The H.O.L.I.D.A.Y.S. Guide To Landing An Internship

You’ve heard Jingle Bells playing in the grocery store and mall; colorful lights and decorations are appearing wherever you go; much of the country is dealing with the first major blizzard of the winter … so it’s clear that, once again, the HOLIDAYS are upon us!

Santa’s Head Elf is here to tell you that this is an excellent time to prepare for your quest to land an internship for the next quarter or semester at school, or for next summer. Just follow this easy-to-remember guide!

• Hone your resume: even if you’ve gone over it a hundred times, do it again and make sure there are no typos, faulty punctuation, grammar gaffes, or wrong information.
• Organize your internship search: create an action plan, save it on your computer and print out a copy to use as a check-list.
• Learn all you can about the organizations where you would like to intern (in other words: research!)
• Interview skills: practice, practice, practice! (How’s your elevator speech and your STAR or PAR stories?)
• Develop your LinkedIn profile.  Did you know that many recruiters use LinkedIn to search for potential candidates?
• Acquire a professional wardrobe for interviews … what better gift to ask for than than a spiffy business outfit?
• You’ve worked hard and have found several ideal internships,  so …
• Send out your perfect resume, knowing that you have a well-organized action plan, know all about your target organizations, can nail an interview, will impress employers when (not if!) they look for you on LinkedIn, and will be appropriately dressed for interviews (and – later – for the internship itself!)

The Head Elf wishes you all happy and productive HOLIDAYS!