Small is the New Big for Interns
How incredibly glorious is it to intern at Goldman Sachs? Or Google? Microsoft? Apple? I mean, hey, you’ll have a huge brand name on your resume when you eventually seek employment. You’ll work at beautiful corporate headquarters next to movers and shakers. How much better can it get?
News flash – as a hiring manager I don’t care where you did your internship (and to be clear – in my “corporate” days I hired plenty of new hires who had prior internship experience).
Want to learn more about this perspective? I’ve graciously been asked to elaborate on www.internshipratings.com. You can read the rest of the article here. I also encourage you to check out the rest of their site and their blog. They have wonderful advice both for those seeking internships as well as those offering them. I hope you enjoy the article.
If you’re looking for an internship opportunity, we here at thoughtLEADERS have a few available. For more details, read about the positions HERE and HERE (there are two separate postings).
Thanks for the reminder that even my small business could benefit from and offer benefit to interns. I look forward to reading more about your experience in future posts and even a guest post from one of your interns.
I always appreciate your thoughts.
The way I see it, an intern stands to learn a lot more from working with the senior-most folks at a small company versus working with mid-level folks at a huge corporation. On top of that, there’s a much higher probability the work they do will actually get implemented at a small company versus fighting the bureaucracy and prioritization processes of a large corporation. I’ll definitely post some updates on the experience.
I have an intern working for me now. We're a small company, and the work she's doing is NOT the type of work you get at a big company. She's helping us R&D new products, helping us build out our department, and is considered a full-fledged member of the team – even if she is only here part-time. The interns I worked with at big companies made copies and ran errands. It's not the name of the company you worked with, it's the specific experience you can list on your resume. Small companies offer better resume fodder, as a general rule.
@Karin – agreed. I’m not going to belabor the point. Great to hear you’re getting a ton of value from your intern’s work and that they’re having a rewarding experience.