Internships for a management student are way more critical than just using them as tools to impress potential employers or fleshing out CVs. If you are interested in a career in Human Resources and mean to bag a dream job, buckle up! Your HR internship is more important than you can imagine! Therefore, choose it wisely. It should give you real-life experience of working in a professional environment and dealing with the actual problems. Remember, as a management student, you are just a year away from taking the big plunge of entering into the Corporate milieu.
However, it’s up to you to make the most out of the brief stint and turn it into a career-defining one. Here’s a list explaining how do you go about maximising the gains of your internship and let it have a long-term impact on your career:
1. Get as much guidance from mentors as possible: During internships, students often work with other interns and that has its pros and cons. While the competition can bring out the best in you, the experience, on the whole, can be limiting. Hence it’s crucial that you seek out your superiors, industry mentor for guidance whenever you need to. It will give you an insight into how professionals function and interact on a daily basis.
2. Don’t lose sight of your final project: Mostly, there is no typical day for an HR intern. If your internship is going well, you will actually be bouncing between multiple responsibilities - be it staffing or employee engagement activities or simply, taking feedbacks of various initiatives. However, remember, at the end of the day, you are going to be judged on your project. Don’t lose sight of the main objective. Every day, try and spend an hour or two digging data and information to flesh your project up. Often you will find yourself in a position where you are working on everything but not your project directly. Don’t let the primary objective fizzle out.
3. You can go beyond your tasks: This might seem contradictory to the point above, but that’s not the case. In fact, you are well served by taking the initiative and handling different responsibilities, contributing ideas, etc. But it shouldn’t compromise on the tasks at hand. You will have ample opportunities to impress your superiors, so wait for the moment when you can stand out and get the attention you deserve.
4. Don’t miss out on outside-of-work experiences: Internships are a great opportunity to interact with professionals and also network with industry insiders. While you stay focused on your responsibilities, you can also engage in outside-of-work-experiences with your professional colleagues. It might mean putting in long hours during the internship, but the rapport you build with them is priceless.
5. Get feedback and monitor your progress: Don’t expect to shine during your internship from Day 1. But that doesn’t mean you stay complacent in your approach either. A successful internship is one where you are learning and growing every day. Try to grasp different HR tasks through actual experience. Get feedback from your mentor, superiors whenever possible. Assess yourself every week and identify the areas you need to work on.
6. Try to be a part of the company: Embrace the culture of the company where you are pursuing your internship. This is particularly important in modern day business scenario where the companies look for better person - organisation fit while making hiring decisions. Right from following the company's dress code to adhering to the time schedules, follow the company's norms sincerely.