Q. My internship has just ended, and I felt it was a waste of time. Should I tell everyone what I think?

A. Thank you for asking a very important question. Other interns may have come to the same conclusion about their experiences. Before you decide how to handle the situation, evaluate your internship and decide why it was a waste of time. Then, air your views accordingly. The following tips may help you put that negative experience behind you and look forward to future internships with a positive attitude:

• Evaluating your internship: Were your expectations realistic? You may have misunderstood the scope or duties of the internship in your haste to procure one. If so, that’s your problem. You could have been overqualified for the position and found the hours dragged and you were bored. If so, consider yourself more advanced in your skills than you had previously thought. Take consolation in the fact that you’re ahead of the other interns. However, if the duties or internship description changed, resulting in assignments that you felt were a waste of time, then the company is at fault here. Were you given unexpected assignments that annoyed you, such as getting coffee or making copies? You were probably too polite to say no, but you’ve built up resentment against the company, and understandably so. But someone needs to know how you feel.
• Expressing your feelings:  There is no sense in telling anyone at the company that the internship was a waste of your time because it’s too late to do anything about it. Also, keep in mind that you still want a good reference letter.  You do owe it to future interns to confide your disappointment to your school’s career center or counselor who set up the internship for you. To be fair, explain your evaluation of why the internship was not a success. The counselor will appreciate your information, ensuring that the next intern is better suited to the position or deciding that the company is not a good internship site for the school’s students. If a student asks you about your internship, stop and think about your response. If it’s a student who is considering the same internship, you might want to give your honest opinion. However, if it’s an idle question that will only generate gossip, then it’s better to simply shrug off the inquiry.
• Looking ahead:  Fortunately, most students are expecting to experience multiple internships in their academic careers. Let’s hope that all your other internships will be great. You might want to spend some time on internships.com, browsing through thousands of internships, searching for the right one for you. Enter the keywords and watch all the internships come up. Then, apply for the ones that appeal to you, giving yourself plenty of options. Be choosy. And be sure to start your search months ahead of time. Also, check in with your career center at school. After your earlier negative experience, the staff will work extra hard to ensure that your next internship is a positive one.

Q. My internship has just ended, but I want to keep in contact with the company when I’m back in school. What can I do?

A. Here’s a great opportunity for you to be proactive. Rather than asking the company or your busy internship supervisor to take his/her limited time and figure out your options, develop a game plan yourself and present it to the company. You’ll be respected for your creativity and forward thinking. You might find some of the following tips helpful:

1. Self-designed assignments:  Based on what you’ve learned during your internship, devise an assignment for yourself that will add value to the company. For example, if you’ve been evaluating data, you could offer to write reports on the results. Review what you’ve learned about the company and examine any areas that could benefit from new material, such as a history update on an old building. Another area to explore is research. All companies need to have more research done and usually don’t have enough staff to do the work. After you’ve decided on the best assignment, write up a proposal and a timeline and present it to the appropriate person for approval.
2. Intern support:  Companies love interns but are often overwhelmed by the responsibility of training and monitoring interns. Why not offer to train your replacement intern as a way to gain favor with the company? Or you could volunteer to write a guide for new interns, answering typical intern questions on company dress code, policy, and corporate culture. Another suggestion would be to start an alumni intern newsletter online, which would also serve as a marketing tool for the company. You may wish to start an intern blog, open to current, future, and former interns as a clearing house to improve the internship program.
3. Company representative:  If the company attends college career fairs, you could offer to go to these events and tell students why you liked your internship at the company. Or you could spread the word about the joys of the company internship back on your own campus, helping recruit outstanding candidates for the company. The company may sell products to college students, which opens another door for you to act as a company representative on your own campus.

Q. I didn’t receive pay or credit for my summer internship, so how can I make it benefit me?

A. Many internships don’t offer pay or credit, but you’ve still made a solid investment in your career future. Here are some ways that you can maximize your internship experience:

• Networking:  The most effective way to find other opportunities for yourself is networking, which is acknowledged as the primary method to get a job or an internship. A July 20 article in The New York Times says that dozens of young people with connections to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s friends, business associates and government appointees have been awarded internships at City Hall. You’ve probably started a good network for yourself at your internship. Make a list of everyone at your internship and find out if he/she can suggest any other internship possibilities. Keep in contact with people through a social media outlet. Remember, you’re part of their network, too.
• Next internship:  Your experience at your summer internship is a great building block for your next internship. Now that you have mastered the art of being a professional in a work setting you’re ready to advance up the ladder. With  excellent recommendations in hand, you can apply for more advanced assignments at more prestigious firms. A potential internship supervisor knows that you’re a proven quantity and will “fit in” nicely to another internship. Also, your past summer internship may have opened your eyes to the fact that you don’t really like that field or industry. Now you have time to change your major and explore other fields before it’s too late in your academic career.
• Course paper or class project:  Every summer internship provides endless resources for a course paper or class project. And you’ve already done the research if you use your material from one of your internship assignments. You can incorporate case studies or company reports (unless they’re confidential) to support your paper. Or if you are a member of a class team that is instructed to collaborate with a company on a project, you could ask your former internship company to fill that requirement. Another way in which you can tap back into your internship is to ask someone at your internship to be a speaker for a campus event. You’ll soon see that an unpaid, no-credit internship is a priceless experience.

Q. I’m only going to be a freshman. Should I start thinking about internships?

A. Yes, it’s not too early. Lots of students in high school are now thinking about internships to strengthen their college applications, resulting in the field becoming more and more competitive. If you start with an internship during or after your freshman year, you’ll be able to build up to better and better internships by the time you reach your senior year, which will strengthen your graduate school or job applications. Here are a few tips on how to proceed:

1. Transition:  Your first semester is going to be a period of transition. You should visit the career center on campus and explore your future internship opportunities. The fall semester is not as busy as the spring one at the career center in terms of internships, so it’s the perfect time to get to know the staff and register your interests. Then, when an internship in your field comes up, you’ll be first in line to apply. Use this time to network with older students about their internships and get tips from them on good internship sites.
2. Type:  Like many freshmen, you may be uncertain about your major. And what better way to discover your talents but through an internship. Ask the career center to administer some assessment tests to help you figure out what types of internships are best for you and take the Internship Predictor on internships.com Also, consider the company in which you’d like the experience. If you see yourself as working for a big corporation, investigate those options. Or you may prefer a small company or a non-profit for a first internship, especially since it may be easier to get an internship in those organizations.
3. Timing:  In the spring, you might look into a virtual internship that you can perform at your computer without leaving your room. Or you could explore the options for the coming summer. Review your budget to see if you can afford to take an unpaid internship or if you have to get a paid one. Meanwhile, revise your resume and create a general cover letter that you can customize for different internships. The career center can help you with those items. And educate yourself about all the new internships available by checking daily on internships.com.
4. Details:  Check to see how many college credits you are allowed in the internship category. If you’re limited, you might want to simply take a summer job for pay or perform volunteer work, saving your internship credits for later in your college career. Talk with family and friends about potential locations of future internships. Do you want to do one in another country? If so, do you need to start learning a second language? Or is there a part of the United States that you think you might enjoy living in after college? An internship would help you decide if you really want to move to that area.

Q. How can I best update my resume to showcase my new internship accomplishments?

A. You want to highlight your new achievements in your resume, emphasizing your duties and the resulting benefits from your efforts. The reader should understand how you added value to the company. Yet you also want to keep your resume to one page in most cases. Here are a few tips on how to update and improve your resume:

1. Start your Experience or Career Progression section off with the new entry regarding your recent internship. List the company first, the department in which you worked, and your general assignment. Then, make a list of your accomplishments, such as “Created survey and distributed it to 500 customers, generating new data that resulted in improved service.” Design as many bullets as necessary, starting with an action verb and ending with a result.
2. Feel free to shorten the older entries to gain more space for the new internship accomplishments. You can either tighten up each line or eliminate old items, especially ones that are not relevant to your current career goals. You may also want to remove other non-relevant items, such as listing reading, golfing, etc. as hobbies.
3. Make a list of the new skills that you’ve learned at your internship, including IT or computer skills or new software expertise, and add them to your Additional Information or Skills section of your resume. If your internship required extensive travel or if you attended any conferences, list them in your resume, too.
4. Rewrite your Summary of Qualifications at the top of your resume to highlight your new skills. You may have to cut out some of the older information about yourself, but you may be able to add new soft skills, such as “verbal and written communication skills with ability to collaborate with team to reach goals” or “decisive, direct, and results driven to succeed.” Your revised resume will reflect more about your work ethic as well as your new accomplishments.  

For more information on writing and updating your resumes, check out the Intern Tool Kit on internships.com.

Q. Whom should I ask for a reference and when?

A. References are important! The letters validate and document your hard work as an intern. You’ll want at least one reference letter as well as verbal agreements to give their names and numbers as contact people for future references on internships or jobs. The sooner you get started on the reference process the better. Here’s how to proceed:

1. Meet with your supervisor. Make an appointment with your intern supervisor. Be sure to thank your intern supervisor for the guidance you received during your internship. Then, ask him/her to write you a general reference letter that you could use to get future internships or employment. If you have a specific position in mind, you may want to ask the intern supervisor to write you a reference for that posting. If graduate school is in your future, you may like to have a reference letter geared for the Admissions Committee at that school. Request permission to use your supervisor as a general reference, finding out the proper contact information for future use.
2. Consider other appropriate references. Draw up a list of any other people at your internship who could be good resources for references, such as the team leader if you worked as part of a team, or different department heads if you moved from department to department. You may have found a mentor or advisor who informally helped you—he or she may be willing to write a reference letter for you, too. Sometimes, the human resources or personnel department can be called upon to provide a reference letter for you. You can never have too many reference letters.
3. Consider timing. Consider when you should request reference letters. To make sure that you receive them before you leave the internship, start making your requests about two weeks before your internship ends, giving people enough time to write good letters. At the beginning of your last week, check in to see if anyone has completed his/her letter. Thank everyone in advance for taking the time to write you a reference letter. Mention the date of your last day and that you’ll be back to pick up the letter that day if not before. If you’re feeling uncertain about getting the letters, call your school career center counselor and ask for advice on speeding up the process. Your counselor may have already requested reference letters for you.

Q. What takeaways should I have from my internship to show what I worked on?

A. Good for you for thinking ahead! You do need to collect examples of any project on which you worked in order to build your portfolio. Whether your major is marketing, finance, design, nursing, or whatever, you want do have a strong record of your accomplishments. Here are some tips on what to collect: 

1. Documents:  These items can be reports, surveys, technical problems you helped solve, sales materials you helped write or design, or a press release or article about a special event. Your company may have also featured you as a new intern in an employee newsletter, so save several copies.
2. Photos:  Graphic depiction of your efforts, showing you at your desk or with co-workers, is tangible evidence of your involvement. Make sure you document your presence at both work and social events. You may want to include informal photos of colleagues to illustrate the quality of people with whom you’ve worked.
3. Company materials:  You can impress future internship or job supervisors by letting them know that you’ve worked with companies that accomplish their goals. You want to be associated with successful companies, demonstrating that you bring added value to your new internship or job.  Collect company annual reports, newsletters, brochures, press releases, etc. to demonstrate the high quality of the company with which you’ve interned.
4. Correspondence:  Letters of reference or recommendation, thank-you notes from employees or final evaluation forms can go in your portfolio. Your Career Center or professors might also have relevant letters or correspondence that promote you as an outstanding student. If you’ve written an excellent paper on some aspect of your internship, which earned you a top grade, include that, too.
5. Online exhibits:  If your internship included lots of online or IT work rather than paper assignments, you might want to develop a section listing websites, printing out materials, or even producing a DVD or CD to showcase your work.
6. Presentation:  Consider asking the company for a professional folder or binder with the company name in which you can display the above items. If necessary, create labels and descriptions to expand on the materials. Be sure to make copies of all your items to protect against someone misplacing your portfolio or not returning it to you after an interview.

Q. My internship is almost over. How do I bring up future possibilities?

A. First, you may want to spend some time deciding what future possibilities interest you. Second, devise a plan and timeline to present your future possibilities to the appropriate parties. Third, consider what your alternative options may be in case your future possibilities don’t come to pass. 

1. Future possibilities:  Would you want to continue your internship as an online internship? If so, do you have a specific project or plan in mind that you would want to work on for the company? If your internship is unpaid, would you want to transform it into a paid part-time job? Or if you’re graduating, do you want to apply for a full-time job with your internship company? Or would you like to change your internship into a co-op in which you’re working and gaining credit at the same time? Or would you like a reference to work in a related company or a subsidiary? Would being a paid consultant for the company be in your future? You may want to rank these future possibilities in order of preference and proceed to the next step.
2. Plan and timeline:  At this point, you may decide to set up an appointment either in person or online with your Career Center counselor and run your ideas past him/her.  The counselor may have a longer history of collaborating with the company than you do and be able to advise you on creating a successful plan. Next in your timeline make an appointment with your internship supervisor at his/her convenience, preferably about one week before your internship ends. Before the meeting, write up an agenda and list your preferences for future possibilities along with the subsequent value that you would bring to the company. Explain each possibility to the internship supervisor and produce a calendar with your proposed dates for your future involvement. At the end of the meeting, thank your supervisor for the consideration and express your hope for a continued relationship with the company.
3. Alternative options:  The internship supervisor will probably not give you an immediate answer to your future plans with the company but will have to discuss your suggestions with colleagues and maybe even Human Resources. Send your supervisor a thank you note and be patient. However, if you find out that none of your future possibilities is acceptable, research your alternative options. For example, apply those same future possibilities to another company and ask your Career Center to direct you to the appropriate organization. Or develop a list of other goals, such as joining a pre-professional society on campus or applying to be a teaching assistant for your major professor. You could also volunteer to work with a group related to your future career. Whatever you do, maintain a positive attitude and turn your energy into action in another area.

Q. I didn’t find a summer internship. Is it too early to look for a fall one?

A. Absolutely not, especially if you want to get a really good one. There are lots of resources on internships.com to help you get started. If you don’t know exactly what kind of internship you want, the Internship Predictor can help you out. Or the Company Directory can help you identify companies and people that you want to reach. For good measure, you could complete the Intern Certification Program. And check out the Intern Tool Kit for other resources. Here are a few more tips:

1. Lay out your fall schedule. Decide how many hours you want to put into a fall internship and where you want to do your internship. You may be limited by class hours and location. If you have transportation issues, you could consider taking an internship on campus in a department that is relevant to your career interests.
2. Review your resume and cover letter, making sure that you have updated your resume with any summer accomplishments, including jobs, volunteer work, sport achievements, travel, or new skills, such as foreign languages. Internships.com will help you decide if a video resume is appropriate for you. Write a basic cover letter that you can customize for every application.
3. Visit your Career Center for advice. These professionals work with companies and help you get interviews with the proper personnel. Companies usually offer internship opportunities year-round to a school. Discuss the many new options that are available to you, thanks to technology. The online internship often works well for a fall internship because you can work at your own convenience.
4. Network. Talk to other students, friends, and family members about your plans for a fall internship and ask them for suggestions. The best way to evaluate an internship is to talk to a student who has just completed it.
5. Tracey’s Angle. Check out the newest Eye of the Intern blog by internships.com intern, Tracey. She has some great tips for finding a fall internship.

Q. How do I document my internship experience so I can show my value to future managers and employers?

A. It’s a smart idea to have documentation of each internship to support your resume and improve your portfolio. Though you might develop a list of references from your internships, that list could be compromised as people change jobs and contact information. Having your documentation in hand when you leave your internship ensures that you have ready proof of performance. Here’s how to get that documentation:

1. Final evaluation form: Ask your intern supervisor to fill out your final evaluation form, which is usually provided by your school. Some schools request weekly performance reports that can also document your experience.
2. Letter of recommendation: Ask your intern supervisor for a letter of recommendation on company letterhead. This is a normal request and your supervisor probably has experience writing recommendations. Be sure to write a thank you note to your supervisor—leaving him/her with a good impression.
3. Recommendations from colleagues: Consider asking other company employees with whom you’ve worked closely to write a recommendation for you. If you’ve been part of a team, ask the team leader to write a recommendation for you. Or, if you’ve worked in different departments, ask the various department heads to write recommendations for you.
4. Internship journal: Keep copies of your own weekly reports on duties performed, so you can document your own assignments. Collect brochures or annual reports about the company to accompany your reports, especially if it is a small organization that future internship managers or employers won’t recognize. Such attention to detail is certain to help you get future offers.