Benefits of a Summer internship and why to start preparing now!

Summer internships are an amazing opportunity to experience working first hand in the industry while often being paid for your work! While University stops in the Summer, internships allow you to build a whole new set of skills. These skills combined with your degree allow for you to have the best possible opportunity when looking for a job post-uni. Being able to create a great CV, cover letter, prepare for an interview and interact well with employers is such an accomplishment and will help you massively in the future. It is also a great time to experiment with the industry you have chosen and to see if you want to fully commit to it after Uni or look into something else.

Places to look out for internships are the website ‘rate my placement’ or just searching on google or on your desired company’s website for updates in the early careers section. The best time to look for these is starting from September up until Christmas time and the beginning months of the year for the summer as they can be extremely competitive, but they are also good to secure so you can arrange your summer around them. Depending on the industry, the time when internships come out varies- so just keep checking!

Make sure you have a specific CV and cover letter prepared for the industry you are looking for, so you are ready to submit away! Companies are looking for a genuine interest and any prior work experience which doesn’t have to be related but it’s always good to show a combination of related and other work experience. Canva is an amazing software app and website to provide you with an easy CV template and lots of options. It’s easy to edit the CV on Canva and you can just save it as PDF when ready to upload.

You now have a few months to prepare and get really interested in the industry you are looking for before it’s time to apply.

Good luck and please leave some tips or any questions below!!

Yasmin (BA Design Marketing)

Reply 1

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

Cool, thanks for sharing Yasmin!

Kingston University

Kingston upon Thames

Reply 2

Lancaster Student Ambassador

Official Rep

Another thing I recommend is approaching your university's careers team and asking them for advice with applications. They're usually more than happy to check over a CV or cover letter, and if you tell them what job areas you are interested in they might point you in the right direction or even be able to forward on any relevant opportunities they see!

When I was applying, my careers team recommended adding a "scientific interest" section to my CV in addition to my work experience section. While my work experience wasn't super relevant to the sector, I had attended talks/conferences and was a member of some bioscience societies; this additional section really highlighted my passion for science.

Rebecca (Lancaster Student Ambassador)