how to get converted from your internship

You’ve passed the first hurdle and secured the internship that you want! You are pumped and eager to impress your boss. Many students secure jobs from being converted after an internship and it is vital to make a good impression for future references. Here are 5 ways to impress your boss and secure a conversion offer!

1.       First Impressions
First impressions are vital. Arriving on time and dressing the part is important and there are no excuses. This extends to not being the first to leave the office, not taking an excessively long lunch hour and keeping up with your professional look even if other colleagues dress very casually.

At the same time, strike and balance and don’t overdo it. Everyone is aware of how much work interns are actually assigned, staying excessively late in the office just makes you look foolish. Likewise, there is no need to turn up in a full suit every day.

Be sure to be polite and introduce yourself to your colleagues even if they don’t make the first move. Talk to people you bump into at the pantry, say Hi to the receptionist and offer to help if someone looks like they need it. All of these small actions will help build an informal network and as people are more aware of your presence, you will have more opportunities to shine.

2.       Being productive in your Downtime
Millennials are associated with being social-media and internet obsessed. You do not want to become part of this statistic or contribute to the one-to-many horror stories of “remember that intern who got caught doing X”.
As an intern, you may find that you don’t have very much to do and because you are bored, you may be tempted to surf the internet or text your friends or play a game on your phone. However, Ninja-like you may think you are when it comes to doing these things without being noticed, it only takes 1 slip-up for you to ruin your reputation.

Instead, you should try your best to be productive. Ask around for old project files to read, or industry articles that your company receives, volunteer to help out colleagues (however menial the task may be), ask if you can shadow a manager to a meeting to take notes, and generally try your best to keep yourself occupied during official working hours.

3.       Ask and you shall Receive
It is important to realize that you are not high on any of your bosses’ or colleagues’ priority list. It is not their job to baby you. On the contrary, it is up to you to show initiative and make the most out of your internship to learn as much as you can.

It is always a good idea to check in with your boss if you could be doing anything else, to volunteer for opportunities or to take on unpopular and backlogged tasks. There is something to be learnt in every small task (even administrative ones) and by shining in small tasks, your boss will then be more willing to entrust you with bigger projects.

You should also leverage any other skill-sets that you have (e.g. IT, digital marketing, photography) and volunteer to do tasks outside your job scope. You never know what your boss might be willing to let you do and there is no harm asking. 

We wish you luck in your internship!