An increase in micro-internships for college students — often virtual and usually very short project-based work — has raised questions about the value of these experiences versus longer-term semester or summer internships. The long and the short of it is that any internship experience can offer learning opportunities that allow students to apply skills and classroom learning in the real world if students know how to make the most of them.
“Success in virtual internships requires students to operate differently than students completing brick and mortar internships,” says Patrick Sullivan, associate director of personal and career development at Wake Forest University – a national leader in personal and career development in higher education.
“Students completing virtual or micro-internships need to be more entrepreneurial than their peers with on-site internships. They need to be better self-managers. They need to know how to use verbal and written communication skills across a variety of platforms, and they must be proactive in their approach to interacting with peers, teammates and project managers.”
On the surface, virtual internships and micro-internships limit the ability of a student to have those “water-cooler” discussions that provide insight into the organization’s culture. The reality, however, is that these relationships can be developed through intentional actions on the part of the intern. Students can request brief feedback from their manager, connect with colleagues via social media and choose alternative means of communication, in much the same way that remote, full-time workers build relationships.
Sullivan offers these tips for interns pursuing virtual or micro-internships:
Schedule time to do the work. Because virtual interns will not have a manager looking over their shoulders, they have to be responsible for making the time and completing the work.
Be proactive in building relationships. Students at Wake Forest use WebEx to interact with faculty and staff when they are abroad. They can use the same resources to build a relationship with their project manager while completing a virtual or micro-internship.
Leverage the virtual or micro-internship into something more. It may be possible for students completing a virtual or micro-internship to request additional short-term work and/or to explore the possibility of longer-term and full-time opportunities.
Do employers benefit?
Virtual internships and micro-internships are a positive for employers, too. “Hiring students as virtual interns gives employers much greater geographic reach,” Sullivan says. “An employer in New York City, for example, could have a student in Winston-Salem, N.C., working as a virtual intern.”
With more full-time employees working remotely, employers have the infrastructure to manage remote workers and projects, so virtual internships and micro-internships are not out of the ordinary, and they can be a win-win for both students and employers.
RSS