<p>So I have no recent job/internship experience, and I am having a very hard time getting an engineering internship for the summer. I think over the summer, I will try to get either a retail job or internship outside my field. </p>
<p>My question is which type of job/internship would be better for my resume? A retail job at a store such as home depot/best buy or an office internship at a small local business?</p>
<p>All i can say is keep trying and don’t give up. It is true some companies would have the intern positions filled up by now ( I believe this is the case for oil companies), but there are some that haven’t. I have no idea what resources you are using. If it’s just the school career fairs, then try those job sites like monster, careerbuilder, or even craigslist (very useful). Also, what type of companies are you applying for? If it’s large ones, then the internships can get really competitive. Try smaller companies if you haven’t already.</p>
<p>Ive been looking online (craigslist, internjobs.com) but there just aren’t many mechanical or aerospace positions in my area, dc metro. Most jobs are related to CompSci or IT. Ive applied to at least 20 mech/aero engineering internships, and Ive had no callbacks or anything. </p>
<p>I go to a comm. college right now, and the career center is nonexistent here. My problem is that I dont have any relative engineering experience. No projects, research, or internships. I plan on getting more involved when I transfer to a university in the fall. </p>
<p>So, thats why Im looking for experience outside my major so I can at least have something on my resume, which just consists of education, skills, honors, and non-engineering clubs.</p>
<p>Would a non-engineering internship help me in securing an engineering internship later on? would retail jobs be ok too?</p>
<p>Almost any work experience will hate you later on. The best kind of work experience, however, will be one where you can demonstrate leadership and problem solving skills. Working retail might also be beneficial if you want to get into sales, but honestly it’s probably the least valuable kind of experience you can get.</p>
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<p>I can almost guarantee that it’s because you’re at a community college. Unfortunately that’s the biggest negative to transferring into an engineering school - lack of internship opportunities before the transfer.</p>
<p>There are three things I would recommend to get around this. First, have you been accepted to the engineering university already? If so, you could try to call their career services, and if you’re really nice, they might let you into their internship database. Virtually all companies have their interns lined-up at this point, but sometimes things come open at the last minute or an intern falls through and companies come back to campus to recruit.</p>
<p>Second, have you tried looking for jobs through Linked-in? Look for professional societies in your area of interest and try searching their job bank. There are many jobs posted on linked-in and most college students don’t figure that out until their senior year.</p>
<p>Third, it might not be ideal, but you could consider taking classes in the summer then applying for an internship as soon as you get to engineering school. You could intern in the Spring then again in the Summer and that will get you 2 semesters of internship experience before graduation.</p>
<p>Finally, not interning this far in your education will not sink your career. You really need to have at least 1 semester of internship by graduation, so if you wait and intern next summer, you should be OK. The only issue is that you must make absolutely certain that you have an internship that summer. So as soon as you get on campus, go to the career services center of your university, register with them, then watch for internships. Some summer internships will be posted as early as September. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>