While you’re completing a degree, it’s easy to get busy with not just your studies but also potentially part-time jobs and all the socializing and other extra-curricular activities on your to-do list. However, if you want to give yourself the best possible chance of landing a top job as soon as you’ve graduated, it’s important to fit something else into your schedule: internships. Read on for some reasons why you should be lining up an internship for yourself sooner rather than later.

Build up Knowledge and Skills

For starters, during an internship you will have the opportunity to pick up all sorts of new knowledge and skills as you complete the tasks assigned to you and learn from those around you. Sure, internships often involve completing a lot of basic tasks, but regardless, this time still acts as an invaluable teaching ground. For instance, you’ll get experience at dealing with clients and other business stakeholders, completing research on the job, using different types of computer programs, writing reports, administering databases and all sorts of other things, depending on the business you work in. 

Plus, you will be able to build up helpful personal skills which will stand you in good stead for the rest of your studies and your working career. You’ll get practice at honing your written and verbal communication skills, your relationship-building abilities, your time-management and organizational skills and more.

Chance to Apply What You’ve Learned During Your Studies

While you’re studying, unless you get to do a lot of practical work, most of what you learn will probably seem rather abstract. It will no doubt be difficult to see how what you’re studying will be used in the real world and how things will all come together. This is where an internship can help.

During this kind of program, you’ll have the chance to “connect the dots” as you apply what you’ve learned to the tasks you complete and to everything you take in around you. For example, if you’re enrolled in a Master of Engineering degree program, you will see how certain computer programs are used by companies in real situations, or you’ll put your honed problem-solving skills to the test to come up with ideas or to complete jobs you haven’t done before.

Receive Handy Referrals and Testimonials

Another plus of doing an internship is that, provided you do a good job and impress the people around you during your program, you will no doubt receive handy referrals and testimonials from knowledgeable and well-connected contacts at the firm. 

Once you receive these types of endorsements, you can showcase them on your job application documents in the future, on your social media pages (such as LinkedIn) and on your own website or blog, if you have one. 

This can help you impress recruiters and business managers when you apply for jobs and potentially give you a foot in the door at companies. For example, by making a good impression on the key people at the company you intern for, you might end up being referred to an HR manager or entrepreneur at another firm where a role needs to be filled. Lots of jobs these days don’t even get publicly advertised because people instead use their connections to find suitable candidates. 

Get More Career Clarity

During college, many students have some idea about what they want to do during their career but usually still feel rather vague about the specifics simply because they don’t have enough experience under their belt to know more. As a result, consider lining up an internship for yourself, so you obtain practical workplace experience and in turn get more career clarity. 

By completing an internship in the type of company you think you’d like to work for, you’ll see if the industry, company and job are what you think they will be and offer what you hope. You will see how things work from the inside and be able to make more informed career decisions as a result.

Also, note that completing an internship, or a few of them, will help you to decide which type of position you’d like to pursue. By seeing what’s required of them, side by side within a company as you intern there, you will likely get a feeling about which will suit you best. 

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December 11, 2018