I've recently come across a new phenomena: Serial Interns. They hop from internship to internship with tales of how they've "managed" this and "implemented" that. When really, they've filed, returned phone calls, and organized spreadsheets. It's not impressive. These are the kids at the career fair who approach the booth and don't want to know about anything EXCEPT about the internship. They aren't interested in a long term relationship with my company or even a career. They just want to stay on board for 10-12 weeks for the extra bullet point on their resume...It drives me nuts.
Internships are meant to give you a taste of "real work," but they are not meant to be little petri dishes of experimentation that you use as a medium to try and "find yourself". Internships are not "practice," they are real jobs! When a company is PAYING you as an intern, they are paying you to add some type of VALUE. Seems like a pretty fair trade-off to me. In fact, the goal of MOST companies that host an intern is to convert that intern into somebody that they can potentially hire full-time upon graduation. ,
Why would we pay you all that money to "manage and implement" programs and then have you take your genius elsewhere?
I always wonder about those who have tons of different internships on their resume.
Seriously. What were you doing?
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