A college internship is an important part of any student’s career.  This is where you can potentially land a full-time gig or it may also be a place where you can get the credits that you need for your classes.  Internships usually aren’t that hard to find since you’ll be working for free but I’ll give you some pointers on how you can find one.

Go to your career service office

The first place you should stop by is your college’s career service office.  They will be able to tell you who’s hiring and who’s looking for someone to help them out.  Depending on your field, you may get a few offers or you may only get one.  Look at the potential options and pick one out that suits your needs.   Always look into one that you may want to turn into a career.

Try internship websites

You may not find something you’re looking for at your career services office and that’s okay.  There are many websites online that can help you with your search.  Just like a job search, an internship is going to be easier for you since you won’t have to get paid.  I know this turns many students off but you have to look at the long run as well.  A few of my favorite internship job searching sites are MonsterTrak.com and CampusCareerCenter.com.

Know what the process entails

Just because you’re not going to get paid a lot, if anything, you still need to go through the process as you were an employee since you’ll be working with this company.  You’ll need to do an interview and provide them with a resume, so make sure you please them because you could be potentially competing with other students wanting the same job.

Set up the schedule

If you do get hired, congrats!  A lot of students find out that in a few months after the internship, the company will want to bring this student on full-time because of hard work ethics.  If this sounds like you, you may get hired and this is why an internship is so important.  When you do get hired, most good companies will work with you and your school schedule.  This usually means you’ll work around 20 hours a week doing what relates to your career.

Internships are always out there.  I would just follow the steps I mentioned above.  If you do this alone, you’ll be able to find the job that relates to you.  Apply for the job, work hard and let’s hope it turns into a full-time career.