New Year New Job

The realities of competing in the job market

Your future begins in 4 Months

January is the perfect time to start preparing for your summer internship or first job after graduation. At The Intern Mentor, we currently have openings for one-on-one coaching that can give you the boost you need to advance to a promotion.

As internship opportunities continue to drop, the competition gets more intense. “The application process for internships has become just as competitive as for full-time roles,” Lesley Mitler, a career coach who specializes in college students, tells the Financial Times.

Inside the Hiring Process

We would get 50+ applicants for just 3-4 openings. And this was before COVID. As a former internship program director, there are some immediate red flags that I continue to see when reviewing resumes and portfolios that would immediately take candidates out of the running. And unlike before COVID, those I work with now, struggle to understand the importance of these callouts. To add to this, even internships look for experience, and when faced with a choice between a candidate with no experience and one with a prior internship... let me just say it was a tough sell to executives if I didn't pick the more experienced.

That said, several of my most memorable and best interns were NOT seasoned. They were in their first internship but understood the intangibles.

This is not to scare you, though I know it is really scary. The bottom line is you don't know what kind of hiring manager will review your materials. Everyone sees different opportunities and has their own list of deal breakers that usually come from past experiences. What you do know is that there are some certain universal skills and traits that are perceived favorably over others. You can leverage this to your advantage. The easiest way to do that is to start thinking from the hiring manager's point of view.