Summer Internships in Business Schools: How to Choose Them

The typical business school course is structured in such a manner that students get the chance to intern in companies during the break between the first and the second years. These summer internships provide valuable on the job experience though the typical duration of a summer internship is two or three months.

The point here is that the summer internships are useful to students to gauge the kind of companies that they would want to work after graduation and to find the sectors in which they would like to work.

For instance, if your summer internship is in a marketing company or a financial institution, the summer internship provides valuable insights into determining whether you are fit for marketing or finance.

Further, summer internships are valuable because many students get pre placement offers from the companies where they intern during the summer.

In other words, getting recruited before the formal placements season is indeed beneficial for students as they need not go through the pressure cooker situation that the placement season imposes on them as well as the fact that they can breathe easy considering that they have an offer in hand.

In the present economic scenario where placements of their choice are hard to come by for many students, pre placement offers and summer internships are extremely useful and handy for the students.

The other aspect about summer internships is that students get the chance to check if their profile matches with that of the company or the sector’s requirements. For instance, many students who intern with consultancies and investment banks get valuable lessons on how consultancies and investment banks work, which helps them, build their profile for the final placements accordingly.

Considering the fact that business school is a place where one needs to build a profile that matches recruiter requirements as well as the fact that one must fit within the organizational culture, summer internships provide the necessary opportunity to actualize these aspects.

Further, summer internships are also provide students from non-urban areas to meld into the urban organizational and behavioral aspects which is badly needed considering that most corporates eventually place their students in urban settings.

Apart from this, there are many summer internships that are available in foreign countries and this is again another opportunity for students to check whether they are fit for foreign postings.

In recent years, summer internships are being taken as seriously as the final placements because the conversion rate for internships translating into pre placement offers has gone up. Moreover, laterals or those with more than two years experience often find that summer internships are a stepping-stone to the lateral placement season that runs concurrently with the final placements season.

In addition, summer internships are a boon to corporates as well because they can vet the students who intern with them and decide whether they are fit to work in the company eventually.

There are some business schools that have made it mandatory for students to intern with non-governmental agencies during the summer break. This is again a laudable idea, as most management graduates do not experience CSR or social and community work after they are placed. This is also a good idea as increasingly CSR is becoming central to the workings of the corporates and hence, interning with NGOs would definitely add perspective to the students once they begin their careers.

Having said that, it must be noted that students must not be disheartened if they are not placed in the company of their choice for their summer internship. On the contrary, they must use it as opportunity to equip themselves with the skills needed for eventual placements as well as use the failure as a learning lesson to build their profile accordingly.