How to have an awesome Internship

Internship are really tough to get these days, I know I had to go through many companies to get to Qwest this summer. It is really beneficial to all students wanting to know what work is expected of them out of college. I had great success this summer with my internship because of these few things I did:

1. Communication. I know this is beat too death, but it is essential for an awesome internship. When I say communication I mean actually getting to know the person as a professional and as a person. When I first came into Qwest I made myself accountable to spend time getting to know the people I would be working with immediately. Ask them personal questions then, after I got passed that part I asked them what I would be working on and how they would like reports. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!! Bosses always what reports catered to way they like it.

2. Be Assertive. As an intern you have to be able to read between the lines. You have to put things together because your boss wants you to figure it out. When you work on projects you are doing it for a purpose. Remember that!! For example I was pulling reports for work codes on employees. I decided to look a little closer and found that Qwest was giving different work codes for employees who did the same job. I brought this up to my boss and now they are in the process of combining those work codes for employees who do the same job. Which is going to save about 20 hours of accounting work every two weeks.

3. Continue to ask for work. Never be content with doing the bare minimum. Whenever I got done with a report, work, or project I didn’t take a break and go on linkedin, facebook, etc. I went to boss and ask “Is there anything else I can help out with?” My boss was really impressed with the ambitious attitude and told me in my review at the end of the summer.

4. 10-30-60 pie chart. This is something I got from a friend and applied to my internship. 10-30-60 are percentage of what you should do while working with a company. 10% is for performance. I know you are like dude your performance should be 60%. Performance is important but if know knows who you are and go on day by day just doing work… you are going to be forgotten about. You should always be doing hardwork all the time. 30% is Image. Image is who you are and what you represent. What I mean by this is what do other people thing of you? If it is good your image is ok. If it is great that your image good. DON’T LET IT BE BAD!!! The last 60% is exposure. This is your ability of becoming visible to multiple people and influence others in a positive way. For instance, during my internship I talk to the president of Nebraska in the corporation and VP of Supply and Chain because I went out of my way to contact them. How I did that? By exposing myself to my bosses boss (who was a VP). In which she gave me the opportunity to contact them.

If you develop these little skills it will take you a long way.

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