Six Secrets to Excelling at Your Summer Internship

By Nancy Mucciarone, Syracuse University

Ace the interview? Check. Find summer housing? Check. Rock your summer internship? Well … not yet. It takes more than just showing up to your all-star internship to walk away with great contacts and a full-time job offer. Dr. Larry Chiagouris, author of The Secret to Getting a Job After College, serves up six secrets to getting the most out of your internship:

Internship Secret No. 1: Dress to Impress
Showing up to your summer gig in professional attire is an obvious, but essential, way to impress your superiors right out the gate. Being well-groomed and wearing appropriate clothing demonstrates that you’re ready to take the job seriously, no matter how trivial your tasks might be. “Treat yourself as a brand, and go in there as if you’re a hired gun, a professional,” says Chiagouris. If you’re seen as a pro from the beginning, your supervisor is more likely to consider you for a permanent position.

Internship Secret No. 2: Network, Network, Network!
Meet as many people as you possibly can within the company. Post-internship, you’ll have that many more people to give you stellar recommendations. After the internship is over, make sure your new contacts can reach you. “Make business cards and hand them out to the people you work with so they can stay in touch with you,” says Chiagouris. Include your name, email address and phone number, along with a line about what it is you do. It can be as simple as accounting specialist, journalist or engineering student.

Internship Secret No. 3: Land and Expand
Chiagouris suggests offering to help out as many people at the company as you can. “On top of what your supervisor has asked you to do, ask if there’s somebody else you can help too,” he says. “Sometimes they let you work in other departments when things are slow.” Not only will you get the reputation of being motivated and a hard worker, but you’ll also meet tons of people -- remember, network! -- and learn about different areas of the company. “Some people are lazy, and if there’s no work to do, they’ll just sit there and read a magazine. But if you want to have a job opportunity later, you have to land and expand.”

Internship Secret No. 4: Ask Questions … But Not Too Many
Everyone knows that as an intern you’re not exactly an expert in the field, so don’t be afraid to ask questions. When you’re given a job to do, be sure to take notes and really understand the assignment so you don’t go in the wrong direction. “You don’t want your supervisor to look at your work and have to do it all over again,” says Chiagouris. While grasping the assignment is important, Chiagouris adds that it’s equally important to not ask so many questions that it becomes more of a task to explain it to you rather than for a co-worker to do the job himself. “You never want to be a high-maintenance person.”

Internship Secret No. 5: Learn About the Industry
Take advantage of everything in the office -- the expensive trade magazine subscriptions, the software, the databases -- and grasp everything you can that’s specific to the industry. “When you leave the internship, you can say to someone on an interview that you’ve mastered the subject or the resource,” says Chiagouris.

Internship Secret No. 6: Follow Up
When you reach the end of your internship, mail a handwritten note to everyone you interacted with throughout the summer and thank them for helping you learn. Then send an email update about three times a year to inform your supervisors about what you’ve been doing in school or on the job search. If you keep in touch, there’s a good chance you’ll come to mind if a job opportunity eventually opens up!