<p>It's September & many students have just returned to college. Time to start the search for next summer's internship:
An</a> internship can be a first step to government job - The Washington Post
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<p>responding to the title. I’m an undergrad in the engineering and science field.</p>
<p>I am always told the common mentality, “The early bird catches the worm”, but I think hunting for a summer job at this time is quite limiting. Why? Few companies that I’ve looked at (engineering) are hiring summer interns or even co-ops in September. More companies and more internship positions (for summer) open for application from Jan to April. If you applied for an internship now and got offered one, normally you have to tell them yes/no within a week. Therefore, your summer might be nice and set, but you miss out on better opportunities at companies that you might prefer working at (that start hiring interns in Jan-ish). Thoughts on this?</p>
<p>^ You’re operating under the assumption that you’ll even be offered a position during that Jan-April time frame. An internship w/ Boeing is still an internship w/ Boeing, whether it’s from Oct-Dec or Jan-Mar. I don’t know about you, but I were given a time limit, I would rather have a stretch of September-April to look for an internship than January-April.</p>
<p>You’re also looking at ONLY summer internships. There are year round internships available. If you can find a 3 month internship during winter or spring for a company like Edison, you’d take it wouldn’t you?</p>
<p>^Yes, it is a risk to hold off your job search till only Jan to April, leaving you less time, but the reward could be greater.</p>
<p>(I was mostly focusing on summer internships. I’ve never heard of internships that are Oct to Dec or Jan to Mar. It’s 3 months long, just like summer, but that time frame seems to disrupt semester scheduling. Like, if one landed an Oct to Dec internship now, is one supposed to drop out of fall classes halfway?)</p>
<p>In an ideal world, interning full-time during a school semester or summer ‘semester’ should be no problem. But with upperclass engineering classes, skipping a spring (or fall) semester to work and taking summer classes can still delay graduation if a necessary engineering course is only offered once a year during the time you were interning. Not all colleges have such thorough provisions.</p>
<p>So what I’m saying about greater rewards come Jan to April is that more AND BETTER companies are hiring interns then for summer. For example, ‘elite’ companies like Boeing and Edison might only hire in Jan to April (this is what I’m seeing in bigger companies I am most interested in), but right now, for Sept-Nov, smaller, less appealing companies like cheapieJets are hiring interns. So if I applied now got offered and accepted a position with cheapieJets for next summer, I could get locked out of potentially interning for Boeing or Edison which I am more interested in (to use your examples).</p>
<p>If you think that will give you the best chance of landing an internship, then do it. It’s your choice.</p>
<p>From what I’ve experienced, there isn’t always a seasonal hiring. Yes, there are summer internships, but that doesn’t mean there are only summer internships. I have friends who’ve majored at major companies during the school year and it worked out for them.</p>
<p>Also, just because you’ve accepted a position doesn’t mean you can’t withdraw from it and still look for other opportunities. Unless they make you sign a contract, you’re free to continuously look at other options, and if you do get another offer from a major company, then you can always just tell the other company, “Nevermind, I’ve changed my mind” before the internship begins. Actually, if it came down to it and you got offered a better position at a major company 1 week after you started your internship, you can just quit. Yeah, it’s kinda an unethical thing to do, but it’s not like this is going to be on your permanent record and there really isn’t anything stopping you. The worst that could happen is that you’ve burned a few bridges, but if they’re a small company anyways, it’s not going to matter in the long term. You’re not going to get blacklisted in the industry or anything. And as you’ll come to know, this is how the real world operates.</p>
<p>You should always check with your school’s Career Center for summer internship postings. My son just graduated from ASU this past May. ASU has many summer internship postings in August for the following summer. In fact most of the big companies are recruiting in the Fall semester for full time and summer intern positions. In this difficult economic situation, it is never too early to start looking.</p>
<p>^It’s a toughie alright. I’m sure each school’s career center will always try to have a steady stream of internships and interviews lined up all through the year, because it is their job to do that :D</p>
<p>Internship hiring depends on industry… consulting and financial services companies recruit in the spring (consulting usually starts a couple weeks later than FS); a friend who is in the oil industry lined up his internships starting in October when we were in college, since that many companies in that industry has summer interns secured by Christmas. </p>
<p>However, the OP is talking about a federal government internship, and timing there depends on the agency (I don’t know anything about those kinds of jobs, so I won’t pretend to be able to give advice on it).</p>