I’m sure you’ve seen hundreds of summer internship announcement posts on LinkedIn. They seem endless — especially if you don’t have a clue what you’re doing this summer. Despite what it may feel like, less than half of college students are actually able to secure one of these coveted summer gigs.
Summer internships can be significant professional stepping stones. The problem is that there aren’t enough stones for everyone to step on. Top technology, finance and consulting companies, which normally hire a large number of interns, have been cutting costs and reducing their workforces. Students might check all the boxes — outstanding grades, extracurriculars and lengthy recruitment prep — but still fall short in securing an internship before the school year ends.
Considering how cutthroat and competitive the University of Michigan can be when it comes to recruiting, it’s understandable if students feel like they’re falling behind if they don’t have an internship this summer. This, however, is only true if you treat zero job offers like a death sentence. Not having an internship can and should be an opportunity to get ahead of your peers if you play your cards right. All you have to do is say yes.
Whether you’ve received dozens of internship offers or zero, it’s likely that you’ve done the exact same things and taken practically the same steps as everyone else. Theoretically, strategic coffee chats and recruiting sessions, stressful interviews and lengthy applications should be enough to propel your career. But in an uncertain and competitive job market, you cannot just be cookie cutter and expect an internship to come your way. Instead, you should accentuate your individuality by agreeing to engage in new and potentially uncomfortable opportunities.
If the traditional path is closed you will have to take a less traveled one. That might mean doing something that is unnatural or something that doesn’t come easy to you. It might even mean taking part in opportunities outside the scope of your major. But by putting yourself in uncomfortable situations at a time when others are sticking to the status quo, you can set yourself up for unparalleled personal and professional advancement.
Venturing beyond the confines of your major and into roles that aren’t a natural fit will enhance your ability to understand and relate to perspectives vastly different from your own. Moreover, having a broad range of skills and flexibility will better equip you with critical thinking and creativity than compared to those who excel only in a narrow field. As labor competition is buttressed by tech advancements like artificial intelligence, it is especially beneficial to gain skills like empathy, creativity and communication through unorthodox projects or situations.
I don’t want to sugarcoat the fact that it takes a lot of good karma to be in a position to say yes. Just as with traditional internships, there are only so many opportunities to go around and it is often difficult to reach a place in life that allows you to obtain them. It’s easy to say that you’re just unlucky when it comes to opportunities or that others were simply in the right place at the right time. The key to overcoming this is by rethinking your conception of success.
Good fortune with opportunities isn’t just some serendipitous gift to be won; it is a consequence of deliberate action and persistence. To be a yes-sayer, you need to try to facilitate your own fortune by taking the initiative to move towards opportunities. Being proactive will increase your visibility and can ultimately attract opportunity as more people will find and reach out to you.
It’s important to recognize that this manner of cultivating such opportunities is a numbers game. For example, cold emailing is a great way to open yourself to new opportunities. But it’s unlikely you will get an opportunity if you only send a cold email once. If you were to send 500, though, there’s a much better chance for responses. If you want to start participating in unconventional but deeply fulfilling opportunities, you need to treat fortune like a choice, not a chance.
Saying yes to the unconventional can come with its challenges. In particular, there are plenty of students whose days are so consumed by recruitment, academics and extracurriculars that they just don’t have the time to discover and participate in an extraneous activity. However, these students should recognize that yes-saying can be small and still impactful. Simply saying yes to an unconventional experience or one-day outing has the potential to further you professionally and personally.
Moreover, many students are probably uncomfortable going off the beaten path as they do not want to be judged for straying from the traditional method of professional development. When it seems like everyone is doing the same thing, it makes it a lot harder to try something new.
But, when thinking about internships and careers, it’s important to realize that people are so ingrained in their own journey that it’s unlikely they’re watching yours too closely. So, if you don’t have an internship, start a business with friends, develop an app, volunteer with local organizations, join a Hackathon or make a film — this summer is the perfect time to start saying yes. The possibilities can truly be endless.
Max Feldman is an Opinion Columnist who writes about culture at the University and elsewhere. He can be reached at maxfeld@umich.edu.