BSc Management: The Internship hunt

Hello again,
The bachelor program at KLU comprises one or two internships, depending on the track you’ve chosen. They are 12 weeks long and usually take place during the summer holidays. Our internship hunt began last year, in November.

For a first semester student, finding an internship (to be more precise: a good, educational internship) can be rather difficult. Especially when you’re going for a bigger company with a name, the online application jungle can seem endless. I was once stuck in an application process that had 18 different steps and dragged on for a couple of weeks.

Starting early and being goal oriented is key.
But even if you start way ahead of time and fight through countless online application interfaces and assessment centers, the internship hunt can be frustrating without what we call “vitamin B” (relationships) in Germany. However, we get help to some extent here at KLU. The Career Development office, which also forwards contacts in some cases, will check your CV and application letter. You may also benefit from the steadily growing alumni network or older students who will post their former internship or working student positions in the student group.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, participating in the extracurricular lectures at KLU can be rather helpful. Some of my fellow students were able to land internships in their preferred department this way (HR at a big maritime company, for example). I can also recommend one of the career development sessions in the first semester. You will practice informal interviewing and analyze application techniques there, which makes the search much easier for the students who meet with department heads and have personal interviews.

Obviously, not all internships and employers are perfect, supportive, pay well and enthusiastic about giving students a practical education. To limit the probability of being stuck with a rather unpleasant internship experience, you can take a look at the internship reports of the BSc and MSc students from earlier cohorts. After each internship period (semester holiday), the students must report whom their employer was, which tasks they were assigned, how they dealt with them, what they learned, and their recommendations to other students who are searching for internships. Selected students will also present their employers and experiences to the new students. They are usually happy to give advice or share potential employers (and their contacts) with you.

At the beginning of my application process, I was only looking for positions in consulting firms or finance departments. After a while, I also used my former high school’s alumni network and was happy to land an internship in the Finance department of a big maritime services provider and one in a consulting firm. However, it took me – and, I assume, many other students in my class – some time to get there.

Here is another piece of advice: Tell as many people as possible about your internship search and use networking opportunities (also the ones here at KLU). Eventually, somebody will know somebody who knows somebody in the department or company of your dreams who is searching for an intern (and you will not have to endure the online application processes any longer).
Eventually, all the internship-seekers in my BSc class were successful. I hope you find this post helpful.

Bye for now,
Helen