What is an internship and how to get a good internship?

What is an internship?

An internship is a short term work experience which is provided by corporate companies to the university students. Companies offer internships to give the students exposure to the corporate environment before graduating from college.

Why are internships necessary?

In today's era where there is a lot of competition for only a handful of job opportunities, internships work as a bonus for a student as to when employers look at the resume of the candidate and find that he/she has done internships in relevant fields, the chances of hiring that candidate increases in comparison to the candidates who haven't done so.

Apart from this, there are numerous benefits of doing an internship-:

• Internships teach you the work ethics as you will understand how work is done in the real corporate world.
• You will learn practical aspects of the theory that you have learned in your college.
• You will explore your interests in different fields that will make it easy for you to decide your future career.
• You will form a meaningful network at your workplace that will open new opportunities for you.
• And most importantly, you will develop all the skills that are required to be successful in your future career.

Don't think much before applying to an internship that matches your interest and aligns to your goals, now let's see how will you apply for different internships.

How to get an internship?

Now there are a lot of websites and apps available on the internet that will make it a lot easy for you to apply at different internships, some of the sites are:-

• Internshala
  
• Letsintern
  
• Hello intern
  
• Linkedin (How to use LinkedIn for opportunities)
  

These are the examples of some sites but there a lot of other sites available where you can apply for free.

Now, the steps you need to follow to apply to an internship.

Let's say, you are a management student looking for an internship in the marketing field, so 

1. You will make an account on any of the internship site (say Internshala).
2. After making the account, you will create a resume on the website where you will add relevant skills required in a particular internship.
3. Now, websites like Internshala provide you with an option of preferences where you can add n number of fields where you want to have work experience.
4. After selecting preferences, select the save option.
5. Now, your screen will be displayed with the internships according to your preference.
6. Click on the internship of your interest and read the Job description.
7. If you find it suitable, click on the 'Apply' button, which will be displayed at the end of the job description.
8. A new page will be opened which will have two questions, "why should you be hired?" (Get an idea of answers) and "for how many days will you be available?" Fill the appropriate answer and hit the submit button.

Hurrah!! you have completed your submission of application, now you just have to wait for the response of the employer.

Pro tip- Apply to as many internships as you can, it will increase your chance of selection.

Types of internships

Basically, there are two types of internships, paid and unpaid.

• Paid internships- The internships where the candidate is paid some amount of money for their work (stipend) are called paid internships. Mostly big companies offer paid internships to students where they learn and earn but getting a paid internship in this competitive market is quite difficult.
• Unpaid internships- In these internships, students are trained to work in a particular field but are not paid any stipend, it is offered mostly by NGOs, and also by small startups, they are comparatively easy to get. If you are a beginner, going for an unpaid internship is a great choice as it will develop your skills for better opportunities in the future. 

Thank you for reading it till here, I hope that the content answered your query, please drop a comment if you liked it.