Should i only take marketing internship for a marketing major?
I am currently majoring in Marketing. I am planning to do summer internships. Should i apply for other types of internships (like finance or sales) other than marketing? or should i just stick to marketing internships? If i should apply for others, what internship should i apply for that would help me get a higher chance of getting a job after graduating from my 4 year college? #college #marketing #job-search #applying
4 answers
Steve’s Answer
The important thing is to find an internship where you will put some skills to use in a demonstrable way. It doesn't have to be at a marketing agency, and marketing doesn't have to be the principle activity you do. But an internship where you can show off some of the skills you're learning and preferably hold up projects (or be able to relate experiences) at the end of your internship - that's the kind of experience you should be looking for. In my experience, those happen at places where you the intern have a passion for what is going on.
Tony’s Answer
Original Questions:
1. Should I only take marketing internship for a marketing major?
2. Should I apply for other types of internships?
3. What internship should I apply for that would help me get a higher chance of getting a job after graduating from my 4 year college?
Steven,
My first piece of advice is that a "bird in the hand is worth two in the bush". Your first goal should be to get an internship offer or multiple offers and then you can decide which one will provide you the best opportunity to get a job after graduation. Therefore you should be applying to as many interviews/opportunities as reasonable given the opportunities, your interests, and how well you align with the opportunity.
Given that you are interested in marketing don't limit yourself simply because the opportunity doesn't have an obvious marketing element to it. At this point in your life, exposure to business is the most valuable thing you can do for yourself and increase your appeal to businesses as you near graduation.
You can bring your marketing lens and efforts to any position you are offered. For example in addition to excelling at your assigned responsibilities you can do shadow interviews with people in the marketing group and volunteer to collaborate or help develop marketing strategies (i.e. how are they segmenting and targeting pools of clients). If the company doesn't have a marketing group; then you should help develop the practice. What you do after your are in the front door will help you stretch as you put in extra hours to research marketing strategies and help develop business cases for implementing them.
tl;dr Apply Apply Apply, get offers, then select the offer that best supports your long-term goal (which is a job at graduation not what you do this summer).
Allen’s Answer
Hi There! I would recommend getting an internship in an area and company you are interested in. Match that as closely as you can. That way you will have a sense of what you're looking to work in. The key to internships is for you to get the most out of it from gaining experience and meeting people in the industry who get a chance to see the caliber of work your capable of.
Brian’s Answer
It never hurts to check out your options. I would first ensure that I got marketing internship to make sure this is field you like and want to get into. If you find out it isn't, than you can always try other areas of business.
Whatever your second choice for major would have been, I would try to do a summer internship for it as well so you have no regrets looking back and wondering what if I had tried that would I have liked it better?
Join groups at your college if possible too to network as you can find others who might have experiences they can share or know someone that can get your foot in the door. Good luck!