Tag: college students

Why does a student need to be industry ready & how they can be?

What do you mean by industry ready?

An industry expects their employees to have Non-technical skills and personal attributes such as team work, communication skills, integrity, reliability and self-motivation are considered more important than purely technical skills to get industry ready.

Importance

A study shows that 50% of the curriculum that are been taught in college/universities, by the time students will graduate, it will get auxiliated with new technologies in the market.

Let’s say for example, a product manager of a company who advertises the product, collects data and analysis the data to improve the marketing strategies of company. He can do it manually, but with time if an app is developed for this work, the company won’t be requiring any product manager.

Although degrees are important for future but it is also important to have a knowledge about what all techniques and skills that will be there in future and also to start developing those skills.

How can students be industry ready?

Here are some ways of getting industry ready:-

  1. Practical Knowledge of Doing Things:- If you can demonstrate how to implement the theoretical knowledge you have then your chances of getting hired will improve significantly.
  2. Sharpen Your Communication Skills:- If you are not able to communicate properly, your knowledge will be of little use to you.
  3. Inculcate the Habit of Innovation:- Form a habit to think out of the box, if you can provide a company with a method to save on expenditure or increase their profit, you have better chances of getting hired.
  4. Read Books and Newspapers Regularly:- Form a habit to read a newspaper or book at least half an hour daily, as this will improve your thinking process as well.
  5. Build Your Profile to Show Your Accomplishments:- One needs to be presentable and be able to exhibit his or her qualifications and capabilities convincingly.
  6. Pursue Online Courses to Hone Your Skills:- To make yourself industry ready, it is better to learn some new skills online.
  7. Work on Your Weak Areas:- The trick here is to present your weaknesses in a way that it looks profitable to the company for whom you want to work for.
  8. Learn to Organize and Manage Your Time:- It is about getting the maximum output in a given amount of time. Productivity matters a lot when you are working for a company.

So start investing more on prolonged and sustainable skills because knowledge and degrees are not going to be most required in future. This is the time to decide what is to be done and how should the steps be taken forward.

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A guide to internships

Introduction

Internship is an opportunity for you to get real time experience in a field that you are interested in. It is a program that helps you improve in a particular field. Internships are short-term jobs. Internships are mostly done before securing a permanent job or done by college students to add it as an experience in their resume. Internships can be paid and unpaid. Either way you will work for a particular organization and get experience.

Requirements for an internship

This is just the basic requirements for any internship you get. The particular organization will have particular requirements for the internship anyway. These are the things that you need to have before you apply for an internship

  • A well built resume. As internship is actually a job that you are going to do, the organization need to know your education details and other interests. So you need to have your resume ready.
  • Experience. Don’t forget to add your experience details in your resume if you have any, because that acts as one of the factors to hire candidates. Some organizations do not expect any previous experience from you. And some will require work samples related to your work. If you can do your work samples and keep them ready, there are chances to be hired since they can see if you are capable of doing the job or not.
  • Why should we hire you. This is one important question that requires a neat and precise thoughtful answer. Be prepared for that. Make sure you show your interest towards the work you would be doing as well as towards the organization. Mention your experience in it if you have any.
  • Research. Research about the organization you are applying for and get to know them. This is not very much necessary but you need to know this in order to know about the company and develop interest. The company most of the time is not going to ask questions about them but it would be good if you mention some of it during interview.
  • Assessment. Some organizations do not ask for work samples instead they give you assessment to get to know your knowledge in the field. Do the assessment with full dedication and be punctual and submit it before deadline.

Find the internship

Next step is to look for internships. I will list down some internship websites I know.

  • LinkedIn
  • Internshala
  • Glassdoor
  • Internships.com
  • Internmatch.com
  • LetsIntern
  • InternWorld
  • HelloIntern

Dedication

Once you get an internship offer, do it with full dedication even if it is unpaid. Make contacts with the employees to increase your professional circle. Some organizations provide letter of recommendation. It will help you in future to get a permanent job.

Conclusion

If you are a college student and have interest in some field with little knowledge in it, go ahead and find an internship to develop it! It will definitely help you to get a job after internship by developing yourself. When you are free and has nothing to do, you can simply join for a 1 month internship to get exposure.