You’re finally over 18. You have got yourself into a university. Now, it is time for you to get new experiences, it is time for you to be independent, it is time for you to set the steppingstone of your career. What can that steppingstone be? Most likely internship. But where do people even find these internships aka ‘great learning opportunities’? Well, here’s your answer.
If you don’t know it yet, Linkedin is the largest professional network in the world and so it is obvious that you need to search here for a job. To make it easy for you, here’s a step-by-step guide of the process.
Step 1: Go to ‘Jobs’ on the top bar of Linkedin
Step 2: Input key terms such as a title of a job like ‘intern’ or maybe something more specific like ‘Marketing Intern’ in the left search bar. You can also input the skills and the name of the company to get relevant results. Next put in the place you want this job to be in the right search bar and click search.
N.B- If you have past searches and job applications, then you can view them using the dashboard.
Step 3: Customize the results using the filters in the top bar.
Step 4: Turn the job alert on if you think the results for this search term are relevant. This will ensure that you’re notified when any new job related to that search term is posted.
Step 5: Apply directly using the ‘Easy apply’ of Linkedin if you think you’re a great fit for the job.
Facebook is actually a great place to find internships. However, since this is not Linkedin, you’ll probably miss a bit
Nevertheless, Facebook can still be used to find diverse opportunities. The first way to do such is to follow various internship groups and pages.
Here is a list of the groups and pages I follow. Well, these groups are for people looking for internships and job opportunities in Bangladesh. Surely, you can find local groups for your country.
· Internship and Jobs in Bangladesh
· Job and Internship Announcement
· ফ্রেশ গ্র্যাজুয়েট ক্যারিয়ার হ্যাকস
The second way is to search in ‘Jobs’ from the Facebook Menu. You’ll find all sorts of job opportunities here (you’ll understand what I mean when you see the preview below). You just need to change the parameters to make the search more pertinent to your job interests.
Job Platforms
There are quite a number of platforms out there. But I have some personal favorites that I found more effective for searching for internships. Here they are.
Youth Opportunities
Like the name says, Youth Opportunities host a plethora of opportunities for young people. In fact, they have a separate Internship section where you can find the latest internship posts.
Glassdoor
This is a global platform for finding jobs. It is very similar to Linkedin in terms of the way it functions and interface design. So, finding jobs here is not much hassle.
Internships.com/Chegg Internships
If you are into internships that require you to work for a global organization from the comfort of your home, then this is a gold mine. There is only one downside though- most remote jobs here are unpaid.
Forage
You can find virtual internships from Fortune 500 companies here. That means you get to peek into the work of big companies like Microsoft, KPMG, Citi Bank, etc. Cool, right? The only issue is that sometimes it’s more of a ‘virtual experience’ than a ‘virtual internship’. So, you may not get tailored feedback on your work. Nevertheless, this will still give you an experience from which you can learn a lot.
Company Pages
One of the best places to look for internships is company websites and company career pages. So, if you want to work at a marketing agency, a smart thing to do is to follow the pages of your favorite marketing agencies so that their job posts come on your newsfeed even during your random scrolls.
So, those are basically the places where you can find internships. But before I end this, here’s a harsh reality-
Many companies recruit through internal references. So, people get internships through their professional networks (big brothers or sisters or other relevant relatives or friends) in those companies.
Therefore, focus on knowing the right people along with being skilled at what you do. Because that way you don’t even have to go looking out for internships, internships will come looking for you.
