Maximize the impact of your internship

One of the best ways to show a potential employer or graduate school admissions counselor how qualified you are for a position is to talk about your successes in past internships, jobs, or activities. In reflecting on your internship, ask yourself what skills you gained or improved through your work?

Identifying Related and Transferable Skills
Which of the following skills did you develope through your internship? What else would you add to the list?
□ Taking initiative
□ Working under pressure
□ Communicating well
□ Analyzing statistics and data
□ Building collaborative relationships
□ Making a presentation
□ Meeting deadlines
□ Contributing to a team
□ Coming up with ideas
□ Following through on details
□ Being accurate
□ Managing databases
□ Writing articles or reports
□ Being persuasive

Describing Your Internship on a Resume

Choose a skill or a cluster of related skills that you developed during your internship, and think of an example of your work that illustrates your proficiency with this skill(s).
For instance, because of the type of position Amina is seeking, she wants to emphasize her abilities to communicate well, and to persuade and motivate others.
On a resume, Amina included the following example of her work as an intern at a food bank to illustrate her proficiency with these skills:
 Researched local business owners and contacted them in-person and by phone to describe food bank needs, and to solicit auction donations.
 Convinced 90% of local businesses to donate items for auction. Bids on items solicited brought in over 35% of total funds raised for the year.

Presenting Your Skills at an Interview

Amina’s job interview gave her the chance to expand on her illustrative example. She spoke about how she convinced an initially unwilling receptionist to let her in to speak
with the company’s director. She let her interviewer know that she was not demoralized by uninterested or rude business owners. These details provided further evidence of
Amina’s mastery of communication and persuasion skills.

Build on Your Internship

If you think that you may want to pursue the career field in which you interned, look for ways to continue gaining experience in that area. Set up informational meetings or
telephone appointments with Augsburg alumni or other people to learn more about the field. If there are relevant professional associations, find out if you can attend an event or get a student membership.

Stay in Touch

If you haven’t written thank you notes to your supervisor and to anyone else who was helpful to you during your internship, do so now. It’s better late than never. Send an
email or call your supervisor or co-workers from time to time to let them know what you’re up to and find out how they are. Drop by and say hello during a vacation if you’re
in the vicinity. When you start job hunting and could use some help, it will be easier to contact your internship supervisor and co-workers for advice and guidance or to serve as references, if you’ve stayed in touch.

References

A reference is a person willing to be contacted by people who are considering you for jobs or graduate schools to speak about the quality of your work performance. If you
would like your internship supervisor to act as reference for you, contact them to ask permission to list them as a reference, and describe the nature of the job or graduate school to which you are applying.