3 Ways to Maximize Your Summer Internship Experience

A BIG congratulations for securing an internship during the Summer and working through the end with a sense of accomplishment. If you are like most college students, you were able to put your classroom learnings to practice and gain real-world work experience. Most importantly, I hope you found the internship rewarding and challenging.?

As Summer internships draw to a close and your new semester begins, many students may be wondering how to capitalize on the new connections they have made these last few months or what to do next as they go back to school.

As the Head of Talent Acquisition at Alation , I often receive questions from college students asking for advice as to what to do now or if there’s anything that they should do when they return to school. Before getting too busy with classroom studies, here are three (3) tips to consider to ensure you have properly assessed and reflected on your Summer experience.

1 - SELF-REFLECTION:

A three-month internship goes by quickly and before beginning the new school year, it is best practice to take a pause and reflect on your Summer experience before moving forward.??

Try not to spend so much time fixating on your deliverables. Do not get me wrong, meeting them is a crucial part of succeeding in your role, but sometimes when we get too focused on the technicalities, the value of the experience within itself goes without notice. Meaning, at times, there is more value in digesting all that you are doing. Taking the time to note how you did things, what worked, what did not work, and what you could have done better. If you find yourself not fully digesting what you are doing, try to take a step back and start noting the following:

What did you enjoy about your role? What did you not enjoy? What were the career paths that you were exposed to that you want to learn more about? What sort of responsibilities did you look forward to completing? What did you dread having to do?

Documenting what you have found during your self-reflection exercises will help it all seem more real, memorable, and impactful to you. Some keep a journal, some prefer to take notes on their phone, and others prefer talking with a colleague, manager, mentor, or friend. Spend time writing down your thoughts and experiences. Set aside the time to do this while the internship experience is fresh and then come back to your notes in 4-6 weeks. Use these notes to make a wants and needs list as this will be helpful as you think about updating your resume and getting ready for the career center recruiting activities in the fall.?

“Reflect on what you have learned, what you enjoyed…” said Hallie Bodey , Program Director at Santa Clara University’s Ciocca Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. “If the internship has taught you that you are no longer interested in the field, that is good too. Better to discover that now through an internship than in a first job. In that case, plan ways to continue to prototype the career that you want.”

Self-reflection is designed to make you better. And making improvements to anything in life starts with honesty and hard work. So, as we embark on an ever-changed world of work, I strongly believe the ability to self-reflect will be one of the most powerful skills we can arm ourselves with.?

2 - NURTURE RELATIONSHIPS:

Just because the Summer is over, it does not mean that you have to restrain from engaging with the people and colleagues you built relationships with while working as an intern. “Network, network, network” is the advice that you would often hear from Satyen Sangani , CEO and co-founder of Alation when speaking to college interns. Creating a solid network is one of the most important things you can do for your professional career. While hearing the word network itself might seem daunting, in reality, networking is simply the process of creating and maintaining relationships.

Why is networking important? A professional network can support your career development and help you in your current role. It is a great way to get a deeper understanding of the happenings within different departments in your company and within the industry as a whole, and could even help you to secure another internship or get that dream job through word-of-mouth recommendations.?

The most overlooked benefit of internships is the connections you made. You should walk away from any internship with a much broader network. Including executive leaders, clients, and fellow interns/colleagues. It is not as difficult as you may think. The first step is to take stock of the individuals who you got to know this Summer and find ways to engage with them throughout the school year.?

“Once students return to campus after a Summer internship, I encourage them to reach out to the individuals they met during their internship via LinkedIn. Be it their supervisor, employees they worked with on projects as well as other interns,” said Marcy Hess (Newman) , Director of Campus Partnerships at Loyola Marymount University. “Send a brief note and an invitation to connect so that you continue to build your network and see who they may be connected to. I encourage students to ‘let your network work for you.’ So reach out to express appreciation and ask if they might be willing to connect you with anyone in their network for networking including setting up an informational interview. Relationships are so important in any industry or field.”

Making professional contacts not only benefits you as a student, but it can also help you when you are next on the lookout to make a career move. These contacts are great for providing guidance, helping with future job searches, and hopefully even developing into friendships. Put effort into maintaining these relationships beyond just using them as references.

3 - UPDATE PROFILE:

It is time to make that internship experience shine on your LinkedIn profile and your resume. The benefit of any internship is that it gives your “Work Experience” section a BIG boost. Although the experience was an internship, the opportunity acts like a full-time job. There is no doubt it will be mentioned again or asked about during your next job interview. Showcasing that you have work-related experience (or at least exposure) along with an elementary understanding of a certain industry and the relevant foundational skills will give you a leg up in attracting interest from a future employer.

Many students forget to update their LinkedIn profiles or resumes, which is a drastic mistake. Do not wait until the last minute. Do it while all the information that you have learned is fresh without having to remember or worse…forget.??

Updating your resume is key to your success. To help, refrain from just including your job title, the company you worked for, and the responsibilities that were copied and pasted from the job description. Instead, highlight your major contributions, details about comprehensive projects you worked on, and demonstrate how you added value to the company. Also, collect relevant work samples for your portfolio ( with your employer’s approval first). This should include presentations you gave, articles you wrote, campaigns you worked on, or designs you created. Build a list of technical skills you learned, such as industry knowledge or working with any specific software. For soft skills that you developed, organize a list of examples of how you demonstrated them, as this will become handy in future behavioral-based interviews.

Finally, ask your manager, your mentors, or other colleagues that you worked closely with for a brief recommendation on LinkedIn so you can reference this in your next interview. This will enrich your job portfolio and give future employers an insight into your skills and most recent accomplishments.

One More Thing…"storytelling":

What is your story? Knowing it and telling it well during the job search process can help you stand out to hiring managers. With your internship experience under your belt, you now have more material to use to update the story you tell moving forward, especially for those who are going to be networking and recruiting in the fall.?

Storytelling is quite effective in a resume, as candidates can weave stories of their accomplishments.?Start to incorporate elements from the Summer internship into your story, and practice it out loud, or virtually with classmates and peers.

By preparing and practicing, you will become comfortable talking about your overall work experience, incorporating your area of study with real work examples, and explaining why it makes you a great candidate for the open position. More importantly, being familiar with your stories can only boost your confidence in interviews when you can use them to showcase your skills. Taking some time to think about your interview as a chance to tell a good story can not only lead to a happy ending (you get the job or internship!) but can make the process less stressful and enjoyable. Who doesn’t love a good story? And now you have one to tell.

With the potential for a full-time opportunity ahead, a Summer internship can carry a lot of stress and pressure. These are just several key points you should focus on to ensure that you make the most out of your position. I hope these three (3) tips are helpful takeaways as to how to maximize your Summer internship experience.

Are there any tips that I left out? I would love to know if you have any helpful suggestions or comments to add!

Edward Avila is the Vice President of Talent Acquisition at?Alation , a pre-IPO company that is pioneering the data catalog market and today is leading its evolution into a platform for a broad range of data intelligence solutions. To learn more about our global job opportunities like nowhere else, please click here?www.alation.com/careers .