Do you want to know who was heavily against unpaid internships in 2008?  Oh, that would be me.  And what do I mean by, ‘heavily’?  I guess I mean that I flew across the country to  San Francisco just to inform certain department managers that interns were to be compensated for their work.

Sure, I flew out for many other items of business, but ensuring that interns received their green is really all I can remember from the trip.

But times and workforce situations have changed, and so have I.  My outlook and beliefs are now drastically different.  While I still believe that companies should pay interns for work performed that benefits the company, I see infinite value for students performing internships.

12 Reasons to Take Unpaid Internships:

1. Experience:  You are nothing without experience.  This is becoming more of a fact as competition for jobs grow.  Want to set yourself apart from your peers?  Gain experience…now!

2.  Your Resume:  Sure, this kind of fits in with #1, but it needs to be mentioned.  Your resume needs to include more than your high school job, GPA, and computer skills.

3.  Learn What You Like:  Take a few internships to discover your career interests.  Trust me, this isn’t as easy as it seemed during career day.

4.  Learn What You Don’t Like:  This is probably more important than #3.  Crossing career options off the list should make you smile, because it will help you focus in the long-term.

5.  More Money Later:  Rack up the years of experience and you may have a higher possibility at making more later.  Remember, an internship is an investment!

6.  Lose Your “Rookie” Title:  Wether you work in an office or virtually, the “work day” experience helps you feel like less of a “rookie” at your first job after college.

7.  Connections:  Your boss, co-workers, clients, and other interns SHOULD be eternal friends and referral sources for you.  Make sure you manage your network with LinkedIn.  You should even connect with company employees you haven’t met or worked with directly.

8.  School Credit:  Most schools will offer credits for internships.  No kidding, you’ll learn about 10,000% more in the work environment than you will in a classroom.

9.  Find a Mentor:  You never know who might end up wanting to take you under their wing.  Be a sponge and learn as much as you can from anyone willing to share.

Seriously, what else would you be doing?

10.  What Else Would You Be Doing?:  Honestly, what would you rather be doing?  Drinking?  Partying?  Dancing?  You’ll have plenty of time for all of that!

11.  You Have Time To Kill:  If you plan your college career correctly, you can end up with a pretty free last year of college.  I mean, that’s what I did anyway.  Fill up your free time with an internship.

12.   They Are Easier to Find:  Let’s face it, there are more unpaid internships available than paid gigs.  Companies are also quicker to pull the trigger on something unpaid.

Remember that an internship should be seen as an investment.  If you can grab a paid internship for a great company then go ahead and do so.  If not, then rack up a few unpaid internships for all of the reasons above.

Am I missing anything?  Tell us about your favorite internship.  What made it so successful?

Mona Abdel-Halim is the co-founder of Resunate.com, the world’s only search engine optimizing resume builder. You can find Mona and Resunate on Facebook and Twitter. Resunate recently acquired the Regional Internship Center, an internship job board connecting internship seekers and employers in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

In this competitive job market, internships have become more of a requirement than just an added bonus on a job candidate’s resume. While internships in your field of study may be hard to find, you need to find a relevant internship experience to get an edge on your competition.

There are many complaints that come with the internship experience, such as many interns are unpaid, but the experience will help you in the future when it comes time to start the job hunt. Some positives of an internship experience include:

Gain Experience in Your Field of Study

While you most certainly won’t be making much money (if any at all) during your internship, you WILL gain some necessary knowledge on the job. Interning will provide you with real world experience and skills that you can add to your resume. Spending time working in the same field as your “dream career” might give you the confidence to continue pursuing that dream, or you might just come to realize that the work isn’t for you. Either way, interning will help in making future decisions.

Work Experience

While gaining specific experience in your desired field of study looks great on your resume, obtaining work experience with any organization can be just as important. Employers want to see that you have experience in an office setting around industry professionals. Many employers require entry-level candidates to have past work experience, even if they just graduated from college. Regardless of whether you were answering calls or directly working with team members, experience in an office setting can prove beneficial.

Networking Opportunity

Interning will give you the opportunity to make all kinds of contacts. Take every chance you have to learn from others and establish relationships with professionals. Don’t pass up the chance to meet anyone — because you never know, you might need references or a mentor in the future.

If you are buried under college coursework and even the thought of applying for internships sounds too stressful, do some research to see if your school will allow you to intern in exchange for school credit. Participating in an internship is important; the kind of experience that you will gain while interning cannot be learned in a classroom.

How did internship experiences help your career? Please share with us in the comments below!

The problem: The major job boards aren’t helping your internship search at all.  Is the Marketing Internship you saw on that big name job board for real, or is it some dude in his basement just looking for free labor?  What you need is a helpful online community, run by Recruiting and HR industry professionals who KNOW what a good internship looks like.  Whether you’re paid, not paid, or being offered college credit for your hard work, your internship experience should be heavily based on mentorship.  Where can you go to find variety, expertise, and a knowledgeable community?

The answer: YouTern.com

What is YouTern?

YouTern is a website that offers internship seekers access to positions available at start-ups and entrepreneurial companies.  They’ve also done a fantastic utilizing social communities like Twitter & Facebook, as well as using their own blog to present helpful employment related resources.  What separates YouTern from some other similar websites is that they were founded by experts with over a decade of experience in online recruiting start-ups.  Honestly, I can’t stress enough how important it is to have industry professionals running a site like this.

YouTern’s “My Account” Section

For all intents and purposes, this section is your internship search dashboard.  EVERYTHING you’ll need to find an internship can be found in the “My Account” section of YouTern.  What will you find here?

My Profile - This section is critical.  You’ll not only load up basic personal information (Location, contact, etc), but you’ll also fill out the important detailed information of what kind of internship, if it should be virtual, etc.  Awesome!

My Resumes – YouTern makes it easy to upload multiple resumes, in case you have different resumes for each field you’re interested in.

My Intern Alerts – Go through this section to select the specific type of internship you’re craving.  YouTern will automatically send you alerts when those EXACT positions are available.   Alerts can be sent daily or weekly.

My Applications – Here is where you’ll see which positions you’ve already applied to.  What I want to highlight here is YouTern’s helpful tips to internship seekers.  It’s a great touch on their site and a very helpful reminder to seekers.

Saved Internships & Saved Searches – I always stress about organization in the job search.  Saving specific internships that interest you will be a huge timesaver.  You’ll see what you like about that specific internship and look for it in others.  The Saved Searches option is also a great tool.  Identify a few searches that target your desired results, then you can automatically click those searches to see which new internship positions have sprung up.

YouTern's "My Account" Page

YouTern’s Blog:  TheSavyIntern

As mentioned earlier, YouTern does a great job of establishing a helpful community.  Their blog already has over 150 internship related blog posts.  Here are three recent posts that I love:

• Twitter Job Search for Not-so-Dummies
• 10 Most Desired Characteristics of a Small Team Intern
• What 3 Job Seeker Types Scare Recruiters Away

What’s Being Said About YouTern?

Other notable mentions for YouTern:

• Mentioned as a “Hot Start-up” by Sprouter
• Named a “Top 5 Online Communities for Starting Your Career” by Mashable

COTJ’s Final Words

What I love most about YouTern is the variety of internships, the ease of use and functionality of their website, and how almost every page includes helpful tidbits.  YouTern understands what constitutes a solid internship experience, and won’t work with companies that will leave you hanging.

Set up your FREE profile on YouTern, upload your resumes, and finally begin your internship search!  Simply go to http://www.youtern.com/, and click on “Register” up top to the right!

Want to learn more?  Check out the YouTern FAQ or read their “About Us” section.

Most companies suck at college recruiting, specifically in finding talent at college career fairs.  The unorganized and unprepared companies are the reason why most college students regret attending a college job fair, or why they simply stay in and eat Ramen Noodles, watch “I am not the baby daddy” TV shows, study, drink beer, or do whatever it is that college students do these days.

There are certainly a handful of companies that really kill it at college career fairs, but the career fair itself is just the tip of the iceberg.  For a company to be successful in college hiring, months, if not years of work go into building up a name, and a relationship with the campus and its students.  However, this is a guide for students, I’ll get back to the employer side next week.

Ok, let’s get right down to it, shall we?

It’s all about making pre-career fair connections

The employers who do it right, make connections before arriving on campus.  They find out a way to reach faculty, professors, and students early so that they have an advantage over their competition.  It’s not about having the greatest brand (it helps, but that creates other complications down the line at career fairs), or having the nicest SWAG.  The secret to a successful career fair is in making connections before the actual event, and students need to know that they can completely make this happen on their own as well.

So, how can students make the most out of college career fairs?

1 – Create a “Employers I Want to Work For List” – Most schools do a nice job of advertising which employers are coming to the fair.  Try to get your hands on this list at least a month before the scheduled event.  If you can’t find a list, just head on into your schools career office and ask for one.  List out 3-7 companies that you’d like to work for, and make sure you rank them all.  Once you do this, you are ready for the next step.

2 – Find out the person who scheduled their company – In most cases, it’s an HR person or recruiter that schedules their company.  It isn’t uncommon for a business unit outside of HR to plan and schedule the career fair, so keep that in mind as well.  Take your list of 5-7 companies to your school career office, and explain that you’d like to reach out to the company in advance.  Ask for contact information of the person that scheduled their employer to attend the fair.  Try to get the most information for the top companies on your list.  If your school career office can’t, or won’t give you the information, simply call the company’s main telephone number and ask to speak to HR about college recruiting.

3 – Prepare your information – Once you reach out to employers, it’s going to get real very fast.  Make sure that  all of your information is the bees knees.  Fix up your resume, and complete your Linkedin profile.

4 – Start reaching out to employers – Email and call.  Doing both won’t hurt you.  Keep your emails short (a paragraph or two) and explain exactly why you are reaching out.  Don’t sugar coat it.  Explain that you are contacting them because you wanted to make a connection before the career fair.  This will not only impress them, but they will remember you.  If possible, ask for an informational interview (phone or in person).  Lastly, follow up with this person a week or a few days before the actual event.  Stay in their heads and they will remember your face, or at least your name.

5 -Instead of during, meet them before or after the event – Even when you’ve made a connection, that won’t change the fact that career fairs are busy as butt.  Many people attend on their own, but others are forced to attend and wait in long lines at the crowded event.  While your name and face is recognizable by your employer of choice, they probably won’t be able to give you much time.  Ask to meet them 1 on 1 before the event for 20 minutes while they set up, or possibly to grab a bite to eat during their event break or after the fair has ended.  Doing this truly sets you apart from your peers.

6 – Follow up – A week after the event, reach out to the person you met at the career fair.  Continue the relationship building process.  Companies with openings will bring in students for interviews.  Make contact first, and keep your name in their head.

If you follow the steps I’ve outlined above, you will not only enjoy attending career fairs, but you will build a long-lasting relationship with employers that you want to work for, and you’ll have a stronger chance of gaining employment with them.

It’s all about connections.  Not all employers are great at it, but you WILL be.

Why are people terrified of rejection?  The level of fear and intensity of rejection depends on the situation and specific desirable outcome.  For instance, asking someone out on a date creates a greater fear of rejection than calling the video store to check if “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is available for rental.  Silly comparison maybe, but the point is that while some situations are obviously harder than others to step out on a ledge, how will you ever get what you want without asking?

 My friend, the ballsy intern  

Think for a second about who’s considered powerful in the work place.  Supervisors, Directors,  and C-Suite individuals top the list.  Interns fall towards the bottom of the power ranking, so its easy to understand why most interns lay low, work extremely hard, and stay clear of asking questions that shake up or change how their organization has historically functioned.  Step in my friend, Kylie.

Kylie is a Human Resources intern with German software giant, SAP.  She works here in the states in one of SAP’s Pennsylvania offices.  For as long as I’ve been friends with her (over a year or so), Kylie has worked for SAP supporting their Human Resources Business Partners (HRBPs) in a strategic intern role.  A month ago, Kylie noticed an open internship position that was similar to her job, but located at SAP headquarters in Germany across the globe.   Realizing international HR/business experience would be incredible, she immediately pursued the opportunity.  

Kylie quickly found out the following:

1. An intern based in the US had never been sent to another country
2. Everyone (both in her current office and in Germany) loved the idea
3. SAP was sending her to Germany!

Starting in January, Kylie will spend 6 months drinking German beer, making German friends, speaking German, and learning how international HR/Business is conducted.  All she did was ask a question.

When you fall off the horse…

Sometimes you’ll hear no, it’s bound to happen.  In asking for a raise or promotion, hearing no means your next question is to ask what must be done to be given the promotion/raise.  In asking a girl/guy on a date, hearing no means it’s time to ask someone else.  When asking if you can transfer to your organizations German office like Kylie, no might mean to find another job.  My point here Corn Heads is that “no” isn’t the end, it simply means work harder, try again, and/or reassess yourself.  

Do you have a story similar to Kylie’s?  Have you been afraid of rejection and forced yourself to go for it?

Last week I read a post from one of my favorite bloggers, Ryan Stephens, who wrote a piece called “How to be an Awesome Intern”.   My long ass response to his post suggested that networking is critical for the intern.  This long comment I shared with Ryan and his readers inspired me to turn it into a full blown post on COTJ.   Do yourself a favor and stop by Ryan’s blog, not only is he a good guy but he also loves Dexter and LOST as much as I do.

What is the true purpose of an internship? Money? Online college credits?  Securing a job before graduation?  Strong arguments can be made for each, but I think internships are meant for building up your resume and experience.  Most organizations fail hard in running an internship program, and have trouble identifying/keeping their top interns.  Ryan agrees with this and says, “Don’t limit yourself to the company you’re interning with. Keep building your brand and exploring other options.”  Well put.

Maybe you won’t rack up 15 internships like Lauren Berger AKA “The Intern Queen” was able to do in her college career (yes, she seriously took on 15 internships), but your experience will prove invaluable to you in the future, and the contacts you make are critical to your future.  In her post, “Why students should take unpaid internships”, Lauren says that she’s kept in contact with all of her fellow interns and program coordinators through the years (from all 15 internships), and those contacts have helped her land jobs and interviews.  So, she will agree with me when I say that networking is absolutely critical for your success as an intern.

So, how does an intern use networking to effectively boost their career?

Step 1: Create a LinkedIn account immediately

Given that the company probably won’t hire you on, you’ll need a professional way to stay connected.  Add co-workers, other interns, program coordinators, even clients/vendors to your LinkedIn contacts.  I’ve read that 80% of organizations use LinkedIn for hiring, so you can imagine how important it is to begin building your contacts ASAP.  If you feel particularly brave, ask a few people for recommendations of your work.  Most people are happy to oblige, and this will make you look like a rock star to future employers.  Avoid Facebook/Myspace if possible.

Step 2: Get involved

You don’t need to be the most skilled to get noticed.  Get involved in projects, ask questions, and find an influential employee of the company that may offer guidance.  Bust your ass and volunteer to be on as many projects as possible.  Not only will you increase your learning, but you’ll meet more people to add to your LinkedIn account!  

Step 3: Happy Hour!

Hang out with your co-workers and fellow interns when possible.  A friendship to back up your professional relationship is always helpful.  I realize some interns may not be of age to enjoy happy hour drinks, so look for other ways to hang out.  Go to dinner with a group of other interns, or maybe go to a baseball game.  Make it a point to at least build a friendship with at least one other person.

How have internships helped you in your career?  Have you kept in touch with any former co-workers or fellow interns?

While I believe internships should always be paid (unless the intern acts as a trainee for most of the time), it’s hard to deny the benefits of a well ran program.  Putting aside some legal aspects of paid/unpaid internships, here are 3 reasons why I believe every student should take one, even if it is unpaid:

1. Experience – There really is no easy way to say this.  Without some bulk to the experience section on your resume, an impressive college education alone might not cut it for a recruiter/hiring manager who is reviewing your credentials.  Entry level, college experience positions bring in a ton of resumes to recruiters.  If you’ve sent your resume in for a position like that you better either have a 4.0 GPA and have been the president of 23 clubs and activity boards, or have held an internship or two in a related field.  In my experiences in running a national internship program, hiring managers are much more interested in a student with previous internship experience, rather than a student who just has a solid GPA.  How many internships should you have?  No joke, take part in 30 internships if you can, it will catapult your career farther than you’ll ever dream.  On a resume there can never be enough internships.
2. Networking – Internships (if ran correctly) give the intern a chance to work with people in all levels of the organization.  Along with the internship coordinator, the intern will have experiences with other interns, their manager or managers, other specialist in the company in the same field,, and various other employees not in the same field.  Saving those contacts and adding them to whatever social media site you prefer best will give you a nice resource when you’re job hunting in the future.
3. Knowing what you like – If the intern doesn’t like the company or specific position, then they know to stay away from similar organizations and opportunities.  On the other side, if the company and position is a match then the intern can be on the lookout for other internships or full time positions like it.  If the intern is extremely lucky, the organization may decide to open up the exact position to the intern when they graduate (this happens!).  Nothing is worse than absolutely hating 40+ hours of your life each week, so use internships to give you a glimpse of your future to make sure your dream career, really is your dream career.