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How many internships should I do while in college?

My school requires me to do two internships before I graduate. Should I do more than two if it is not for school credit?

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Jonathan’s Answer

Depending on what career you're pursuing, two may be enough. But I don't think it hurts to get another one. When I'm interviewing people who are still in college for internships or entry-level positions (Sales, marketing, data science, product management), here's the rough order of what I'm looking at:

  • 75% - Actual work history, specifically what someone did/learned in internships. I focus a lot on actual skills learned and ask in detail for things that give me a sense of what actual work was done and what was accomplished (if it was a lead generation campaign, did it work? how many leads were collected? did the program continue after the intern left because they crushed it?).
  • 20% - Extracurriculars in school, particularly where there's innovation, leadership, or an example of someone using marketable skills, like promoting, partnering, copywriting, etc.
  • 5% - Academic history and skills

It could be that you have two absolutely stellar internships and that's more than enough to get you any gig you want afterwards. But it could also be that one of them is with a company nobody's heard of and/or one of them you had a bad manager or even someone who prioritized getting some mundane, repetitive task executed than doing right by the intern. These risks are real and make me think if it were me, and my goal was to eventually apply for very competitive jobs at companies like tier 1 recruiting shops companies Facebook or Google, I'd want every possible advantage.
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Blake’s Answer

Hey Devetra,

If you can handle it, more internships can only help you stand out.

Thanks,
Blake
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George’s Answer

First, you realize that if the school REQUIRES two - then companies know that - so doing the minimum means you are NOT the exceptional candidate they will look at first.


So, are you valedictorian of your high school? Planning on and ACTUALLY being honor role through college?


Every Edge makes you stand out from the crowd, three internships? Why not 4?


Do Not Think that just because you get a degree, you will get a job... no one is handing them out. You have to earn the degree and convince someone to take a chance on you.

George recommends the following next steps:

Take no less than 3 internships - preferable 4
Make SURE one of the internships has nothing to do with your degree, but with your PASSION. Do you like fixing houses and helping the poor? Habitat for Humanity? Helping in other countries? Peace Corps
For every internship,make sure to build your network - connect to absolutely everyone - especially admin assistants - on LinkedIn
For every internship - Start a OneNote to keep tabs on every task you did - and a separate - secured - section with a page for each person --- Likes, dislikes, birthday, kids (with ages), spouse name -- all the stuff you will need in 5 or 10 years when you call for help to get a job... You know -- "Hey Bob, how is Amy? Those kids of yours in college yet? BTW, I was looking at your companies career site...."
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