employment
How to Get an Internship with No Work Experience
There’s no template for instant success when it comes to high school grads and college students seeking internship opportunities. Maybe there was 50 years ago, back when career paths were more traditionally defined and the job market was eager for that college degree earner.
| Read Time: 9 minutes
Important to Know
- A Resume is a Must
- Be Open to Ideas
- Consider the Type of Internship You Want
But times have changed. Expectations have changed. Opportunities have changed.
Dream internship positions might be available via nepotism for some people. But, we’re not here for those with silver spoons. We’re here to help those of you who’d prefer to develop a skillset and gain relevant experience in their chosen career path.
We can’t deliver you a great job offer. Or for that matter, an unpaid internship ourselves, as we’re broke internet side hustlers. But we can help you cast the widest net in search of one.
Let’s get started.
What type of Internship are you looking for?
The first stage in any internship search is to properly define your wants and needs. Are you looking purely for college credit? Do you need to get paid? Would you like to spend your summer living in the city of your choice?
Think of the logistical barriers that you will face in your personal life and apply that knowledge to your search. For example, it’s hard to accept an unpaid internship if you’re subletting an apartment in San Francisco for most people. Twice as hard if you have extenuating familial circumstances like caring for a family member.
It’s all in an effort to be efficient when combing over internet postings and writing (and rewriting) your resume. Account for these factors:
- Paid vs. Unpaid
- Total Number of Credits Offered
- Related to Field of Study or General Internship
- Location & Commute
- Quality of the Company or Organization
- Full-time vs. Part-time
Undergrads who gain internship experience at great companies and do a great job are often rewarded with job offers prior to graduation. Remember, a staggering number of college graduates pursue career paths that did not align with their chosen field of study. We say this to remind you to keep an open mind throughout the application process.
Tips for Explaining Your No Experience Background
Acquiring common summer internships is easier than convincing the hiring manager of an entry-level role to bring you on board as a recent graduate. That’s a fact.
It’s also a fact that candidates tend to need experience on their resume to get that offer. That’s where the internship comes into play. It’s the low(er) stakes work environment that allows you to gain experience working for different companies in your chosen line of work.
But how do you get that unpaid or paid internship with a blank resume that just lists your school and extracurricular activities and interests?
Below are a few ideas to help you ace that first internship job interview. Remember, the hiring manager knows that you have no previous experience (hint: it’s not listed on your resume because it doesn’t exist).
8 Tips to Help You
- Be Punctual. People who are late need not apply.
- Create a Cover Letter. These introductory letters have become less common in the Digital Age. Still, there’s something to be said about a candidate’s ability to convey their interest in the role and why’d they be a good fit right from the start.
- Demonstrate Hard Skills. Showing potential employers school-related projects, or even self-guided, DIY projects will allow them to better understand how you’d solve issues in real-time in their offices and warehouses.
- Focus on Teamwork. Anything you can do to impress HR reps with your ability to negotiate positive outcomes with team members will earn you points.
- Highlight Transferable Skills. Beyond teamwork, highlighting transferable skills is a great way to convince the suits that your lack of prior experience won’t hinder your ability to be a great fit in the role.
- Soothe with Soft Skills. Show that you have emotional intelligence. Show that you can resolve conflict. Soothe.
- Volley Interview Questions Back. Well thought-out questions that are topically relevant not only demonstrate your attentiveness and willingness to listen (soft skill!), they show a potential boss that you’re easy to work with, and most importantly, care. Authentic interest in a role is most easily conveyed through rebounded questions that are pertinent to not only long term strategy, but the day-to-day operations of the role and team.
- Write a Resume. A no-brainer. 99 times out 100, you aren’t getting an internship without a resume. Unless Daddy knows someone. Slightly dated, but check out HBR's Resume tips.
Easy Ways to Gain Valuable Experience
Not all experience need be related directly to your field. You could volunteering at a soup kitchen. You could become a Big Brother or Big Sister. Everyone's story is different. Tell yours.
Apprentice
Being an apprentice to a trade will highlight your ability to take direction to an employer. It could also make for an excellent discussion during the interview process if it’s in something like metallurgy.
Coach
The ability to coach others demonstrates leadership. So what if it was the youth basketball team at the local Y, it’s still a display of maturity.
Join the Peace Corps
You’re thrust into a new environment and forced to adapt to a changing landscape of responsibilities, all while using the tools at your current disposal. The Peace Corps builds character.
Semester-at-Sea
In a way, it’s the Peace Corps on the ocean. Sort of. Maybe not.
Still, Semester-at-Sea shows resilience.
Start a Blog
Sure, it’s a sharp fall in responsibility from the last two, but starting a blog and building up subject matter expertise can demonstrate to a potential recruiter that you possess ability to dive deep into a project. Constantly updating it with new information shows reliability and follow through. And who knows, you may just able to monetize it.
PS - This is what we'd do if we wanted a Digital Marketing Internship.
Unpaid Work
Art students have been employing the unpaid route to success for years. It’s quite easily the fastest way to gain experience, as the expectations for your output are (typically) lower than you’d find in a “real” job, while the demands of the client tend to be (typically) high.
Volunteer or Work for a Non-Profit
Perhaps the most feel good way to get experience, volunteer opportunities are everywhere. Truly. And no one is turning down free labor.
Where to Find Internship Programs in a Job Search
Attend Job Fairs
It may feel antiquated, but attending a job fair in-person offers you a direct conduit to meet with the recruitment staff of a hiring company. You wouldn’t believe the line down the hall that used to form when the Disney recruiter landed on campus. And those “internships” were just for parking cars and selling merch.
Create a LinkedIn Profile
Creating a profile on the Social Media Platform specifically made for cultivating business connections and relationships is an excellent place to begin growing your network online. There's a grandstanding too. But once you learn the language of LinkedIn, it will all make sense.
Develop Social Media Relationships
Responsible, at least digitally responsible, students can work their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter connections to source opportunities. Further, the viral nature of the algorithms involved may just drop opportunities into your feed.
Not a joke. On the surface it would appear that way, given the generally bankrupt nature of the results found during a cursory Google Search of the word internship.
However, maintaing something faculty with Google's Search Operators will go a long way toward uncovering less commonly discovered results, most likely in your general field of study.
Scour Job Boards
First it was Monster. Then it was Career Builder. Now it’s Indeed. Job boards are one of the fastest and most reliable ways to seek out open positions.
Reach Out to Recruiters
Recruiters and Staffing Agencies, also known as Headhunters, trade in the currency of paid and unpaid labor. They are in direct communication with not only the internal HR staff of many agencies, corporations and firms, but many hiring managers as well. Bonus points for you if they placed that hiring manager at the company.
Visit the College Career Center
The staff at your University’s Career Services Center often have connections to local companies and organizations that are looking for fresh talent like yourself. Oftentimes this is cyclical, as the company donates to build a new Computer Science Lab, and then gets a sudden influx of Software Engineering grads to shore up their dev teams.
Non-Traditional Internship Options
In-Semester Internship
Traditional students take traditional paths to success. Think outside of the box and applying for an in-semester internship at a company instead. Many companies offer internships during the Fall and Spring Semesters to prospective students who are either taking a reduced workload, or the semester off altogether. You may even find less competition for that coveted role during Spring when everyone just wants to party the year out.
Micro-Internships
An interesting concept, Micro-Internships are small way for prospective interns to get their hands dirty on real work, while also being introduced to a potential employer they’d like to work for. If this intrigues you, check out Parker-Dewey, one of the leading Micro-Internship organizations around. To note, they tend to call them Career Launchers.
Are You Really Applying With Zero Experience?
Did you have a job in High School? Did you assume an in-school leadership role as part of a club or organization? Did you perform community service in your home town?
These are the types of things that college students with limited (or no) experience should be listing on their resumes when it comes to applying to internships or even entry-level roles after graduation.
Or Don’t Apply at All
Get a job instead. Many employers are rewarding the practical achievement of maintaining gainful employment in any field so long as a candidate shows initiative and promise. They, prospective employers, are beginning to understand that more and more students are taking less traditional paths to the workplace, and that they also have different financial needs and backgrounds from generations prior.
So why not work your Summers and Winters away and earn a paycheck? After all, you’re only young once.
What would we do with no experience?
If you're asking us, we'd start a side hustle in something that could be monetized. But taking the internship-guided path, it would probably be something in Real Estate. For $200-400 and one weekend of your time, you can take a Real Estate License class and get an initial certification. From there, you could work for free with a local realtor.
Real Estate is a profession that has a low barrier of entry, while simultaneously offering a wide variety of skill-building exercises, including customer service, marketing, relationship building and sales. Plus, it has excellent side hustle potential.
What’s Next
That’s up to you. Whether it’s a top notch summer internship or it’s starting up a side hustle, the choice is all yours.
But also, learn Excel.