If you’ve been following me on my Instagram, I post all the time about my internship! If you’ve talked to me before in person, then you would know that I pretty much talk non-stop about my internship and the company culture. Ha, even DG said “I’ve never seen anyone talk about work with such a huge smile on their face”.

Our conversations are pretty much like, 70% internship related, and 30% something else. I get questions and messages all the time asking me how I land internships. Since my first year of college, I’d had a total of 5 internships including my current one.

My Marketing Internships

All of my internships have been around social media marketing. The summer of my first year, I landed 2 social media management internship. One for a photographer and one for a freelance social media specialist. The spring semester of my second year, I landed 2 marketing internships. One for a freelance social media specialist, and one for podcast! By the fall semester of my third year, I landed my current marketing internship!

Although, I’m unsure if my current internship is still an internship. I got hired on as part-time, but for some reason, I still like calling it an internship. It’s most likely because I know my college years are coming to an end, and calling it an internship gives my mind an ease. I’m a bit scared for the real world, to be quite honest.

Also, I just want to mention that my current internship is a paid internship. WHICH IS INSANE, because my past 4 have been unpaid internships. I think being paid definitely made me more motivated. I used to think money wasn’t an issue, but I think if a company values their interns, they would pay them. Right? I digress.

Anyways, while it’s not required for a college degree, most employers will require some prior work experience. So here are some ways on how to find internships.

How to Find Internships

In my opinion, I’d say start as soon as possible. There’s been so many opportunities where I’ve been turned down because I’m not in my third or fourth year in college. The company was looking for someone who they could hire full time after the internship period. But hey, they told me to keep in touch because they liked what they saw lol.

Prior to applying for internships, have your resume updated and ready! Make sure your resume is aligned with your career goals and the job qualifications and requirements.

Networking

I landed 2 of my 5 internships from networking and just knowing people. Working at a nail salon really helped me network, which is so funny if you think about it. I will casually talk to clients and ask them what they do, and if they say something along the lines of public relations or marketing, I typically ask them if the company they work for have internship openings. If they do, most likely they will give me their business cards and I’ll follow up with them the day after. Networking is such an essential skill and if you don’t meet that many people on your day-to-day basis, another thing you can do is just ask around. Fellow peers or professors.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is such a great tool for internships. It’s actually how I found my current internship! My best friend, Mia, sent me the internship listing and you can just apply through the platform. There are so many other job listings on LinkedIn, and another great thing about it, is that it costs to post a job listing. So you know that these companies are actually serious about hiring someone. I’ve applied to many places, only to find out that they weren’t actually looking to hire but rather just a marketing thing (i.e. posting onto Instagram. For some reason, it circulating via Instagram stories. Has anyone else seen that? Such an odd marketing strategy).

There are internship listings posted every day on LinkedIn. One thing you can do is set to be notified of every internship posted in related to your field. This will give you the advantage of ‘first come first serve’. Have your resume updated and ready to be sent out when the job listed is posted.

Other websites you could look for are indeed.com, internships.com, internqueen.com, just to name a few. I’ve never used these platforms before, but it doesn’t hurt to try!

Social Media

Building off networking and LinkedIn, you can use social media to find internships! I’m in a couple of local Facebook groups for boss babes and I always see them posting that they’re looking for interns! For one of my internships, I actually searched through the hashtag #arizonainternship or #azinternship on Instagram. I submitted my cover letter and resume, and viola! Landed the internship.

Note: If you’re going to be applying through social media, make sure your profile is private or at least have it appropriate.

Cold Call

Let’s say there is this company that you have always dreamed of working for but can’t seem to find any information on whether or not they are looking to hire interns. Why not just reach out to them? It doesn’t hurt to send an email asking if there are any internship positions open. I did this to one of my previous internships where I sent an email asking if they had any internship positions and attached my resume. Luckily enough, they created an intern position just for me! Score!

Hopefully, these are helpful. If you have any tips or tricks on how to find internships, leave them down below.

I’ve only had marketing internships, but I’m not sure what other career fields are like (i.e., business, research, etc). I’m only speaking based on my experience. Good luck to you all!

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