As the 2016-2017 school year comes to an end, naturally like a lot of other college students, I have started looking for summer internships back home. I found about three that seemed interesting in the area where I lived (they all paid like $15 an hour too), but every time I came home for the weekend my mom would talk about how she thinks she wants to move downstate, closer to DSU, but she isn’t sure. Because I wasn’t 100% sure where I would be during the summer, I didn’t really know what area I should apply in because I didn’t want to accept a job in my hometown and end up driving over an hour everyday during the summer, you know what I mean?
So I asked a teacher on campus if they knew any internships around the school, she put me on the phone with someone and when I asked her “so you’re based in Dover right?” she told me “I have interns in different states, you don’t have to be where I am to intern with me, a lot of the work you’ll be doing either over the phone or on the computer,” so no matter if we moved or stayed where we were, it didn’t make a difference (only thing was, I was hoping to find a paid internship for the summer and this was not).
This conversation lead me to think “well, if I could intern for her from home, then I could probably intern for other companies from home.” Turns out, online internships are definitely a thing, and paid online internships are a thing too. Maybe everyone else knew this already, but I really wished I had realized this sooner.
Here’s how to find them if you’re interested. I think it definitely depends on your major if you’ll be able to find them or not, for example, if you’re a nursing major, then there’s a chance that there won’t be much that you can learn about your major from an online internship. But if you’re say a communications major, like me, then there’s a dozen chances for you out there. Companies are looking for interns to run their social media accounts and help with things like branding or promotion, blogging, article writing and the list goes on.
If you’re familiar with DSU’s Hire-A-Hornet and the career services website, then you know that it finds internships and jobs through indeed.com, which is a great job hunt website, but personally I’ve never found anything for myself on there. The websites that I found that have shown me the best opportunities are internships.com and internqueen.com
Now, here is what you gotta do to find the internships you’re looking for.
On internships.com you’re gonna want to make an account, you’ll upload your resume and edit your profile to list all of you skills, information about your education, things like that, that way when you apply for something, the website already has your resume and all you have to do is copy and paste your cover letter and tell the company about your interest in interning with them.
Onto finding an actual online internship, go to the quick search which will be on the left side of the page. It will tell you to put what you’re looking for, so your major and/or your concentration, like I said before, my major is mass communications, and my concentration is in public relations. If you’re looking for a specific position like social media intern, go ahead and put that. When it asks for location, type “virtual”.
Because you won’t be working directly under your employer you’ll have to know how to get back and follow up with people quickly, check your email consistently, and don’t ignore numbers you don’t know (which I’m completely guilty of) because it could be with the company you’re applying for, and you may have to do a Skype interview if you’re applying for a virtual internship that’s based in another state, if you’ve never done an interview over Skype, there are a lot of tips to help it go smoothly, I made a list of what I felt was the most important that you can check out here.
Besides the fact that I didn’t know where I would be staying during the summer, I felt like working remotely would make my resumé a little more competitive because it would show that I can meet deadlines, do effective research, and do a good job without direct supervision. It shows that you’re self-motived, have time management skills, have good digital communication skills like staying on top of your email and replying to people quickly, and that you’re good with technology.
Good luck on your internship hunt!