As of this school year, I’ve so far only applied to 3 companies for an internship, the reason is mainly because when I went to my school’s career fair, they’re were only 3 companies that offered an internship specifically in my home city since most companies were from around my college’s area, which is somewhat far from my hometown. Since the semester is coming to an end soon, I was originally planning to use the holidays and my break time to apply for more places since it’s been a super busy semester for me with my engineering coursework. Today, before break has even started, I was super surprised and super excited when I found out that one of the three companies had responded back to me so soon and gave me an offer. I was super-hyped because it was also an offer in my field of interest, which is construction, it was located in my home city, which is actually really important because I’m from NYC, and never learned to drive (like most city kids) so I was geographically limited in places I could go, and because it also offered me a shockingly amazingly high pay salary (let’s say in the $20/hr+ range).
While I feel super satisfied about this offer, I’ve realized I also don’t have any other offers to compare with yet. The construction company I got the intern offer from is also about a bit over an hour one-way from my house so it is somewhat of a commute, but definitely manageable especially in the summer warm weather. It is also a big/large company and I was originally thinking about interning for a preferred smaller company, but definitely not a major thing especially for just a summer. Getting an internship is something I’m normally use to struggling over, as last year I applied to 20 places, and got zero offers, and it was possibly due to my low GPA, average-resume, being young and lacking experience, and again my geographic limitations. It was a huge surprise to land one in three applications, and I think it was probably because I beefed up my resume, and I was admittedly very lucky in being able to run into the hiring managers and network and elevator pitch myself with the representatives at the career fair. I only have this month to make the decision. Based off this, do you guys think I should just take the offer on the spot and then call it and end my job search process for the rest of the school year or should I take a shot and try to wait out applying for more?
Also, side note but as an additional question, could someone comment about any differences between interning at large and small companies, I was always told small companies tended to offer more variety and flexibility in work, and large companies would make you really specified, though interestingly, the company I spoke with that I got the offer from told me they would really try to expose they’re interns into a variety of assignments to really get a full experience.
If you have until the end of the month, you can continue applying to places; feel free to interview, but let them know that you already have an offer in hand. If you aren’t going to have any other offers in hand by your deadline, then you have three choices: a) ask for an extension to the end of January so that you may explore all of your options - this is a toss up in terms of viability, as the company may want to extend offers to other candidates before the spring semester internship interview season, but they may also want you in particular badly enough that they would wait to ensure that you are certain that you want to work for them; b) accept the offer - from what you are saying, it is a fair offer, and though it is a far drive, an hour is manageable for a summer; c) decline the offer - this is the riskiest, since you must assume that you will get another, better offer in the spring, and based on past experience, that may prove difficult, especially in the more competitive spring recruitment season.
If I were in your shoes, I would try ask for an extension; if they say yes, great, but if they say no, I’d wait until the last week and then accept if nothing else turns up.
In terms of large versus small companies, I don’t think that is the right comparison. Some large companies have their interns do busywork since there is so much going on that your supervisors don’t have time to dedicate to you, but some small companies are afraid to give you any responsibility because their deadlines are usually more meaningful. Conversely, some large companies have defined internship programs, in which you will spend a couple weeks in each department or sub-department, thus gaining invaluable experience, but some small companies don’t have those divisions, so you will get that experience organically. Ultimately it depends on the company you are interning for and the person or people you are paired up with during the internship.
Oh, one more thing… congratulations! It’s always encouraging and rewarding when hard work pays off.
@chrisw Hey, thanks so much for your response and yeah I think it makes a lot of sense! The person I spoke with over the phone and also in my interview said that the internship program was supposedly super organized and even though its a large company, they were aiming to really expose the interns to a variety of fields. Thinking about what happened last summer and the struggle it was to get this opportunity, I think I’m probably going to accept the internship and then maybe go from there just to have that security for the summer!