<p>As in, you applied, went to the interview and then got the internship but you didn't feel entirely confident you had all the skills necessary for the internship? </p>
<p>I sent my resume to a local non-profit that was seeking a Public Relations intern in December and the hiring manager emailed me saying he was interested in meeting with me. I assumed he meant an interview and prepared for it. Even though he did ask me some questions, they weren't the typical "What are you strengths and weaknesses" types of questions. It seemed that he had only spoken with me and I'm going to be their only PR intern. He also scheduled our next meeting and the tasks he wanted me to prepare. </p>
<p>The reason I'm worried, however, is because it seemed like what he expected of me is what is usually expected of someone with a lot more experience, maybe junior or senior level. This is a smaller nonprofit, and the chapter office only has 4 people working. They do have PR professionals helping them but he said he is pretty inexperienced with PR interns. This is my first internship, and I am a sophomore in college. I only this semester am starting out taking core PR classes. He emphasized the fact that I'm a sophomore so I have much time ahead of me and seemed to like this detail. </p>
<p>Do employers expect interns to know all the tasks at hand, or do they know there's a learning curve involved?
Should I be worried if I am a good fit, or should I trust the hiring manager's decision?</p>
<p>Internships are supposed to be a learning experience. If you already had all of the skills you needed to work as a PR specialist, you wouldn’t need to finish school. But you don’t have those skills. A hiring manager’s responsibility is to understand the risks and potential rewards of hiring someone who is younger; the fact that he hired a sophomore tells me that he knows exactly what he’s getting into.</p>
<p>Regardless of your field of study, until you have worked in an industry, you don’t know how it works. Being a finance major doesn’t mean you are already good at investment banking; a law degree doesn’t mean you can go right to the courtroom on your first day as a lawyer. You need to gain experience somewhere.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about your qualifications. You’ll be fine as long as you are prepared to learn a LOT in a short period. Also, a major downfall of industry is that many companies fail to properly develop their employees. You should constantly ask questions, even about things that are way above your pay grade. You should obviously strive to learn how to do your job, but you should also strive to understand how the rest of the organization works.</p>
<p>The summer will be a tremendous learning experience for you, so congratulations on getting an internship!</p>
<p>When I was applying for internships last summer, I applied to everything in my area of interest that I could find. I thought I would be a very competitive candidate for a certain type of internships. However, I got an offer in a different field (Program Management) from one of the place I applied. I had no experience in this, nor any background in business or budgets. I learned a lot. I’m not sure it’s what I want to do, but I should have a job offer waiting when I finish graduate school.</p>
<p>When I had my meeting at the end of the internship with everyone, one of the things I said was that sometimes I felt I wasn’t being useful or able to help, but I thought that I learned a lot. The guy in charge of my office (who was the civilian equivalent level of a 1 star general in the military) told me that the internships are really for the kids to learn. They don’t expect to get huge return, and basically the stuff you can do is a bonus. Really, it’s for you to test out the career field and learn by doing AND by observation. They said I did a really good job even though I felt like I didn’t do that much.</p>
<p>So, I just wanted to chime in as well and say you aren’t the only one that worries about that, but ultimately you are an intern with minimal to zero experience and the people you are working with should know that.</p>