Do you know what an internship is? When a student or a graduate works with a company for few months, learns new skills and gets a stipend – it is called an internship.

Let me share with you the story of Amruta Godbole. After her 12^th board exams, Amruta applied for a work-from-home digital marketing internship with a web based portal. Her application was initially rejected but she requested to be given a chance for 1 month to prove herself. The internship originally meant for 1 month, lasted 2 years; by the end of which she was writing blogs and was also heading the Social Media engagement strategy for the business. Later, she used the writing and research skills acquired during the internship and the network she built to land a master’s scholarship in the US.

So how can an internship help you?

An internship lets you discover your true passion, helps you learn practical skills, builds your network and gives you an edge over your peers when the time comes for placements.  The excitement of being inside an office, working on real projects, interacting with customers and  team members, earning your first stipend, and learning to live on your own are some of the other reasons why an internship is such an exciting life experience for a student. No wonder internships have become a rage among the youth of today!

Before you start searching for an internship, here are some pointers for you to keep in mind –

1. What is your area of interest? Ask yourself this question before applying to hundreds of internships. It is always better to apply to internships which match your profile. Even if it takes a bit of time, you will eventually find an internship which would match your interests and skills.

     2. Build a professional resume: It’s the key to your internship. Keep it professional with crisp content and minimalistic design. Update your contact details, provide the links to projects and mention your skills. An internship is perhaps the first time you would be making a resume but that shouldn’t be the reason to why it can’t be a great resume. A professional resume makes a positive first impression and improves your chances of being called for the interview. And with so many free online resume makers available on internet which automatically take care of design and layout for you, making a resume is really easy now.

 3. Gain relevant skills and improve your communication skills: If you want to give yourself an edge, learn new skills which are relevant to the profile. At the same time, work on your soft skills – English is the language of the workplace today. Have a good command over vocabulary and grammar as this will help you to write strong applications and cover letters, and emails and reports once your work starts.

Learn skills which would help you get an internship in that field. For example, a web programming internship may require you to know PHP, or a design/marketing internship may ask for candidates to know Photoshop – with thousands of free resources available online, you can easily learn these skills and build a portfolio that will give you an edge over other applicants.

With the startup boom, entrepreneurs are hiring more interns than ever and students can find many opportunities matching their profiles. There are plenty of online resources to learn new skills and it’s time to step out and start exploring today!

 Courtesy: Sarvesh Agrawal is founder & CEO of Internshala, an internships and trainings platform (internshala.com)