Those of us who have at least once in our lifetime searched for a job or skimmed over a job post on LinkedIn or other platforms have stumbled over the word “Experience”.
But as a fresh graduate, how can one possibly have “working experience” for any given time?
This is a huge barrier for job seekers from applying for the job let alone getting a call for interviews.
But how can a student be ahead in the rat race?
The answer to this is “Internship”.
What is an Internship?
According to wikipedia, “An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organisation for a limited period of time”.
That is, an internship is the perfect scope for a student to get the very wanted “Experience” from the job seekers.
When a company recruits interns, they already know that these people have little to no experience, and they need to invest time to teach them how basic things work.
This is way better than those fresh graduates with no experience seeking a full-time job who end up becoming a liability to the firm in which they were employed due to their lack of experience.
The best time to enrol in an internship is when one is still a student.
So when they graduate as freshers, they already have a few months of “working experience” who know how the basic things in a corporate firm works.
Consequently they are not a liability to a firm anymore, thus they are way ahead from their batchmates with no “working experience”.
How to Grab an Internship as a Student in Bangladesh?
The internship facilities for students in Bangladesh are a little outdated to be honest.
In foreign countries there are three academic segments in colleges (the one we call university in Bangladesh), two semesters and one break.
During this break most of the students go to work for a firm as an intern. But this is not the case with Bangladesh as there is no such gap period in the academic year.
And most of the firms here organise internship programs for already graduated students, that is, for those who are not a student anymore.
So what to do in such a case?
Students need to be really alerted for the announcements for those small amounts of organisations who arrange internship or ambassador programs for students.
One of those organisations being the Youth School of Social Entrepreneurs(YSSE) itself. But there is a drawback in this case.
Most of these internships are unpaid, that is, one will not earn any honorarium by investing their time and energy.
On the other hand, these programs go on along with the academic pressure of the students as we get no break.
That is the reason why many students are quite reluctant to apply for these kinds of internship programs.
But one needs to remember that if you get some, you lose some. So in order to be ahead in this life race, one needs to make sacrifices and apply for these programs.
What to do after getting the Internship?
Now say you have gotten yourself into such a program. There are various hacks to make the most out of it.
One needs to learn time management, cooperation, engagement and all other work ethics.
We have to show our maximum performance in these programs so that we can get recognition from the firms and showcase that in our CV.
Many of us know that we are sincere workers and will do excellent in our work life.
But will we prove that to our future employers?
Internships are the only way to do so. Through those recognitions, our employers will know how worthy we are to their companies and thus it will be easy for them to hire us out of all the applicants, otherwise our job applications will stay piled up somewhere and others will get ahead of us.
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Writer
Rifah Zakiah
Intern, Content Writing Department
YSSE