During your studies, you have the possibility to do an internship. An internship is a very suitable way to explore the field, apply theory into practice and learn a lot. An internship often also gives you insight into what you might or might not want in your future job. So, there are almost only advantages! But how do you find an internship?
Finding an internship can be done in two ways, namely by looking for a company yourself or by having a company find you. Both ways are possible via LinkedIn. Many companies post vacancies on LinkedIn, for both jobs and internships. It is therefore important that you follow companies that interest you and/or that tie in with your study program. By keeping an eye on these vacancies, you could just come across a suitable internship!
You can also let the companies approach you! You do this by posting a message on LinkedIn with information about who you are, what you’re capable of and what exactly you are looking for. You also indicate why you would be the most suitable intern. Companies can see this message and approach you. You are almost always certain that when you receive a response, you will actually get an internship. When you respond to a vacancy on LinkedIn yourself, you have the possibility that dozens of others will respond on the same vacancy and you will not be selected.
Graduateland
Another easy way to find an internship is by visiting Graduateland. It contains a lot of vacancies where you can filter on, among other things, a full-time and part-time jobs, but also on internship. When you click on “internship”, you go to another page where you can start filtering by job categories, language and location. You can tick whether you want to work remotely, which is of course very useful during the current corona epidemic. By clicking on an internship that seems interesting to you, you can see exactly what the vacancy entails, which skills and/or certificates are needed and you can also see when the vacancy expires. This will prevent you from responding to the vacancy too late!
Other ways
Do you feel like LinkedIn and Graduateland are not helping you to find a suitable internship? Then you could always approach companies yourself. Not all companies post vacancies online for interns, but are still open to people asking if they need an intern. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! Who knows, you might end up with the internship of your dreams!
In addition, you can also follow companies on social media that interest you and/or match your studies. There are enough companies that are looking for students to do an internship. They think they can reach them via social media, such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and they post vacancies on there, so keep your eyes open while scrolling through your feed!
Final tip
There is a last important tip if you want to do an internship: start your search on time! Searching for a suitable internship takes a lot of time, because people are sometimes just ahead of you or companies are not looking for interns. But what also takes time is the interview, the approval from your study program and arranging other formal matters. So don’t wait until the last minute!