InternshipRatings.com

By Carol Cone
Chairman and Founder
Cone, Inc.

Early June marked the summer term for Cone’s internship program. How exciting to see so many bright young women and men gathering in our lobby. “Where are you at school?” I asked. BU, Emerson, Rochester, BC, Michigan State, among others. They were undergrads and graduate students joining our firm to get a deep immersion in a strategy and communications agency.

For a moment I reflected on the first day of my internship, 31 years ago. I joined Newsome and Company, New England’s top marketing communications firm. There I learned the business from the ground up. From copying and filing, to research and writing brochures, press releases, bios. From there, I moved up quickly and researched event sponsorship opportunities for clients.

Two months later fate crossed my office door, which was a glorified broom closet. Small. Windowless. (So your space doesn’t matter. It is the work you’re exposed to.)

Salomon, the ski equipment company, contacted us looking for a communications partner. As one of the few skiers on staff, and a good one I might say, I was assigned to a vice-president on the pitch team which is a the formal presentation to win the business. We slaved, what seemed to me hundreds of hours (probably not at all but when you are a rookie, who can keep track of time?) to prepare. And we prevailed!.

I was hired to be the agency’s account executive on Salomon. What joy and luck too. (Being in the right place at the right time doesn’t hurt a career.) I had to go to industry trade shows exhibiting the newest in ski equipment, attended conferences at ski resorts like Vail, and worked with editors and industry vips, to demonstrate new products. I even was part of the Salomon communications team at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.

I worked for that agency for three years until I was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and started Cone in 1980. I was the third generation in my family to start a business!

Today, we are 100 strong, focused on helping organizations, for profits and non profits build trusted relationships with their stakeholders. At the core of Cone is our work with causes. That is my true love and passion. Focused on cause marketing since 1982 (which we now call Cause Branding) has gained us the mantle of the nation’s top cause consultancy creating initiatives like the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade ( in 50 countries around the world), Reebok’s human rights programs, American Heart’s Go Red for Women and PNC Grow up Great are just a few. All told, our cause work has: started people walking for health and fitness, taking better care of themselves to lower their risk of heart disease, as well as helping children gain a solid early start on their education. Our programs have also raised more than $750 million for causes. (for more information go to www.coneinc.com or our blog: doyoustandforsomething.com)

I have been called the “Mother of Cause Marketing” and it all began with my internship.So you see, an internship can be the launching pad for a career, an industry and a means to change the world, one person at a time.

So when I met the founders and learned about Internshipratings.com I had to participate.

I am totally pro intern because of my experience.  Cone has a robust program, hosting approximately 15 students a semester, three times a year.  We take this responsibility very seriously, assigning our interns to accounts where they get real work in a team environment.  We even have mid term evaluations by our staff and make mid-course improvements to the internship experience, if necessary.

I also host a meeting each semester  – lunch or breakfast as we love meetings with food here — to tell my story and more importantly share my thoughts about how to get a job.

Companies who develop and manage robust intern programs create a wonderful opportunity for young professionals to trial their skills in differing environments. As most college grads leave school without a clear idea of a career path, internships provide a taste of industries, organization cultures, internal politics and various work-styles.

Below find some of my tips to get the most from your internship…..as you never know where the experience will take you.

1. Try multiple internships during college.  Test and learn the industries and working environments that are interesting to you.

2. Participate fully in the experience.  Arrive daily with enthusiasm and a can do attitude no matter what you are doing.

3.Ask for a full time staffer to be your mentor, no matter what their age.  Take them to lunch and ask for their help throughout your time with the firm.

4. Buddy up with another intern or a few.  Share the good and the not so good. Learn from each other and the work.

5. Keep a journal of your experience.  I did and I love to look back upon that time and see what I was feeling and learning.

6. Read. Read. Read.  Learn about the organization you are working for even before the first day.  Set up Google push alerts about the company and their industry.  Devour their website.  Read news about them.  What are their strengths?.  Where are they going?.  How might you help?.

7. While you may be short on experience, you do bring some great knowledge to the company.  First and foremost you are a millennial and a digital native (I assume.) You have consumer tastes you can share.  Perhaps you can help your workplace become more informed about social networking.  Perhaps you have an idea for the company website to enhance it via new media applications.

8. Write.  Write.  Write.  Unfortunately the art of persuasive writing is being lost.  And in business, the ability to write compelling copy is critical….whether a brief email, a speech, an analysis of a report or a topline of an industry.  Volunteer to write lots.

9. Start your portfolio now, if you haven’t already.  Anything that you do during your internship, writing, research, graphics, analysis, add to your portfolio.  Build it over your college years and be sure to make it very neat and as sophisticated a representation of how you think and what you know.  And if you are really a digital native, put your portfolio online.

10. Start building your contact database.  Linked In or others.  Even in an internship you are beginning to network. You never know when you will find someone who will offer to connect you with someone else to launch your career.

And lastly, ask for real work, as challenging as you can handle.  And work with your team – interns and full time staff – as the project evolves.  Collaboration is one of the secrets to my success and is more important than ever today. Nobody corners the market on new ideas and solutions.  Teams who can candidly question and share can create amazing results.

I could go on and on, but I was told to keep it short.  I hope this list helps you to gain a solid start with any of your internships.

And don’t forget to ask your workplace whether they hire from their intern pool.  We do. Some of our most talented staff have started as interns.

Enjoy. And Learn.  

Good luck with your quest to find your personal passion. 

By Nora K. Jemison  
Director, Experiential Education & Employer Outreach  
New York Institute of Technology

 Q. Yikes! It’s almost summer and I haven’t found an internship! What do I doooooooooo?

A. First and foremost, don’t panic. Keep looking. Thanks to the hot job market in the high tech fields, it’s possible to find “last minute” internship opportunities even right up through July. Think about it: sometimes a student who found an internship may have decided to turn down the opportunity for whatever reason, leaving a frustrated employer scrambling for a replacement. Also, employers are just like students — sometimes they procrastinate. If you’re prepared to take advantage of these opportunities, you can score a last-minute internship easily.

Visit your college’s career office ASAP to find out about still-available internships. Also, Craigslist.org is a great place to find “last minute” opportunities. There’s no fee or delay to post positions there, so employers who are in a bind will more often post there than someplace like Dice.com, Monster.com, or your local paper.

But okay. So let’s say for whatever reason that you still don’t find an internship for the summer. You can still gain experience via personal projects. Here are some examples.

The “Junior Bill Gates” Plan: Want to run your own tech startup someday? Start now — spend the summer researching how to write a successful business plan, and write up one for your dream business. For bonus points, go ahead and use this plan to pitch for a business loan at your bank, or with a potential investor (you might want to start with someone who’s currently investing in you… like a parent). If you’re really feeling daring, enlist friends to become part of your “development team” and get them involved — for example, a graphic design major can help you build a nice-looking website to showcase your product (and gain some useful experience herself). A business major can help you with the business plan and investor pitch.

The REALLY Hardcore Gamer Plan: Like video games? Try writing one of your own. You may have to teach yourself some skills that you don’t yet know, like computer graphics or advanced programming techniques — but that’s OK, because then you’ll be able to add these new skills to your resume at the end of the summer, and you’ll get better grades when you finally do take these classes. If your idea is really hot, enlist a team of other students to help you with it — other programmers, computer animation majors, maybe some business majors looking to build a business plan. For bonus points, start networking with professional gamers, by joining your local chapter of the International Game Developers Association (igda.org) and attending their networking functions. These events are usually fun and casual and welcoming to bright-eyed students, and pro game people love to talk about their work. You may even find some mentors willing to help you out… or buy your idea.

The Chatty Cathy Plan: If you’re a techie who’s a little more verbal/social than most, use your l33t communications skills to kick-start your career with a weblog. Come up with a catchy title and interesting subject matter, and write posts which showcase your ability to be articulate, witty, and to “hook” an audience. Try not to replicate the tech blogs that are already out there; put your own unique spin on things. For example, let’s say you’re a gamer who’s not part of the typical young white male demographic, and you want the world to know what you think about the latest hottest stuff. Or let’s say you have poetic leanings, and decide to post weekly haikus about circuit design. (Hey, I’d read it.) Bonus points: teach yourself how to use some blogging technology/technique that’s in high demand these days, like Movable Type, Wordpress, or search engine optimization. Your next internship search should go a lot better with those on your resume.

Hope this gives you some ideas. With a little passion and intiative — attributes that employers really love to see — you can get great experience whether you have a summer internship or not. And since personal projects can go on your resume (ask a career counselor how to showcase this experience), think of them as your own custom-built internship!