It is no hidden fact that the COVID19 pandemic has affected the economy drastically and has killed a lot of job opportunities. The coronavirus pandemic has dramatically affected the job economy.
It has been a well known fact that internships have always been the transitional phase from your college to the workforce by providing you an additional experience. However, COVID-19 crisis has limited these internship opportunities.
According to a report by Glassdoor economic research team, there has been a 20.5 percent drop in job openings since March while online internship openings declined to a steep 52 percent at the same time.
But while this data does seem discouraging, don’t worry because there are still many opportunities available for those hunting for an internship. There are hundreds of companies that are transitioning from on-site to virtual positions to let in the influx of college students seeking internships.
So if you’re a student who’s searching for an internship, here are five tips to help you in your search.
1. Your research and planning counts heavily
Before you begin your internship search, make sure about your interest and where it lies and then look for the companies that align with your preferences. And while you’re making an active list of companies, also make sure what are the other things you’re looking for as a part of work experience. These can be many things like: a good pay, professional growth, work-life balance, etc.
It’s very crucial for you in this environment not to be too particular about opportunities and be open to a variety of work situations, like post-grad internships, contract, remote, and freelance work. Once you have all these things set up, pick companies that you want to get customized internship recommendations from on the job sites that you’re using like LinkedIn or Glassdoor.
2. Set up a search timeline
We get it that there is a sense of urgency when you’re unemployed and actively looking for a role or internship. But to maintain your mental health, you need to set a timeline to lock the internship opportunity and give yourself a chance to breathe. By identifying these short term goals, you will not only control your situation but will also be ready with a structure to how to take things ahead.
3. Use your college’s and/or university’s career services
Although this is crucial irrespective of Coronavirus or not, it’s important right now more than ever to learn about your college’s career services program that can help you assist in the internship search. Get yourself connected to a career advisor/counselor provided by your college/university and use every resource possible to keep your internship search game plan at its best. College career services like CAPX or Handshake also help you to keep a check on the updated version of your resume and cover letter by organizing workshops, holding virtual networking events with career panels including accomplished alumni and provide vital information about upcoming virtual career/internship fairs.
4. Learn new soft and hard skills while you wait
Learning a new skill is the best thing you can do for your resume right now. This pandemic has given us all a good chance to work on and enhance our soft and hard skills. Soft skills are non-technical abilities like character traits, personal attributes, etc that can help you in the long run as you work and communicate with others.
Hard skills are the technical asset you add to your professional toolkit. To enhance those, you can always take online courses through sites like LinkedIn learning. Many colleges and universities give free access to their students. You can check with your institution and take advantage of your search time to upgrade your qualifications as these new skills will help majorly in fetching you the job you’re eyeing for.
And while you’re at it, please also brush up your interviewing skills by reading up more on how to ace an online interview.
5. Be patient with slower processes
Now that you’ve done everything you could, be patient. Many employers take their sweet time in deciding the final results. Give them that time since it’s a tough time for all of us and this is a fairly new challenge for the companies to undergo so much change in a short time. So understand that the process will take longer than usual as these companies adapt to the new normal.