Congratulations! After years of blood, sweat, and tears, finally you finished your education and earned a college degree. Now what?
As you can no longer identify yourself as a student, you have to start the journey to the real world and land yourself a job to support yourself. First thing to do is search for jobs openings and send out your resumes to companies that you are interested joining for. Unfortunately, this process might not be as easy as it sounds. After waiting for days and even weeks, you have not landed any job as expected. You have already taken rounds of tests and attended various interview sessions, but it seems that luck is yet to be on your side.
You might have heard that the entry-level job market can be tough to beat, especially for fresh graduates like you. Oftentimes, employers prefer candidates who have prior experience and knowledge in the industry, thus making it more difficult for raw talents like you to get their first full-time jobs. Facing such situation, you might think, ‘How can I gain experiences if I do not get a chance to work first?’ Well, actually there is a way: internship.
Maybe you are thinking, ‘Does it make sense for a fresh grad to take an internship? Isn’t it usually only for students?’ The answer is, yes it does make sense. Even long after you have graduated, you can sign up for internship programs offered by many company. Not only the best way to gain work experiences and beef up your portfolios, doing an internship will give you a better shot in getting hired later. Still not sure? Here are some good reasons why you should consider becoming an intern:
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While holding a degree from prestige educational institution will not help much when it comes to getting a job, experience will. Therefore, you should take an internship where you can put the theories you learn from school into practice and gain real experiences in your industry. As an intern, you will get the opportunity to observe how various roles in an organisation work while learning from experienced mentors. Not only that, you do need not be afraid to try out new things and make mistakes, because internship is the best opportunity to practice the trial and error method.
Unlike a full-time job, an internship typically has a limited time span which usually revolves within a matter of months. This gives you a good chance to explore various career options and learn more from different industries. For example, for three months you can be an intern in an advertising company, then the next three months in consulting firm. This way, you will know the difference between each industry and how each job role functions.
Nobody wants to do a job they hate doing. Despite having graduated and holding a degree in a certain major, some people are still unsure of what they really want to do for a living. If this happens to you too, then an internship can help you to make the best decision. By trying out several different roles, you can compare the good and bad sides of certain job to then find the one that works best for you.
The real world is very different from college life. In the workforce, you are required to be a professional adult who is responsible for performing a task for the company and client, as you are paid to do the job. From internship, you can learn both soft and hard skills to do this task well. For example, you can learn public speaking while building up your self-confidence.
Internship is a great stepping stone that will help you get your foot in the door before finally landing your dream job for good. By becoming an intern, you can build a professional network, something that will increase your chances of getting employed in the future.
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