How to Find Dream Internships

More than anything else, internships are gateways into a network of people and knowledge that can help you passionately plan and pursue your dream career. The main benefit of internships are the credential and the hourly wage. Right? Wrong! If that's all you think of internships as, you're only tapping into a small part of an internship's potential.

Kevin Colleran, while a student at Babson College, was able to find and land an incredible summer internship at BMG Music International (parent of RCA, Arista, J, and Jive record labels) to work with the chairman to help design programs to allow BMG to revolutionize the music industry. After graduating from Babson, he was hired to open a New York consulting office to work with record labels including Arista Records in an effort to create strategic partnerships with corporations looking to use music in their marketing and promotional efforts.

Another individual, who prefers to remain anonymous was able to get an internship by pitching his unique language skills to a leveraged-buyout firm (firms that purchase other companies using debt as leverage) that wanted to invest in the privatization trend in Europe. While on a trip to Poland, his native country, he saw a great opportunity. The Polish Government, at the time, was privatizing its industries and selling its assets. This enterprising student noticed a factory for sale at a great price, did the background work on the deal, and then pitched the deal to his boss, who gave the go-ahead. The student orchestrated the purchase and made himself and the company he worked for a lot richer. Now in his twenties, he is a partner.

Find Dream Internships

1. Build relationships as early as possible. "80-85% of job offers come through networking.¹" If you build relationships with the right people, they will not only help you find the right internship, but also connect you to people who could hire you. To start building relationships now, you can:
   1. Join your school's mentor network or mentor program.
   2. Take role models or people at companies you'd like to work for out to lunch and ask them engaging, relevant questions.
   3. Meet with professors during office hours.
      
      
2. Strategically volunteer as an unpaid intern. If internships are one of the best steps to getting jobs, then strategically volunteering is one of the best steps for landing a dream internship. By offering your services for free at first, you can drastically increase the probability of getting inside a company by lowering the monetary risk of the company bringing you in. As an unpaid intern you can more easily exceed expectations than a paid intern could because much less is expected of you. As such you can really stand out from the pack, build trust, and even work fewer hours than a paid intern. As a result of working fewer hours, you can sample many companies and eventually pick the best company to pursue for a more intensive internship.
   
   
3. Follow your passion, not a pay check. Research has proven that people who choose their career path based on passion and not money have a more successful career in the long-run. By pursuing your passion, you will rise to the top of whatever field you are in and stand out above other applicants. While an internship that pays $10/hr may sound much better than an $8/hour internship, $2/hour more over the period of a few months isn't very substantive in the big picture. For example, if you work 40 hours/week for 8 weeks or 320 hours, the extra $2/hour will only net you $640 more of income. While the $8/hr internship may pay less at first, if it is an area you're passionate about, is a good credential, offers great learning/networking opportunities, and has the potential for a large, future monetary pay off tens of thousands of dollars then it may definitely be worth your time.
   
   
4. Plan, prioritize, and pursue your OWN vision, not someobdy elses. By full-heartedly creating and pursuing a vision, you will differentiate yourself from peers and excel. In addition, you will meet people, gather knowledge, and build credentials relevant to your passion.

Download Free eBook to Land and Maximize Dream Internships

Finding dream internships is only the first step of the internship process. To get more advice on landing and maximizing internships along with creating the foundation for a massively successful career, you can download a free ebook by the author.

The Student Success Manifesto, which has been positively endorsed by students, educators, and best-selling authors Mark Victor Hansen (Co-Creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul^® Series) and Stephan Covey (author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). is an unconventional and effective blueprint for planning, prioritizing, and pursuing your own vision and in so doing becoming one this century's agents of change. Students who read and apply this book's lessons will receive the following benefits:

End Notes

1. USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/money/jobcenter/jobhunt/networking/2002-11-12-networking-grind_x.htm
   
   
2. In a study published in Getting Rich Your Own Way, 1500 middle class workers were asked about their career goals and were subsequently tracked for 20 years. Eighty-three percent made career decisions based on money. The other 17% chose their careers based on passion. At the end of the study, there were 101 millionaires. Ninety-nine percent of these came from the 17% who had chosen a passion-based career. The other 83% were in careers that weren't particularly fruitful in either passion or money.