Find him something. My Dad found me something my sophomore year. Next year i got an internship on my own.
Check on campus summer jobs. Lots of schools are happy to have students help with research, give tours, help in development, work on programming for speakers, help with conferences, etc…
And many offer really attractive housing and meal plan arrangements to them.
I would take a three pronged approach. (1) Have him apply broadly and in big numbers to more internship positions on-line even in different geographic markets. There are a lot of opportunities out there. My son has found getting interviews is pretty much a numbers game -the more applications you put out the more responses. Maybe he can snag something that has fallen through. (2) Work your contacts. No shame in that. (3) Have him simultaneously apply for typical summer work. Better to start now to get out in front of the local high school kids. Can always cancel if options one or two bear fruit at last minute. One tip to is avoid fast food which might not give a lot of hours and try a large party rental place. My son’s two best friends made $15/ hr stacking chairs in to trucks last summer. They hated the work but were offered all the hours they could handle. This is good work for boys to toughen them up. As other have said, working a hard manual labor job will provide extra motivation to hustle in the next internship cycle.
@SouthernHope Even though the career fairs are over, is there an online career portal for his college like Handshake or Quest? There are very likely internships there, still.
Agree on the multi-pronged approach. My kid’s school Handshake still lists many open summer internships – now maybe those are already deep into interview mode but they are still taking applications. Handshake is useful as it tells you if you meet the employer’s requirements – class year, gpa etc. So, look at career development resources on campus. Next, network, connections – get the word out. You can make the introduction or see if its okay for kid to send resume to your contact, but the kid is going to be the one who demonstrates they are capable. Last, summer jobs – on campus, if summer housing is still taking applications, and at home.
For me, this would be a chance to model how you respond to setbacks – roll up your sleeves, brainstorm about next steps, and get to work.
Hang in there!
Absolutely work your contacts. Relevant work experience this summer will help him get a ‘real’ internship next summer, build some confidence and give him things to talk about in interviews. At the very least, it could help him understand what he might like to do long term, or not do.
Retail stores with lawn and garden departments hire a lot of college students to carry mulch, assemble grills, etc. Some kids even get certified to drive forklifts! That was my son’s backup plan last year. His more relevant summer job came through in the last two weeks before exams. He had his internship for this summer lined up by end of Christmas break. I think he learned from sweating it out last year.
There is nothing wrong with making some introductions but I’d make sure he sounds like he has learned a lesson first.
I’d let him figure out his own plan B.
There is nothing wrong with a local summer job at this age. But it may be possible to get a different internship.
My daughter was in a similar situation (sophomore, applied for internship typically awarded to juniors, great feedback, didn’t get it), but I encouraged her to talk to her profs and tell them what she wanted. One of them recommended her for a program in England that was fully funded (flight, room and board, stipend) and she got it. It was life-changing, and it all came out of a failure.
I would think that getting an internship this summer would translate possibly into getting that internship he was hoping for but didn’t get. Use your contacts.
Maybe a sweaty summer working a menial job will be enough to drive home the concept that his eggs belong in multiple baskets. That’s a lesson that will help him from now on.
I think it’s okay to help him find a job. My son lost an internship in about April in 2008 when the economy tanked. He had it and then they decided they couldn’t have internships after all. So really not even his fault. It was one of the things I liked about Carnegie Mellon - his friends found him a new internship in no time at all. So if he has any contacts through his department see what he can do, but there’s no shame in you helping too. That’s the way the world works. Good luck to him.
Help him find something if he wants you to. But, if he wants you to, make a written agreement with him that next year he will apply to a certain number of internships and make sure that he has a plan B if none pan out.
In my book, this is typical boy stuff. It’s what my son has always done. He has Plan A. He’s completely committed to Plan A. When it doesn’t work out, he sulks for a couple weeks, then develops Plan A. And so forth. Of course, that has hurt him over time, but he has generally overcome it. We never stepped in to rescue him, exactly, both because he didn’t want us to, and because we didn’t have a clear way to do it. Everything has worked out for him, at least so far, but not without some stress along the way. I sincerely doubt it would be possible to change his character.
His sister, meanwhile, always has Plan A, Plan A’, Plan A", Plan B, Plan B’, Plan B", Plan C . . . Her modular resume, which allows her to present herself differently to different employers with a few keystrokes, is a work of art. She thinks years ahead. It can be dizzying talking to her about her plans, both because of the complexity of the alternatives, and because of the sheer egotism necessary to support the sustained planning effort.
It’s probably more a function of personality type. Our S has had a very successful approach to internships and has been very successful in tracking to his plans.
@JHS I have a feeling that my children are your children. That is exactly our household in a nutshell.
I’d have a serious talk about having better backup plans and then I’d help him find what he needs. You’re not doing the actual work for him, and the advantage of having (or the disadvantage of not having) connections to get job interviews will not change as he gets older. Give him the start and let him run with it.
I don’t see a problem helping him find an internship this summer if it’s something that will assist him in the job search next summer. I know my D who is now a senior in college struggled with a lack of confidence about applying for her first “real” internship. So I sort of prodded her along with suggestions. I didn’t have any connections, but just sent her various internet links to possibilities.Once she had that first internship on her resume she had far greater confidence and handled the next job application totally on her own.
LOL JHS. I’ve just got Plan A boys.
My D2 is also the kind of kid who wants to see how Plan A works out before considering what Plan B might be.
D1 juggles multiple plans simultaneously without worrying about which one is Plan A. She successfully led D2 through the process of getting her summer after freshman year job.