Hitting the ground running
Students encouraged to intern

Kate Lanza | staff writer

Today, the job market is looking for intelligent fresh minds right out of college to keep their workforce young.  The catch is that they want their applicants to have experience. 

St. Michael’s offers an internship program to help students find experience before entering the real world.  The fast-paced businesses of today are looking to fill jobs quickly without having to train their incoming employees.  It costs less to not have to train them.

Internship…what?

Joanne LaBrake at her desk in Klein. Jon Ketchum, photo

Joanne LaBrake, internship coordinator at St. Michael’s, says the internship experience is very important when applying for jobs.

Ten years ago, it was an added feature for recent graduates to have this experience, but now it is essential for current students, LaBrake says. 

“It gives students the opportunity to integrate skills they have learned in the classroom into the workplace,” she says.

An internship helps students when they are up against others that just graduated, LaBrake says.  These students leave with the experience needed to start their jobs and sometimes they don’t need to be trained.  LaBrake says that this is one of the most important things for students to have on their resumes. 

There are academic internships which can be done for credit, and there are non-academic ones.  In order to qualify for an internship, a student must have a 2.7 cumulative GPA or higher.  The academic internships are a little more challenging and require more of a commitment. Students must have 135 hours of interning and meet with a faculty member, probably have to write a paper, and maybe even hold a presentation, LaBrake says.

“Students appreciate the opportunity to have that change of pace,” she says.

It’s prep time!

Though it is important to have the internship on a resume for after graduation, the first step is learning interview skills to apply for an internship.

Ingrid Peterson, resume and interviewing skills workshop coordinator, says there are a couple of ways students can prepare for their internships.  One of the key parts in the interviewing process is to make sure applicants have information about the organizations they are looking to be a part of.  She says it is important to do research before going in for the interview, as it often saves the students from looking underqualified. 

Junior Brendan Clark received an internship through LaBrake this semester. Larry Frisoli, photo

Peterson says she meets with students to review the interviewing process and they conduct practice interviews.

“My job is to help them be successful, and I want to give them all the feedback possible,” she says. “You want to go in there knowing who you are so you don’t get caught off guard.”

In some cases, applicants put excess information or skills in their resumes that might not be fully true, so when the interviewer asks about these experiences, the student might not remember.  Peterson says that she works on behavioral interviewing with her students, and works with them on elaborating when asked questions by the interviewer.  It looks good to give details and support for why you would be good at the job, he says.

One of the most important things for students on campus to do in order to secure a job upon graduation is to keep persistent in the process, Peterson says.  She thinks that it usually takes a lot more time for graduates to find a job than they expect.  Some students even start looking while they are still in school, and she says it is difficult to “find that balance” of keeping up grades and doing a thorough job search.

Internships allow students to be one step ahead in beginning their careers.  With the coordinators of internship programs on campus, the process can be completed with assistance and ease. 

Students in action

Internships can be conducted in the fall or spring semester of the school year.  The Student Resource Center holds informational meetings to help prepare students a semester ahead of time with the details they need to know for the application process.

Junior Brendan Clark is a business administration major with a finance and marketing minor.  He just recently accepted an internship at “Such A Voice” of South Burlington as a public relations-marketing intern.  He went to the Student Resource Center for help in his application process.

“I would not have been able to get this internship without Christine Clary and Joanne LaBrake,” Clark says.

The Student Resource Center was a huge help, according to Clark.  He is receiving four credits for the academic internship, and the company has already offered him a job, he says.