I guess it's unavoidable, for most sophomores it's time to start thinking about internships. Many of us have off-terms coming up next year, which means we should begin our hunt for the perfect "professional growth experience" as soon as possible.
Never one to procrastinate, I recently resolved that I would write out all my qualifications, cross-reference these with the industries in which I am most interested and order the results according to the desirability of geographic location. Then I realized I had no idea what any of that meant, so I just swung by Career Services instead.
For those of you unfamiliar with this campus resource, Career Services (slogan: "Have you ever considered grad school?") is a group of highly trained professional career counselors, utilizing their vast collective experience with employment issues and industry connections to find a nice way of explaining that for you, finding a job is about as likely as an M.C. Hammer comeback.
Ha! I'm just joking of course. The main focus of Career Services is really to produce a daily stream of thousands upon thousands of brightly colored informational flyers. Anyone who has been to the Career Services office, attended one of their lectures or walked within a five-foot radius of one of their counselors knows what I mean: they have flyers on every conceivable topic, from "How to Format your Resume" to "Successful Resume Formatting Tips" to "Dressing for Success (step one: Format your Resume)."
So after spending some time looking through all this available information, I finally devised a step-by-step procedure for securing the internship of your dreams:
1) Make a list of your top internship choices.
2) Contact the appropriate personnel directors at these companies in order to find out the application deadlines, and to confirm your interest in working for them.
3) Make sure you have perfect grades, involvement in at least three independent research projects, several U.S. patents, credit for the discovery of the cure for a major disease, sainthood bestowed upon you by the pope and a parent who is on the board of the company in question.
4) Type your application, that way it is easier to read, and it shows you went through a lot of effort to apply.
For those of you who are worried that you might not be able fulfill all of these steps (typing an application can be a real pain!) there is another option that can help your chances -- using the Alumni Network. This is a resource that contains a listing of over 18,000 Dartmouth alumni who have given the college permission to make their email addresses available to students, allowing us to get in direct contact with these Dartmouth professionals so that we can find out straight from the source that there are no jobs available this year.
I actually collected over 20 email addresses from the Alumni Network, and fully intend to send inquiry messages to every one of them, but to be honest I am a little intimidated by the process. Like some sort of rube, I assumed that when writing a message to find out about an internship you should probably mention the internship. Boy was I ever wrong. It turns out there is actually a very complex system of etiquette that needs to observed when using the Alumni Network, in fact Career Services gave me a very comprehensive (and brightly colored) informational flyer on how to communicate successfully with these alumni:
RIGHT: "Dear [name], as an undergraduate at Dartmouth with a keen interest in [industry name], I was hoping to find out more about your experiences."
WRONG: "Me bad want inturnship money good, give me now!"
In general, you are supposed to first conduct an "information interview" with the alumni to find out more about his/her "experiences;" this is usually done over the "phone." At the end of this interview, you are then supposed to act as if after hearing him/her speak about his/her company, you have suddenly become inspired to work there, and you ask, as if just an afterthought, if he/she can help you get the internship. The problem with this system is that it is my understanding (and by "my understanding" I of course mean "my completely unsupported assumption") that in the over 20 years that the Alumni Network has been active, no student has ever contacted an alumni without an explicit interest in finding a job. In fact if that ever did happen, it would be just plain weird:
ALUMNI: so as you can see, my experience at the Even-I-Don't-Know-What-My-Job-Actually-Is Consulting Group has been rewarding, and quite profitable.
STUDENT: Wow, thanks a lot. That was very informative!
ALUMNI: I am assuming you are interested in finding out about our job openings
STUDENT: Who me? Well no. I already found a job. I just like the sound of your voice.
It is beyond me why we still have to pretend like we aren't talking to these alumni to get a job, but that is just the way it is. My advice: try to subtly work your need for an internship into normal conversation ("Yeah, I guess the weather has been pretty cold, not that I have had much time to notice recently with my search for an internship and all ")
In the end, the unfortunate truth is that finding an internship is a lot of work. And as far as I can tell, here at Dartmouth you only have two options for your off term: you either pour coffee for an investment banker in New York or build a house in Costa Rica and I'm pretty lousy with a hammer. So I guess interning is my only option. There is no avoiding it, it's time for me to contact some alumni, polish up my resume and send out some applications. But in the mean time, if you happen to come across any job openings please let me know me bad want internship.
