Everything You Need to Know About High School Internships

Why?

In today's competitive world of college applications, having a strong resume is important as ever. While colleges look for good grades, test scores, and extracurriculars; having an internship adds an interesting layer of complexity to your college applications. Internships provide great work experience, and can help you determine if it's something you want to do for a career. However, many internship positions are unpaid, so make sure you are interested in the field you choose and wouldn't mind doing it for free. Some programs (especially with tech internships) will even offer to pay for your college education if you stick with the company after you graduate from college.If you intern within the field of your future college major, admissions officers will see that you're dedicated to the major that you're applying to, which can increase your chances of being accepted to your desired colleges

How?

Creating a resume is the first step in any job searching process. When applying for internships, you need to remember that you are competing against others who may have more qualifications and experiences, which is why it is important that you should present a strong resume. . A strong resume allows the recruiters to accurately assess your experience and skills, which will help them determine if you are qualified for the position.

Now that you have a resume, the next step is finding an internship. The best way to find an internship is to ask your connections. Whether that be your family members, friends, teachers and counselors, they may have ties to employers who are currently offering internship positions.. A counselor, for example, has connections with local colleges that may hire high schoolers for internship positions. If you are having trouble finding one through your connections, a great alternative is to use websites such as Indeed, Glassdoor, Linkedin, and Internships.com. These sites may be daunting to use at first, but they speed the internship searching process marginally and allow you to apply with your resume quickly. There are many internship positions advertised and the majority of them are tailored towards high school students. Scroll through the chat and you will find countless internship opportunities across many different fields.Another quick and simple way to find internships is checking the opportunities section of the E4A discord. If you still have trouble finding one, the last option is to cold call or email small businesses. Many business owners appreciate cold calling and emailing, because it shows them that you have initiative, which is a trait that many of them desire in their interns or employees. Reach out to any local business and be professional and concise. It may be scary at first but remember - the worst they can really say to you is "no."

What?

A strong resume is the recruiter’s first impression of you, which is a key factor to landing your desired internship. Some important things to include are:

Education - Any classes that you have taken that relate to the subject matter of the internship (eg. applying for a software developing internship, including all of the computer science classes you have taken.)

Contact information - internship positions typically have hundreds of applications, and recruiters simply don't have the time to look through all of the applications. Putting your contact information at the top allows recruiters to quickly jot down your contact information if they see something they like on your resume.

Volunteer experience - recruiters like to see initiative, and volunteering for things you care about shows them that you are committed to helping out your community, which shows that you are capable of completing their tasks

This is just a shortlist of some things to include. There are countless ways to format your resume and many different opinions. Do a little research and figure out what works best for you with your experience.

Letters of recommendation from people who know you well are also helpful towards your application. Since you typically won't have any work experience within the subject field of your internship, letters of recommendation from teachers within that subject is important to employers to know that you are competent enough to hire.

In conclusion, getting an internship in high school is difficult, as you will be competing against other qualified candidates, but it is definitely not impossible. The pros of bolstering your college application, getting work experience, and possibly getting paid definitely outweigh the small bit of work you need to put in to attain an internship.