Doing an internship is a great opportunity to see what it is like to work in that position and company. It helps you to understand whether you are a good fit for the position and whether you want to do this as a career. However, there are things to keep in mind while doing an internship and below you can find them:
- Be Professional: You are not in a school setting anymore and your coworkers are not your friends. Those are your colleagues. Thus, you need to be professional. This doesn’t mean that you need to be unfriendly. However, there is a fine line between friendly and professional and you should know how to draw that line.
- Don’t Be Lazy: You are not the CEO of the company. Therefore, you may not be the busiest person in the office but this doesn’t mean that you should sit and hang around all day long. Even if you don’t have anything to do, you can volunteer to help other people or at least you can watch what others are working on and try to learn their daily tasks. This way, next time people can give you work to do and you feel productive and useful.
- Don’t Take Days Off: You are there for only a short period of time. For this reason, it won’t be appropriate for you to take days off. If you have any vacations planned long before you found your internship, you should mention this to your manager in your first day so your manager can be prepared and it won’t be a shock for him/her.
- Don’t Over Expect: As an intern you should know your place and don’t over expect. Be realistic in your expectations. For example, don’t expect to attend a strategy meeting with the CEO or fly to another city for a client meeting. If you gain the trust of your manager and show that you are eager to work, s/he can let you attend regular staff meetings and give you tasks to complete but don’t expect more than that.
- Don’t Complain: The worst thing you can do is complain about the company or your coworkers. You should be grateful that you found an internship position. Even if you hated the place, don’t express this. Keep it to yourself.
- Ask Questions: Don’t afraid to ask questions, if you don’t understand something or don’t know how to do a certain task. It is much better to ask questions and learn rather than do something that is completely wrong. Asking questions also shows that you are interested and want to learn.
