The impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has been felt by every stratum and age group of the society. Students who were appearing for the final exams had to wait anxiously for their papers to end only to find out that they had been cancelled. Candidates waiting for their entrance exams have no idea what the future holds for them. Many students as well as teachers have to newly experience the nuances of online learning with lessons shifting from classroom to online platforms.
Graduates looking for jobs are anxious and uncertain about their careers and future even as the number of positive cases increases every day. As of August 1st, 2020, a whopping 1.7 Million positive cases have been reported in India.
In these trying periods, students must not forget that the post COVID era is only going to be more competitive than ever before as a total of around 119 million workers lost their jobs in the first two weeks of lockdown and these people will be competing with the graduates for the jobs.
Hence, the importance of Internships and the value it adds to one’s CV is only going to increase for the students. Although almost everyone is familiar with the term Internship, for the uninitiated, let me just put out the meaning of the term as “Internships can be part-time job experience as a trainee or in a position of responsibility that a student pertakes in an organization to gain some work experience or fulfill some qualification criteria set out by their college.”
Now having some work experience behind you while applying for a job holds a lot of significance and increases your chances of landing that coveted position in a company. Many technical Institutions like IIT’s and NIT’s acknowledge this advantage and have made it a norm for graduates to complete a certain number of internships in their 4 years of graduation.
Let’s look at some of the other benefits of taking up an Internship:
Application of your classroom knowledge:
Internships can be a great medium to apply your classroom education in real world problems. It will give you an insight of the importance of all the theorems and theories you have learned in your classes. It will also provide you opportunities to translate your knowledge and skills into the workforce and expose you to different career paths and specialization according to your skills and interests.
Real life experience and first hand exposure:
An Internship will give you first hand experience of how the real world works and also present you valuable exposure in the career field you are interested in and want to pursue. It will also prepare you for what to expect in your field thereby building your confidence in your work and providing you an apparent edge over the candidates while applying for a job in that field in the future.
Develop Professional Network:
Networking is probably one of the most important aspects of Internship as it allows you to establish better connections and relationships as you get to meet many professionals from the career field you are interested in.You will also get to meet other like-minded interns who will probably have the same goals and career plans. These connections may prove to be very handy in the future as although it might feel unnecessary at present, you never know when your network will come in handy.
Professionalism:
An important lesson that you will learn in your Internship is that of professionalism, as it will teach you the soft skills needed to excel in office culture. Skills like work ethic, communication skills, emotional intelligence, leadership skills and a whole host of personal attributes are crucial for career success and are harder to teach as well as to acquire than the technical skills. Though your interviewers and recruiters will majorly focus on your technical prowess, without soft skills, you won't be able to rise up the ladder, because with each promotion, your job profile shifts towards management rather than technician.
Now, Internship helps you learn the nuances of these soft skills.
Learn about workplace culture:
Now, you might have a knowledge of all the theoretical terms and possess all the skills required. You may also have found out your career path and successfully figured out the roadmap to the top. But, all of these might come down shattering when you are introduced to the operations of the workplace. More often than not, freshers find the office culture a bit overwhelming in the beginning and hence waste out a lot of time figuring his/her surroundings. But, with an Internship you get a free hand and open license to experience all these before entering into the professional world. These exposures will help you to acclimatize better and figure out the employee relations and leadership structure of the company in your first professional job better as compared to someone without any Internship experience.
Upgrade your CV:
With the unemployment rates rising and breaking new records, recruiters and hiring managers have a lot of options to choose from as each job vacancy receives a lot of applicants. This allows organisations to have reservations against candidates having no professional experience even for entry-level jobs. The problem with no professional experience can be somewhat attributed to
the above point as also the company will need to first train the employee for a few months before he starts being productive for them. Hence, having an Internship in your resume will provide you a leg up on the competition and might prove to be decisive if you somehow get tied on the technical skills and other tests.
Learn from your professional experience:
When you work in a professional setup, you will often find people giving feedback of your work, it may be your superiors, fellow interns, anyone. Try to learn from these feedbacks and improve yourself on a daily basis. Act like a sponge and try to soak in every learning curve that you receive during your internship. Observe the other employees and learn how different job roles operate. Constantly be in the ears of your supervisor and gain as much professional knowledge as you can. Remember, it’s a two-way deal, the organization helps you out as much as you do for them.
Figure out your true interests:
Now, as you complete your internship, you will have a much better perception about your likes and dislikes. You will have a better understanding of where you stand and in what direction, you want to take your career forward. Internship will also help you figure out the things that don’t interest you and whether you want to carry forward in the same direction or not. Remember that, internship will only make your perception better and you still might be left with a lot of thinking to do and still confused about your choices, nonetheless, it will provide you with a rich experience which will surely help you in the future.
No comments: