Fifteen internships later, one woman has some unusual advice for young job seekers.
Lauren Berger is a self proclaimed “Intern Queen,” and the CEO and Founder of two career resource websites, CareerQueen.com and InternQueen.com. Both sites help candidates find and land their dream roles, aid companies in hiring employees and interns, and provide overall career advice.
A lot of scrutiny has came out in recent years over the worth of unpaid internships — especially when young college students and graduates need to pay bills like everyone else.
However, Berger insisted that foregoing a paycheck is worth the struggle, if it means getting crucial experience.
“I wrote an internship book that came out in 2012, and that book was called ‘All Work, No Pay,’” Berger told YFi PM in an interview.
Although paid internships are now far more prevalent, “most of the unpaid internships you'll find will be in the nonprofit sector. So most students are actually starting to get paid for those internships now,” she said.
“I would say, only take on that unpaid internship, if you feel like it's going to provide you with invaluable experience.”
All of which begs the questions of whether 15 internships (the number Berger herself has held) too much. Berger told Yahoo Finance that many isn’t necessary, but recommends “two on your resume before you graduate.”
The first step, according to the internship veteran is “doing your research It's making that list of here are the companies that I think I might want to work for, or companies that are similar to my dream job. It's making that list and then doing your research.” Surfing LinkedIn and your alumni connections is a great way to start — even for recently-minted graduates, she said.
“You go into an internship, to decide if you're going to continue pursuing a company like that, an industry like that, a field like that, or if you just don't like it,” Berger continued. And internship-surfing can have a hidden benefit, she stated.
“And out of my fifteen internships, a lot of them were great experiences, but I knew they weren't the experience for me,” she added. “That really helped me kind of pick and choose what I did want to do and also what I did not want to do after college.”
Chelsea Lombardo is a production assistant for Yahoo Finance. You can find more of her work here.
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