Summer Internships: Career Stepping-Stones

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Making the most of your time in your summer vacations with an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internship" target="_blank">internship</a> could mean a permanent job at the very start of your career.While the average person is looking forward to taking it easy over the summer months, students on MBA programs around the world will have more productive activities in mind in the form of an internship. An opportunity to apply classroom lessons in the workplace, to try out a new industry or area of expertise, internships have become a key part of the business school experience. But how do you make the most of working over the summer and what role can an internship play in helping you find that vital first job after graduation?When Simon Gosling started looking for an internship, he realised that, despite the advantages of studying at a top business school like Columbia, competition was going to be tough. "I was keen to get experience in investment banking and, at the time, positions were distinctly hard to get," he says. For Simon, persistence and a tight focus on his target industry paid off. He received an offer to spend the summer at Deutsche Bank in London and has since joined them full-time in their Global Equities area. Simon's experience was a common one in the early years of the decade as demand for MBAs took a downturn. The good news is that MBA recruitment, particularly for internship positions, is now booming again and the result is wider choice and a greater range of opportunities arriving on campus.

Broadening of opportunities

For some students, this broadening of opportunities can lead to the sort of internship that many students only dream of. "I'd already lined up a couple of internship possibilities through Manchester Business School when I ran into someone, who knew people at Manchester United," says Bhavneet Singh. "I managed to talk myself into a project on the development of interactive video, which I then worked on for around three months. I ended up getting involved in a lot of other areas, got to meet some of the players, watched a few games and came away with a t-shirt signed by the whole team." So was this the perfect internship that every MBA student fantasises about? "Well yes and no," says Bhavneet. "You see, coming from India I'm much more of a cricket fan than a soccer one!"

The "green" internship

According to Mike Holmes from the online career development platform, TopMBA Careers, one of the positive results of the downturn in MBA recruitment that lasted up until 2003 has been a whole new set of employers entering into the field. "When major banks and consultancies either stopped or slimmed down their internship programmes it meant that both schools and students had to think more laterally to find relevant projects," he says. "That meant targeting less obvious organisations, such as NGOs, charities and the like. And once these employers have seen the value of getting a business school student in for the summer, they tend to be keen to come back for more." Mike's view is backed up by figures from the Tuck School in the USA, which reports that the number of students working in not-for-profits has nearly trebled over the past two years. Tuck students have worked as consultants to several U.S. National Parks, such as Grand Teton, and Yosemite, while another helped the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa, Canada, implement a venture philanthropy program that targets gifts of stock in support of abused and neglected children.

A route to a permanent job?

While the lessons learned on an internship are often invaluable in themselves, many students will be looking for a more direct return on their summer project - the offer of a permanent job. "A lot of organisations use internships as, what we term, "working interviews," says Mike Holmes. "No standard interview or psychometric test can match up to the opportunity to see how a candidate performs in the front-line for two or three months." According to Mike Holmes, the most important factors are application, focus and enthusiasm. "The interns that turn their projects into permanent jobs tend to be those who have already done their homework about the industry, the company and the type of work on offer. The fewer surprises you're faced with, the more likely it is you'll be able to perform at full capacity and make a real impression on the people around you."Source: <a href="/why-mba/publications/career-guide-2013">QS TopMBA Career Guide</a>