The Long, Hard Road: Internship Search

Many of the majors in Human and Health Sciences require students to complete one or more internships throughout their 4 years. As a sophomore I obviously slacked off and did not even start looking for an internship until April, which was not a very good move. As a junior, I learned from my mistake and started searching for an internship in October. I attended every career fair that had professionals in the fields I was interested in, I attended 5 fairs. From the fairs I got very good leads and sometimes even interviews, but I never heard back after the first interview except for the email that says “you have very good qualities and we are sure you will be very successful, however [insert company name] is pursuing other candidates”. I thought to myself, “I must be a terrible interviewer because a lot of my friends were getting second interviews or job offers”. It was already the end of February and I did not have any hopes of an internship and all the fears of having to work for my dad, yet again. It was two weeks before spring break and I received an email from a company, I had forgotten that I went on the internet in January and applied to every company on Monster. I read the email and they wanted me to fill out a questionnaire for them, so I thought very hard about my answers to make sure it would leave a good impression. The next week the company contacted me to go up to Chicago and have an interview with them; I was very excited so I obviously accepted. I studied the company for two days before the interview and was very well prepared for the interview. On the day of the interview I was not nervous at all and I thought I did a very good job in the interviews. The very next Tuesday I got a call from the company and they said if I pass a back ground check I will be offered the job. I passed the check and last Friday I was offered the job! My search was finally over! My advice to all of the students out there is to start early and do some company searching on your own and don’t solely rely on the CCO to help you.

----- Dan Mills