vague answers based in platitudes rather than particular experiences. This was not the case for Tuesday’s panel on how to turn an internship into a job offer. While the phrase “go above and beyond” was indeed uttered by all the panelists – and by some it was said three or four times – much of the advice was pointed and all of the tips from the three students who received offers for full-time jobs after their internships were based on their own experiences. The panel, hosted by Career Services, was composed of talent consultant for Cigna Health Insurance Allison Eastwood, two employees who were former interns for Cigna and Mary Reilly, a UConn student and Career Services employee who has a job lined up after graduation. Each person spoke on the importance of completing work thoroughly and on-time, communicating with supervisors early and often and asking to take on more work.

Susan Sandberg

A recent New York Times magazine article, called “Hello, Cruel World,” focused on the career status of 226 Drew graduates in the class of 2011 seven months after graduation. Located in Madison, NJ, Drew, which has a prestigious Wall Street internship program, ranks 94^th among 178 private liberal arts colleges, according to the U.S. News & World Report’s annual list.  On a national level, unemployment among recent liberal-arts graduates is at 9.4%, higher than the national average. At Drew 17% of the NYT’s sample (226 students) of the class of 2011 is unemployed. Compare some of the following statistics and stories from Drew with your own institution and see how your students rate:

• Statistics:  39% have full-time jobs, including six who have both full- and part-time jobs. 35% of students who are employed part-time have two or more jobs. 34% of jobs involve food service, retail, customer service, clerical or unskilled work. Employment by industry, including part-time jobs and internships, ranks from highest in Recreation and Hospitality down to Education, Finance, Nonprofit, Media, Retail, and lastly to lowest, Health. 22% of students are in graduate school.  The most popular graduate school program is Education, followed by Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing/Midwifery; Psychology and Social Work; Accounting, Business, and Marketing; Liberal Art, Sciences, and Law.
• Internships:  74% of students who are interning are unpaid.  For one Drew student it paid off. Alex B writes, “A lot of it just came down to networking skills. I knew it was going to be hard, so I did a lot of internships. The best thing to do is to have them like you, to keep in contact during the year and hang out with them. I knew the job was there before I graduated. It comes down to networking well and knowing who you need to maintain relationships with when you’re not there.” Alex is now employed as a trainee at his former internship site in contrast to another classmate who turned down an unpaid internship at a law firm, saying “if you can’t afford to pay me $10 an hour, you don’t deserve to be in business.” She’s unemployed.
• Entrepreneurial options:  A number of Drew graduates ended up in entrepreneurial pursuits.  Though it wasn’t in her plan, one graduate took a job in a friend’s holistic pet-food store and discovered that more money was being poured into pet care since the economy went bad. “Eventually,” she says, “I hope to start my own grooming business.”  Another graduate, a nutrition major, opened her own practice offering colonics-based nutritional treatments. “I started out making $100 an hour. I never thought I’d be able to make this business succeed—it’s such an off-label product—but it’s doing really well, and I’m looking to expand within the year.”

Susan Sandberg

When Gossip Girl‘s Blair Waldorf takes an internship at W in Season 4, she has her boss’s job by the next episode. But when Hannah Horvath asks for a salary at her unpaid publishing internship in the pilot episode of Girls (premiering on HBO) she gets fired. Too many of your own student interns may have discovered that the latter scenario is painfully real. TV shows are not the only medium using internships as plot devices. A script for a planned movie, called “The Internship,” follows two old-school salesmen that find themselves unemployed and attempt to reinvent themselves by taking internships at a major dot.com company.  Right now your own students are searching for the perfect summer internship.  They might benefit from reading about the following experiences and decide to take your wise advice on how to avoid nightmare choices:

• Bogus internship in the travel industry:  A mother in England writes that her daughter applied for a summer internship with a company called European Medical Assistance through a job vacancy portal. After a phone interview she was offered a 6-week placement. The company said it would pay for flights and accommodation during the internship but she would have to pay a £400 deposit through PayPal. This would be reimbursed as part of her first month’s pay. She paid the deposit on December 16 using a Visa debit card but she has heard little from the company since, apart from a few brief emails. Her mother telephoned the company but even the emergency line goes straight to answerphone.  Journalist Gill Charlton found that the company does not appear to exist. The business address is a mail-forwarding company and the company’s 24-hour “worldwide assistance centre” goes straight to answerphone. Charlton cautions that students should beware of companies advertising summer jobs on some portals. “It is easy for a fraudster to create a professional website and set up a PayPal account to acquire upfront payments for job placements.”
• Students talk internships and jobs at career panel:  At Binghamton University, the Career Development Center held a series of information sessions last week to help arm students with skills and tools to become more marketable and to avoid selecting a disastrous internship. The CDC’s Experiential Education Coordinator Meg Minzel emphasized that students must decide on the field they would like to pursue. Parents, friends, professors and high school teachers are accessible outlets to begin pursuing jobs. “Start talking, start networking,” she said. According to Minzel, students should thoroughly research companies and programs before contacting organizations about internship opportunities, so that they know the positions available and companies consider them more seriously. “It’s really important to do your research and start creating your professional persona,” Minzel said. She also stressed the importance of professionalism when seeking an internship, advising students to consider their email address, voicemail and how they answer the phone in terms of appearance for possible employers.
• Eye of the Intern blog offers Intern Picks:  Encourage your students to search for internships on reliable sites, such as Internships.com, which currently offers nearly 68,000 internship postings. Each week, site intern Ting-Tien Wee chooses a theme and highlights several new internships he thinks are cool/useful/interesting. Your students can access the site and apply for any of these internships. Here are a few of Ting’s top marketing internship picks of the week:
• Membership & Marketing Intern with Society for Neuroscience in Washington, DC
  The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is a non-profit, professional association representing over 41,000 members working in the dynamic and multi-disciplinary field of science that deals with the brain and nervous system. Help research on new potential membership segments, copy write for annual meeting and exhibits marketing, and more in this paid internship!
• Startup: Paid Summer Internship with BoardProspects in Boston, MA
  Ever wanted to help market a startup company? Then this is your chance to be involved with BoardProspects, the online professional community dedicated to building better boards and committees. Help with market research, social media, analytic reports, and more in this paid internship.
• PR, Marketing, Social Media Internships with DocuHome in Santa Monica, CA
  DocuHome is is the most comprehensive, easy to use home inventory product and service on the market today. Their inventory tools help people get prepared before disaster strikes their homes and has been featured on CBS News, ABC News, and more as one of the smartest new technologies to come on the market. Apply for their pr, marketing, social media internship today!

Susan Sandberg

The world is your oyster, according to the old saying, and it’s never been truer in the world of internships then now. Companies are expanding in China, India, South America, and Europe, for starters, and they want interns and employees with global experience. Many colleges are offering  international field trips to give their students a head start. For example, students at Lynchburg College in Virginia went on spring break in Paris, not because they were French majors but because they wanted the global experience. This could be the right summer for your students to go global.  You might want to quote to them the following excerpts on costs and options from the recent New York Times article on global internships in the Business section:

• Costs:  Such internships can be pricey, because air fare is generally not included, a paycheck is unlikely and it can be hard to arrange them without outside help. But they can offer a window into a different business culture, along with a chance to practice language skills and perhaps earn college credit. Stephen Keil, a sophomore majoring in international relations and minoring in French at Syracuse University, worked full time last summer to save for his fall internship with the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. The university arranged the internship. Mr. Keil did research for the council’s Pompidou Group, which combats drug abuse and drug trafficking. He is considering a career in the State Department, so the experience was very useful, he said, “and my French improved greatly.”
• Options:  During the school year, Syracuse students who study abroad have the option of pursuing internships in addition to taking classes, but their tuition is the same regardless. Beyond tuition, program fees (including housing) range from $5,735 to $7,500, and substantial financial aid is available, said Suzanne Shane, program director at SU Abroad. In summer, students may pursue a full-time internship for credit without taking other courses. For this option, they pay about $1,000 a credit, as well as fees ranging from $2,000 to $3,840 when lodging is part of the package.
• Location:  Many students select an internship based on location, which is where Internships.com can help since it now has nearly 65,000 internships listed. Advise your students to go to the Web site and click on Summer Internships Abroad.  The following excerpts may stimulate your students to explore global internships:  “Summer internships abroad can give you a great adventure and potentially lead to an extremely lucrative career path. Traditional internships offer the opportunity of learning about a career, making professional contacts, and adding experience to your resume, and international internships offer all these benefits plus the chance to study a new culture and language abroad! Is there a place you’ve always wanted to see or a location abroad that you’ve already fallen in love with and want to spend a few months in? Have you been studying a language for years in school and need the chance to practice it in real-world situations? An internship abroad might be the perfect opportunity for you.”

Susan Sandberg

Internships are a hot topic. Articles about internships appear daily around the world in newspapers, online publications, and blogs. Campus chat and dinner table talk often revolve around internships—where they are, who has them, how to get one, etc. Whether a person is an undergraduate, graduate student, or unemployed, internships are the lifeline to full-time employment. As a busy career professional, you have little time to keep updated, but it might be helpful to evaluate the following trends for your program:

• Post-internship positions:  Companies are developing new programs to stay in touch with their interns. NASA has selected 100 of their “high-performing interns” to be inducted into the 2012 NASA Student Ambassadors Virtual Community. The Student Ambassadors program is part of NASA’s effort to encourage learning and education in their related fields. Referring to these fields of study as STEM (or science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), NASA also provides research, teaching, and training tools for educators on their website. The agency also provides internship opportunities and scholarships for interested students. Each group of selected interns to participate in this virtual community is called a “CPohort”. As this most recent group to be selected will be the fourth in the program’s history, they will be known as “Cohort IV” and will be comprised of students from 34 states and 73 universities in the United States.
• Internship competition:  The competition is getting tougher, says an article in the Kansas City Star. According to recent news reports, some employers have gotten rid of unpaid internships this year or have converted them to paid programs and are hiring fewer summer employees because they fear lawsuits regarding compensation. You can interpret that as good news because you’re more likely to be paid this summer if you land an internship. It’s also good news that employers have been put on notice that they can’t take advantage of free labor. But it puts the summertime squeeze on many students who will find fewer training positions available. As a result, they’ll lose out on entry-level workplace experience that could lead to full-time advancement. The controversy stems in part from a handful of lawsuits that have been filed over the past year by unpaid interns who alleged they were taken advantage of and should have been paid for their work. Unpaid internships became much more prevalent during the recession as companies sought to control salary and benefit costs by hiring a ready, willing and able pool of unpaid students seeking to build resumes. There are about 1.5 million interns hired every year, and more than half are unpaid positions, according to a USA Today story.
• Internship Coalitions:  An adjunct professor at Northeastern University notes how Boston groups are helping students find internships, co-ops, and jobs. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are hosting a gathering of business and academic leaders to discuss the benefits and best practices of student internships. The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce also is offering Chamber Intern Connect to connect area employers with college students throughout the region. No matter the specific internship, industry, or paid vs. unpaid opportunity, Chamber members post summer internships to a high-traffic database as well as the Commonwealth’s statewide Mass Stay Here internship site. The Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX), led by BWP Connector Debi Kleiman, offers student opportunities throughout the year. With a similar mission the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC)’s Education Foundation has launched the MassTLC Internship Network as the go-to source for tech sector internships in Massachusetts.
• Internship-Partnership Innovations:  Business Wire reports on a new trend of two companies joining together to offer one super-charged internship experience. Bayer MaterialScience LLC and the Pittsburgh Penguins today announced the first dual-internship program associated with the two iconic Pittsburgh names. Both Bayer and the Penguins currently have independent internship programs; however, the two Pittsburgh-based organizations have decided to team up and offer a dynamic internship experience to college students in the region. The six-month internship, focused on new media, will have the student assisting the Penguins’ Director of New Media, from June to August and then working with the social media team lead at Bayer MaterialScience LLC, from September to November. This type of internship is appropriate for college students pursuing a degree in Multimedia, Communications, Marketing, Interactive Design or a related discipline. Through innovative thinking, Bayer MaterialScience LLC and the Penguins have created a collaborative model for other organizations to give college students an opportunity to expand their experiences as they begin their careers.

Susan Sandberg

The unemployment rate is down to 8.3%, and the number of available internships is soaring. Internships.com now has 63,235 internships in over 18,000 companies in nearly 8,000 U.S. cities. But many students are complaining that they are facing an “internless” summer even though they’ve applied for lots of internships. One student recently told this writer that he had applied for 40+ internships and didn’t even have one interview to show for his efforts. As it turned out, the problem was not only the huge volume of resumes competing for the same internships, but also the poor quality of his resume. However, as a career services professional you don’t have time to rewrite all your students’ resumes. You can refer them to Internships.com for resume samples and tips, and you might pass along the following suggestions:

• Be aware of resume screening:  Your resume is probably being initially scanned by a computer that is searching for matching words between the internship posting and an applicant’s resume. Try sending out fewer resumes, but customizing each resume for the internship posting by integrating key words. For example, if the posting description says it wants “motivated, high-performance interns who have excellent communication skills and are familiar with social media, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter,” then you’ll add those same words into your resume. The Summary of Qualifications is the perfect location for the terms, “motivated, high-performance, excellent communication skills.”  Think about adding a Skills section to incorporate “LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter” or any other required skills.
• Add achievement sub-sections:  Check the section in the internship posting that describes the duties of the intern. Then, break your activities down into those achievement areas. For example, if the posting says the assignments include, “research, customer service, and business development,” you can review your job from last summer or during the school year and then divide those activities into 3 sub-sections titled, “Research achievements, Customer service achievements, and Business Development achievements.”  By using this format, you demonstrate that you’ve read the internship posting, have taken the time to create a relevant document rather than a mass mailing, and are sincerely interested in the internship.
• Use distinguishing factors:   Try to introduce some accomplishment or unusual activity to create a “Wow” factor that makes your resume stand out from the pile.  Do you speak several languages? Studied or traveled abroad? Started any new groups on campus? Volunteered to help disadvantaged populations in the community? Launched an entrepreneurial activity, such as starting your own lawn service or babysitting business? Won any awards? Perform on any sports teams, run marathons, or play the violin or any musical instrument? Raise funds for nonprofit causes? Play in a band or write music? The same type of distinguishing factors that helped get you accepted into your school can help you get the internship you want—only now you have more of them.
• Keep it short:  The current trend is a 1-page resume because each internship opening usually has lots of resumes, so you want to keep your resume short but strong. The most important item is your name in bold-face and all caps. Your contact information can go in one line. Your Summary of Qualifications should only be a few lines, emphasizing your achievements and soft skills. Start every bullet out with a dynamic verb, such as lead, manage, drive, increase, initiate, innovate, create, analyze, achieve, etc. Try to use primarily nouns and verbs in your writing, deleting all articles, such as “the, a, an.” Keep the format simple without borders or colors since such elements clutter up the resume and take up valuable space that you need to describe your activities. Remember that many resumes are read online, so colors often fade into unreadable copy. Feel comfortable giving little space or even deleting older items that go back to high school unless they’re Wow factors.

Susan Sandberg

A memoir was released recently, detailing the romance in 1962 between President John F. Kennedy and his intern Mimi Beardsley (now Alford). According to an interview in a recent article in the NYT, she said her 18-month affair and her discretion was the era, the times. Then, Monica Lewinsky had a highly publicized affair with President Bill Clinton during her White House internship. The times may have changed, but the temptations are still there. As a career services professional, you might want to caution your students about restraining their libidos during their internships.

The following tips may help them avoid being a Mimi or Monica:

• Office romances:  A no-no—unless you want to endanger that employee’s career future and you’re not concerned about your own with this company. Many companies restrict office romances—some won’t hire husband and wife teams—because they feel such a relationship distracts a productive employee from concentrating on his/her job. Students should be especially careful to reject overtures from married staff or the intern supervisor. Encourage your student interns to let you know if any untoward moves are made towards them, so hopefully you can intervene.
• Appropriate dress:  First impressions are lasting, so urge your students to arrive at work in business attire. Short skirts or plunging necklines can be misread as invitations for sexual encounters. Dress conservatively at work, wearing dark skirts or trousers, white shirts, and a minimum of body jewelry. Neutral colors are always safe. You might have some funky outfits that you wear when you socialize with friends, but they might not be right for work functions. Interns often find inexpensive work outfits at local consignment or second-hand shops. Avoid tight clothing and perfume or cologne. Make-up should be minimal, and hairstyles simple.
• Appropriate behavior:  Remain neutral. Don’t show any romantic inclination in the office or play favorites with your co-workers, especially with the opposite gender.  Refrain from sending emails to the object of your affection or from calling him/her on your cell phone. Your co-workers will catch on even if you think you’re being discreet. Avoid secret meetings outside the office. Someone will inevitably see you and report back to the office, and the gossip will start. Also, you’ll get a reputation for being sly or underhanded, which won’t help your internship to be a success.
• Post-internship dating:  Be patient. Wait until after you’ve completed your internship to develop a relationship with one of your former co-workers. Keep in mind that if you intend to turn your internship into a permanent job, you might have to find a romantic interest elsewhere or choose a different company. Students might save themselves some heartbreak if they find out more about a potential dating partner before embarking on a romantic adventure. It’s more difficult to find out about a co-worker’s background than a fellow student’s.

Susan Sandberg

Internship news appears daily in media outlets nationwide, such as the recent op-ed piece in The New York Times by Charles Murray, author of the newly published book, “Coming Apart.” He asserts that “we should get rid of unpaid internships. The children of the new upper class hardly ever get real jobs during summer vacation. Instead, they get internships at places like the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute (where I work) or a senator’s office. It amounts to career assistance for rich, smart children. Those from the middle and working class, struggling to pay for college, can’t afford to work for free.”

Though less controversial, other current internship news topics include the following excerpts:

• Sacramento Bee:   Employers expect to ramp up hiring college interns this summer as companies continue to climb out of the recession. Firms plan to increase their hiring for summer internships by 8.5 percent over last year, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, or NACE, reported. Local college career center officials were upbeat, saying they are seeing an uptick in intern recruiting activity. “We certainly are seeing many employers who are excited about the hiring of summer interns,” said Janice Morand, project manager at the Internship and Career Center at UC Davis, where the heaviest recruiting is in computer science, engineering and information technology. Eva Gabbe, a California State University, Sacramento, employment relations and recruitment manager, said she’s also seeing an upswing in internship recruiting at her campus. Interns are paid less than their full-time counterparts and also give wary firms some wiggle room in a difficult economy, Gabbe said. Nearly all of the organizations polled plan to pay their interns, NACE officials said. The average pay for bachelor’s degree-level interns, at $16.21 an hour, is slightly less than last year’s $16.68, according to NACE.
• White Lake Beacon:  Many companies have found that hiring and utilizing interns can be a cost-effective way to help grow their business and cultivate a knowledge-based workforce. With workforce development on the forefront of the business community’s mind, hiring interns can be one step towards bridging this gap. To help determine whether a business could benefit from interns, or to make the most out of an existing intern program, two different programs are being provided in the Muskegon Lakeshore area. The Muskegon Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce will be hosting an Intern Business Briefing highlighting best practices for hiring and using interns. Later that day, the Employers Association of West Michigan will hold a Lunch N Learn to look at the technical side of the intern process, diving into critical components of a successful internship program.
• USA TODAY: As summer intern season draws near, many employers are doing away with unpaid internships or converting them to paid programs amid lawsuits that claim interns should have been compensated for their work, labor lawyers say. “They’re saying, ‘We’re not going to run the risk,’ ” says Al Robinson, a Washington, D.C., lawyer and former acting administrator of the Labor Department’s wage and hour unit. Unpaid internships are legal only if they meet stringent Labor criteria. For example, programs must provide training and benefit interns, not employers. Some firms are modifying programs by rotating interns among several departments, says lawyer Brian Dixon of Littler Mendelson. During and after the recession, unpaid internships spread as employers faced tight budgets, says Ross Perlin, author of 2011′s Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy. And laid-off workers were eager to fill gaps on their résumés. There are about 1.5 million internships in the U.S. each year, nearly half unpaid, Perlin says. In 2010, Labor outlined criteria they must meet. That led many employers to re-evaluate their internships.
• Business Wire:  SummerQAmp, a nationwide initiative to train a new workforce in high-tech skills and help create tech jobs for American youth, has launched. SummerQAmp’s mission is to help keep the U.S. at the forefront of innovation by creating tech jobs in America. Specifically, it will promote awareness for Quality Assurance (QA) as a career opportunity by inviting leading U.S. software companies to offer QA internships this summer to those without formal technical training. SummerQAmp’s goal is to help create at least 1,000 QA internships this summer alone. “SummerJobs+ and SummerQAmp educate and train young people who might not ordinarily consider a career in technology,” said Jon Bon Jovi, who is known for his efforts to help empower at-risk youth. “On behalf of the White House Council for Community Solutions, I support SummerJobs+ and their mission to empower youth who are presently disconnected from education, jobs, and career opportunities. The kind of on-the-job training that SummerQAmp aims to provide can create pathways to career opportunities in technology and a brighter future.”