Finding Internships: Where to Look

As we wrote before, the best place to start looking for internships is your office of career services. Most financial firms, or companies with internship classes, recruit through the office of career services. Unfortunately, this means you're competing against your classmates, but if you cast a wide enough net, chances are something will stick. And we're not on the open waters; this isn't a case of catch and return. Basically, it's a numbers game.

And it's no longer just the big banks that are recruiting on campus. It's true that Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, UBS, Bear, Lehman, JP Morgan, Jefferies, Lazard, McKinsey, Monitor, Bain, Mercer, and BCG recruit on campus, but these days, Polo, Google, Microsoft and smaller companies are building the infrastructure to actually go to schools and give information sessions for students. Take advantage of these. Go to the meetings, and introduce yourself afterwards. Maybe you'll miss a girl's JV soccer game, or a rush event or a carefully carved out period of relaxing, but it's worth it. Get to your office of career services and see what is available to you.

Many years ago, when Al Gore was sitting in his little office, or wherever he was, just conceiving the internet, he couldn't have imagined, in his wildest dreams, how valuable a resource it would be for career-oriented college students. Not only do schools have internal networks for their students, but knowing which sites to hit for career searches is crucial. First our buddies at Doostang have a great thing going which presupposes a certain level of education. Second, and we'll get into this more on Thursday, but the Jobster Facebook application is an incredibly valuable tool for a focused job search.

There are also many specialized sites to help the job search. Paid Content, Mediabistro, and Gawker have amazing openings for New Media and more traditional forms of journalism. Variety careers is also incredible for entertainment positions.

But just e-mailing your resume and cover letter is usually a fool's errand. Once you send something to anyone, FOLLOW UP! See if you have any personal connection to the company you're applying to. If you don't have a connection, don't throw in the towel. Always call the human resources office and just introduce yourself. "Hi, I'm Intern Ted, or Intern Ellie or whatever. I just submitted my application through your site. I am calling to introduce myself and make sure you received it."

Don't worry if you're not looking to start for nine months. Last time we checked, that's how long it takes to the plant the seed. A seed that grows and grows until it becomes a real live human, ready to enter the world.

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