Finding an internship.

So today was an internship bazaar on campus for all Washington Semester students, with about 100 companies represented. I have pretty narrow interests here in DC, so I was only planning on talking to 4 or 5. I get there, and two of the ones I want to talk to arent even there. Bummer. So I talk to two, Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Stopthedrugwar.org. I also talked to the Center for Conscientious Objection, which I think would be interesting, but the guys I talked to were so impersonal and awkward that it put me off immediately.

Last night, I was preparing for the bazaar by googling everything to do with interviews and job fairs. And everything was incredibly redundant. 500 websites telling me the exact same thing. And to further the cycle of redundancy, Im gonna repeat what I found most interesting.

1. KNOW WHAT YOUR RESUME SAYS. Honestly, I wrote my resume a while ago, and had forgotten some of my bullet points. One place asked me to elaborate on something, and I was completely caught off guard. And if you...*ahem* embellish ... on your resume, you better remember what you said or your bluff will be called immediately.

2. KNOW WHAT TABLES YOU ARE GOING TO, AND GO THERE.

One site I looked at told me to wander around the outside and get the 'lay of the land.' Good idea. Another told me to walk the aisles and look at each table. But I caution you, do this once. Two people commented to me how they had seen me walk by multiple times. This could make the company think youre not really interested in them, and simply just handing out resumes to last resorts. It can also make you look unprepared and scattered. Not to mention is it an incredible time waster, and (if youre wearing heels like I was) painful.

3. WHILE ITS GREAT TO HAVE YOUR ANSWERS PREPARED, THINK ON YOUR FEET.

Ive always been told to have a 30-second elevator pitch. You know, what you would say about yourself if you had an on the spot interview betweens floor 1 and 10. So Ive got that. But you need to be able to elaborate. The people I talked with today were more conversational. At my interview with stopthedrugwar, I was not asked my weakness or specifically about my background or what I could bring to the company, and I still got the position. And thats because I was able to carry a (somewhat) intellectual discussion and show enthusiasm for the topic. That is key. You can have the perfect weakness and know exactly how to make the company a fortune 500, but there needs to be something more, something personal.

Yah, thats pretty much it. I've got three potential internships that Ive got to look over, and am having a hard time choosing. Im a hot commodity!