Tag Archives: internship search

Call Me, Alumnae

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As you may or may not know, I’m a Scripps College Phonathon manager–yes, I am Sam‘s boss. I call alumnae for six hours every week, manage a shift of other people for three and a half hours and meet with the management team for one hour. Basically, a lot of my week involves the Scripps college alumnae and parent networks and I absolutely love it! I really value my interactions with Scripps alumnae and love the Phonathon team.

Me when people don't pick up. I get at least 100 dials pretty much every shift...nbd

Me when people don’t pick up. I get at least 100 dials pretty much every shift…nbd

While Phonathon has been a part of my Scripps experience since the very beginning of my first year, I had never called an alumna outside of Phonathon before today. So I want to talk about how we as Scripps students can benefit from our alumnae network now–while looking for jobs and experiences as well as way before. I’ve emailed alumnae because of Phonathon connections and had coffee with an alumna, but today’s call was entirely my own doing.

I was looking for Scripps alumnae who are lawyers working in Chicago on Life Connections and found a couple alumnae to contact. However, it wasn’t that simple. Life Connections is a fantastic resource, but it can be out of date if the alumna gets a new job and doesn’t update her profile. The alumna I was looking to talk to about law hadn’t updated her profile, which I figured out when the email I attempted to send her could not be sent. This, however, is not the point to give up at! I then searched for her name in the Scripps College Alumnae Association group on LinkedIn and sent her a message through the group. As I expected, she was more than willing to speak with me and we arranged a time.

It was really helpful to speak with an alumna about her experience in law and to hear some of her advice. While I only received one perspective, I am currently reaching out to more alumnae and hope to learn more about what careers in the law are like from them. My conversation with the wonderful alumna was great and she was happy to speak with me. I highly recommend reaching out to alumnae, so I made a list (of course) of tips:

1. Use both Life Connections and LinkedIn to find alumnae to contact–perhaps both! Searching for these alumnae in these systems can be tricky, so try popping by CP&R for some assistance with how to find the alumnae you’d like to contact.

2. Remember that the alumnae who are on the Life Connections database as well as the LinkedIn group (to a lesser extent possibly) are looking to make connections within the Scripps community. You have an in with them–use it!

3. Don’t be overly aggressive or expect a job offer (right away). This is not to say that networking this way cannot yield job offers, but to say that you might want to first ask for advice instead of an internship. Build that rapport and relationship–learn a bit from them–and then see if you feel like it’s a good call to ask about opportunities. (See what I did there?)

4. Have a list of questions ready. It’s so important to be engaging and present over the phone, but you want to keep them talking and learn about their careers, right? So keep those open ended questions coming!

5. Remember to thank them! That follow-up email counts and even thanking the alumna for her time over the phone is important. Keeping in mind that they’re taking time out of their day to speak with you and help you is essential!

Remember to also watch out for ruff connections ;)

Remember to also watch out for ruff connections 😉

This is what I’ve been learning about networking with alumnae on Life Connections and LinkedIn and I hope that you all can use these resources to build connections and learn about potential paths too! Good luck 🙂

Apply for Everything, Everywhere.

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PSA – Do not ask a college student about their job search. It’s basically impossible for us to know where to start with this nonsense, let alone secure a job.

Do I apply for…

  • One job at a time?
  • Only things I’m qualified for?
  • Positions I’m overqualified for?
  • Opportunities that I feel under-qualified for?
  • Every. Single. Job. I see on ClaremontConnect in a field vaguely related to mine?
  • Anything my parents want me to apply for?
  • LITERALLY ANY JOB THAT WILL LET ME LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO?!?!?!
  • Only jobs with office dogs?

As I searched for internships last year, these are questions I pondered on a daily basis. TLDR: Apply for all of them. (Ok, you can skip the parental suggestions, maybe. Also if you have a dog allergy, you can avoid that one too.)

If you have more time, here’s how it worked out for me:

I had a perfect internship in mind last spring: a perfect title, a perfect company, a perfect description. It was rare, but it existed.

… and I didn’t get it.

So, I applied to another, and got denied. Then another, only to be rejected once again. Finally, I started applying for any job that I felt even vaguely qualified for. I stopped waiting to hear back from one company before applying to another. In one week, I sent out 15 different resumes.

I wasn’t just applying for my dream job anymore; I was applying for anything and everything. I applied to be a communications intern, a marketing intern, a blogging intern, an event-planning intern, an HR intern, and operations intern, and probably other things I don’t even remember. I just needed to get IN any way I could.

I didn’t end up with that “Perfect Internship” I originally envisioned. It worked out better. Once I had my position, I made it what I wanted it to be. When my boss asked me what personal projects I’d like to work on, I assumed that there was something he already had in mind. After some time, I realized that getting to design my own projects was a huge opportunity – one that could shape my future career. I needed to take advantage of that because I finally had my IN. I had my chance to do exactly what I’d always wanted.

The internship may not have had the perfect title or description originally (though it was pretty close), but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t make it into what I wanted. (Except I never managed to talk them into an office dog.)

From my internship search, I learned that you just have to keep going. Don’t look for the “Perfect Position,” it might not exist. Just start applying for things! (And don’t apply one at a time… it’s exhausting and disheartening.) You’ll take charge and make it perfect when you get there.

Square One

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I was a late bloomer at Scripps.

I declared my major at the last minute, after considering close to everything. I ultimately declared a legal studies major. As backwards as it sounds, I realized after I declared it and took more classes in the major that it was my dream come true, and nothing could ever compare. My on-campus and summer jobs and programs have all been related to foreign languages, journalism, and education. All of these experiences were incredible, of course, and I grew in so many ways through them, but they only satisfied some of the very specific requirements that (apparently) need to be met to motivate me to go to work every day.

And I won’t get out of bed for anything less, doggone it!

But the bad news is that I’ve only really known all this for less than a year, so I have no work experience in government or law. I knew I needed to find a government internship this summer. Finding one was really hard. I’d had a bunch of great experience, but I just didn’t have the background to prove I could do the job. I applied to work on Capitol Hill, and didn’t get the internship. Honestly, I was so relieved. I knew I wasn’t ready yet.

So I scaled back. I went local.

I ended up getting an internship working for a really incredible lawmaker in my home state. I started my job a few weeks ago, and I really, really love it.

The office I’m working in has way fewer employees than does one on the federal level, especially since the state I live in is so small. My office has four full-time people plus me, and I never feel like I’m the smallest voice or the least important person in the room. But I am definitely the littlest fish in this pond—all four of my co-workers are so talented and experienced, and I am so lucky to get to absorb everything they’re teaching me.

I also get to do more than I might otherwise as an intern. Of course, there’s the normal intern-y things like photocopying, printing mailing labels, and transferring phone calls to the people who actually know what they’re talking about.

Of course, I’ll plug you right through.

But I do get to take calls from folks who just want to express their opinions regarding the job my lawmaker’s doing and I get to draft letters in response to their concerns–basically, I’m representing the lawmaker to the people who will eventually have to decide whether or not to vote for her. My manager also lets me take on casework, which means that I get to help people who are having trouble with government agencies like Veterans Affairs or Immigration Services. Again, I’m representing my lawmaker, AND I’m learning hands-on about the federal bureaucracy and how to navigate it. Definitely not just intern-y stuff.

While answering phones in what feels like a regular, old office and living at home sounds much less sexy than “I have an internship on The Hill,” I’ve learned so much already, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer holds.

So my advice to those of you in the same boat as me: don’t be afraid to start small. While those really prestigious internships are great opportunities, you might actually get more responsibility if you’re in a smaller office that has less intense (but still super important) work to do. Recommendations are priceless, and it’s even easier to impress your boss when they’ve only got four people in the office, rather than forty. Keep an eye out for those little gems! Most lawmakers have state, district, or outreach offices, depending on the level of government, and most of those offices need interns.

A start is a start, no matter how small. Don’t be afraid to run with it and see what you get!

Locating Myself

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One essential part of choosing where to apply for internships is figuring out location.

For next summer, I have chosen to pretty much stick to my homeland, meaning the Twin Cities. As amazing as it would be to go abroad or to another city, I have decided that that is probably not the best choice for me at this moment in time for a variety of reasons.

  1. Money. If I intern at a place based in St. Paul, Minneapolis, or somewhere else in the greater metropolitan area, I can live at home and save money rather than spending it on rent, transportation, food, and everything in-between. I know my parents are fine with this—in fact, they would probably love to have me home again for another summer. Especially since I will be studying abroad fall 2011, I want to save as much money as possible in order to travel and have a good time in Ireland. If the internship is not paid, I can hopefully apply for one of the Scripps internship grants to make up for the lost money, or if worse comes to worst, I can easily get a part-time job for the weekends through the store I worked at during high school. (Something that would be harder to do if I was in a new city.) Luckily for me, Minneapolis (and St. Paul) have a thriving culture of journalism and publishing, so there are lots of options that I would apply to anyways.
  2. Study Abroad. I already mentioned this, but I am studying abroad fall semester of my junior year. I haven’t looked in the exact process for Ireland, but I feel like it would be best to deal with obtaining a student visa and renewing my passport if I’m at home and have easy access to a car.
  3. Boyfriend. So, this is actually the lamest excuse in the book, and if it was the only influence on choosing a city to intern in… well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be a strong enough influence, as much as I like him. (And I’d expect the same from him! We are both practical people.) However, it will be nice to be able to visit or see my boyfriend (since he lives only three hours away from the Cities, and this is, of course, assuming he’s going back to his hometown, which is probably unlikely) at least once or twice, rather than not at all.
  4. Actual Location. Let’s just be honest—I love my home state and the Twin Cities, and as I already mentioned, they are a great place for someone interested in journalism, publishing, or writing (believe it or not). Minnesota is beautiful in the summer, and not only will I be able to see my family, but I will be able to visit some of our 10,000 lakes, possibly go camping, and just have a great time further exploring Minneapolis.

The summer after junior year, I hope to obtain another internship, probably in a different field so I can explore my options, and I believe that then I will be more ready to intern abroad or in a different city (cough New York cough).