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Career Advice for Job Seekers

10 tips for how to find a paid internship during the COVID-19 pandemic

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
Steven Rothberg AvatarSteven Rothberg
October 28, 2020


More than 2.5 million students and recent graduates a year use College Recruiter to help them find part-time, seasonal, internship, and entry-level jobs. Every single one of them — along with everyone else globally — has been impacted by this COVID-19 pandemic.

That doesn’t minimize what students searching for paid internships are experiencing. To the contrary: it validates it. It isn’t just students searching for paid internships who are finding it hard. It is everyone. That’s important to consider as it impacts what those students can and should do in order to find that paid internship.

Meredith Pepin, Associate Director of Career Counseling and Education for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently shared with The Muse 10 great ideas for how to find an internship during this pandemic:

  1. Use the career service office and other resources provided by your school. Sadly, only half of college graduates use their career services at all. All should and all should use the services extensively.
  2. Focus on remote work opportunities. Our job search engine does an amazing job of displaying these even if the employer does not use the word “remote” but instead uses words like virtual, home-based, work-from-home, etc. As of the writing of this blog article, we have 13,838 remote jobs advertised on our site.
  3. Use crowdsource data about who is hiring. A lot of concerned people — and some organizations — have published lists of organizations who are hiring despite or, in some cases, because of the pandemic.
  4. Speaking of organizations hiring because of the pandemic, focus on them. Traditional retailers have been hurt badly but online retailers like Amazon have greatly ramped up their hiring. Rather than applying to work for organizations which are laying people off, focus on applying to those who are hiring.
  5. Be amongst the first to apply. Some employers wait until a job has been advertised for a certain period of time before reviewing any applications so they can hire the best applicant. Most, however, are more concerned about filling the opening as quickly as possible and so hire the first, well-qualified applicant to apply. That means that the sooner you apply, the greater the likelihood is that you will be hired. Have your resume, online profile, and other materials ready so you can apply to a new opening today instead of tomorrow or even days from now.
  6. Network, network, network. This is super uncomfortable for many and done poorly by almost all. Networking isn’t about asking for help. It is about offering to help, knowing that some of those you help will reciprocate by helping you find that next, great job.
  7. Pursue a project-based or micro-internship opportunity. There are many, many sites that offer the opportunity to be paid for short-term work. The leader for short-term (also known as micro) internships is Parker Dewey. Employers pay them and they pay most of that to you. Many of those employers are hiring these interns to evaluate their talent in the hopes that they’ll be able to convert them from an intern into a full-time, entry-level employee upon graduation.
  8. Volunteer for a government agency or non-profit and use that experience to increase the chances of being hired for a paid internship. I’ve been fortunate to serve on a number of committees and even boards of non-profits. My colleagues were almost all business owners and others who frequently hire people. Over and over again I saw how impressed they were with volunteers they worked with and offered those people paid roles, sometimes with the non-profit but more often with their business.
  9. Pursue an independent project that will demonstrate your ability to do the work to a potential employer. I’ve heard over and over again from employers of software developers that they pursue students enrolled in unrelated majors but who build apps in their spare time because they find it to be fun. Whether your project aligns with your major or not, create and successfully complete a project that an employer you’re targeting will likely be impressed by and then make sure that they know about by including it in your resume. Whether you’re paid for work or not, if it is something that demonstrates your ability to do the job then you should include it on your resume.
  10. Continue your education, whether that is through a traditional school or even a free, online certificate from Google. List these in your resume’s education section, as they are a part of your educational credentials.

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