Intern Series: Can Internships Count As Work Experience When Applying to Full-Time Jobs?
Hello interns, Coach Nadia here and in this article, I’m going to explain how you can count internship experience as work experience when applying for full-time jobs. Whether your internship is for a full semester/quarter or is a micro-internship experience, you can and should be leveraging it as you apply, interview and negotiate full-time jobs. Here’s how.
When Applying For Full-Time Jobs
As you start reading job descriptions throughout your job search, you’ll notice many of them will ask for previous experience- even at the entry level! So how does an applicant apply to entry level jobs if they’ve never had an entry level job before? Enter internships!
Internships, even part-time experiences, are a great way to show future employers your skill set and your professionalism. From showing up to work on time, managing yourself, getting along with your team or demonstrating your competency within your industry, these are all very good things you get from internships AND are very relevant as to why someone would want to hire you full-time.
When you write your resume, cover letter and LinkedIn profile, think carefully about what skills, abilities and accomplishments you want to highlight from your internships that would align with future full-time job opportunities. If you aren’t sure, read more job descriptions relevant to your field and analyze what they are looking for in job descriptions and ensure those same elements are on your resume and other application materials.
Other experiences like volunteerism, case competitions, hackathons for tech majors and student organization membership and leadership are all experiences you can leverage when applying for full-time positions. It’s all in how you position them within your application materials and interviews.
When Interviewing For Full-Time Jobs
The best part of an internship is gaining real-world, outcome based experience. When we interview, we often are communicating our skills and abilities through past experiences in a story-like or narrative format.
Internships help us communicate our value as an employee to future employers. We aren’t just TELLING a future employer that we are dependable and will show up to work on time or get projects done quickly or being a good team player, through our internships we have demonstrable experiences and stories we can tell to SHOW why an employer should hire us.
The more stories and opportunities you create in your background, the easier it will be to communicate why someone should hire you and how you would be a welcome addition to the team. Interviewing is all about our ability to connect with the interviewer and communicate ourselves. Having internship experience helps us do that!
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When Negotiating Full-Time Jobs
Having a 4.0 GPA is great, but it’s not the guarantee we might think it is when it comes to employers hiring students. Most of the organizations I work with as a coach or university professor tell me they want “well-rounded students who can learn, are coachable and know how to work professionally”.
Arguably, there are many elements we learn from academia that help us be well-rounded but the best way to learn how to be successful in the workplace is to actually get into the workplace and be successful.
When negotiating full-time jobs, including the job itself and the salary, leveraging internship experience is a great way to get more or better things such as the projects you work on or the amount of money you make.
When negotiating salary, a $5,000 range is an appropriate counter-offer. So let’s say you get an offer for $50,000, the max you should counter with is $55,000. And with your counter-offer, you need to explain why and how you think you are worth the 5k increase.
Here’s an example:
“Hi, thank you for taking my call today (hiring manager). I reviewed your offer and am really excited about joining the team. Thank you for considering me, I know you had options and I am so humbled you saw the value in what I am able to offer. With that, I would like to ask if there is room for negotiation? I ask that because I would like to be closer to $55,000 due to my previous internship experience working directly with R, Python and other analytical platforms that are heavily used in this role. Since I have advanced skills in this space and demonstrable experience, I could jump right into the role and hit the ground running and eventually take on more advanced projects and work. Coupled with my high GPA and leadership on campus, I think $55,000 is a fair offer. What do you think?”
All negotiations should be done over the phone and with an actual human being, not over email! This is your chance to advocate for yourself, leverage your background, connect your previous experience to your future opportunities and be genuinely humble and excited about the prospect of getting hired.
If you don’t have relevant experience, or a high GPA or a reason why you are asking for more, I would advise you not to and accept the offer as is, with the intent to strengthen your resume and background through this job so you can level up in your next job hop.
Related:
Find a Job Fast: The Job Search Accelerator For Career Professionals
10 Perfect Questions For Young Professionals To Ask An Interviewer
Meet The Writer!
Hi! My name is Nadia Ibrahim-Taney and I help people design happy and fulfilling careers through authentic career coaching. My expertise includes career exploration guidance, resume writing, interview prep and LinkedIn profile optimization. My pronouns are She/ Her/ Hers and as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I focus on how diverse identities impact and influence folks holistically and professionally. Please connect with me on LinkedIn or at Nadia@beyonddiscoverycoaching.com
