Wondering how to interview with no experience? Here are some essential internship tips that will help you rack up the skills you need to outshine your competition! Position yourself as an asset to any potential company or client, even if you don’t have any previous work experience!

How to get the most out of an internship opportunity. 

Internship Tip 1- Take Pride In Everything You Do:

The reason why it is so important to take ownership of where you are in your life is because it empowers you to actually take action and do something about it to change it!

If you keep on “blaming” others or falling “victim” of the situation you are in, it somehow makes you feel excused to do nothing about it. You want to make sure you take pride in everything you do because even if you are not “employed” yet, higher-level management is looking and assessing whether you would be worth the future investment or not.

Dressing appropriately is also something you want to take pride in since that is something we are naturally judged on. (don’t get mad at me, I don’t make the rules, just stating facts!)

Improve Your Confidence!

Make sure to be level headed, calm, and ready to overcome any challenge that might be presented to you with eagerness to succeed.

If you do anything, being trustworthy and reliable is crucial to your success! Being honest, to me at least, is one of THE MOST important traits when trying to pick someone to join your team.

If someone is boasting and trying to constantly convince me of their value rather than showing me through their work, timeliness, and eagerness to learn, it not only concerns me on a productivity level, but it alerts me that there is something they are being dishonest about or trying to hide with all of the “fluff-talk”.

It is much more admirable to have someone that is honest and admits not knowing something yet but is willing to learn rather than having someone who promises the moon and underdelivers.

Internship Tip 2- Be Relevant:

• Pick a relevant field to your future career when choosing to intern
• Network with anyone and everyone you get a chance to talk to
• When you are getting along and the relationship reaches its “peak” ask for a reference or letter of recommendation
• Add them on Linkedin to grow your network and keep in touch professionally
• Attend company events and parties. (To get the chance to meet and network with people that are normally out of reach or not in your department etc)
• Shoot for the stars! If you have a great question or contribution to make, go to the CEO and introduce yourself. (Of course, this should not waste anyone’s time since you would have obviously taken the time to do your homework on the subject matter and was not something that could have been resolved or thought of otherwise, just be quick and bring value!)

Internship Tip 3- Be Curious & Take Advantage Of The Opportunity:

• Use these experiences to develop new skills that put you a step ahead of the competition
• Be curious about how everything works and become an expert
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions
• Do extra work (you are trying to rack up as many skills as possible in your niche)
• Always deliver more than it is asked of you (remember you are trying to add value and RESULTS on your resume)
• Talk less and listen more! (you already know what you know, you need to find out what they know)
• Write down in detail everything you learned that you retained important.
• Make sure you are not afraid to ask for feedback and constructive criticism, it is NOT personal! (think of it as having the secret that others don’t to continuously improve yourself)
• Be attentive to the dynamics of the place
• Front line employees can have extremely valuable information about what they see working or not working. Ask them what they think could be improved, removed, or what they love
• Ask if the company offers free courses or resources during your internship as most companies have them but don’t advertise it to employees enough
• Feel free to ask others what they would have done differently when they started so that you can skip as many mistakes as possible
• Ask if they offer any paid certifications, you want to try and earn certifications relevant to the path you want to pursue. (there are all kinds of certs available; like google, facebook or social media, project mgt, real estate, finance, cybersecurity, AI, IT, coding or whatever it is you are into)
• Never stop learning! Try to attend seminars, events, listen to podcasts, watch webinars, read books and test your skills

Most Importantly …

Finally, just remember that you are extremely valuable to them as well, the end goal of an internship is to keep that intern as an employee. Turnover is not only expensive but it also creates gaps in employment which are never good when you are running a successful company. You already know what they want you to know and how they want you to do it, they molded you into their perfect candidate!!!

If You Get The Chance To Go To a Volunteer Event:

• Network with other volunteers 
• Pick something relevant to your career interests or something dear to you which aligns with your values
• Put yourself aside and help others
• Be passionate, empathetic, timely and respectful
• Be open-minded and take others’ opinions and ideas into consideration but try to still bring value. (find a solution that might be more efficient than what they currently have in place, be innovative!)
• In many cases, this type of environment is usually pretty relaxed and disorganized so you can pitch in and really practice your leadership & inspirational skills to motivate others to accomplish their goals.

Never Stop Learning

Aside from these specific situations, you want to still take the initiative to do these things for yourself regardless of whether you are in an internship or not. 

Focus yourself on improving your knowledge by actually learning and I don’t mean just read it, move on, and forget it. Consider that human learning has two components:

Keep In Touch!

Now you know how to get the most out of your internships and volunteer experiences. But if you are ready to prep for an interview or a meeting, make sure to hit that FOLLOW button on the blog because next week I will give you simple guidelines that will clear up all that guesswork for you. 

In the meanwhile, perfect your resume by clicking here!

Make sure to also reach out on social, just by shooting me a DM on IG by clicking here