Need to build your résumé? Find an intership that suits your skills

"Overall, Students who completed one or more internships received an average salary offer of $41,580 while those who did not take part in an internship received an average salary offer of $34,601."

This statistic on the internships.uconn.edu website reveals just one of the benefits of taking part in an internship. Wednesday's lecture in the Homer Babbidge Library offered a workshop so UConn students considering an internship can easily find what they are looking for by navigating the University's website.

Jennifer Grunwald gave an informative presentation that had positive feedback with the students.

"I thought it was really helpful. I found a lot of information I never would have known about and I'm really excited about looking for an internship now," said Tikeyah Whittle, a 7th-semester journalism major who attended the workshop yesterday.

Grunwald took the students through the website step by step, showing them all of the resources and links that would be helpful in finding an internship.

"Internships are a work and learning experience that may be for credit, not for credit, paid, or not-paid," Grunwald said.

One aspect of internships is whether or not they are offered for credit within the student's major. The first step is to contact the major's department and inquire. If internships are not available through the department, Career Services offers a one-credit internship as an alternative. On the internships website there is a "Major/Dept internship policies" link that can direct students to the person to contact and also shows if the major accepts internships for credit.

Internships.uconn.edu offers other internship search engines such as Aftercollege, internships.com, Job Monkey and others. Some are specialized search engines that cater specifically to a certain field like anthropology and history or art and media.

In addition, Grunwald exposed the group to international internships and related search engines. Grunwald recommended the UConn office of study abroad internships page; with other websites fees might be associated. "Going Global" is the main link Grunwald showed the students, which contains country career guides and internship listings. Students can also search in the U.S as another search engine.

There is also the "tips and resources" link on the internships website. Grunwald advised the group on issues they might have with unpaid internships. The tips and resources section offered scholarships and awards along with scholarship and grant databasesthat would be an option to supplement an unpaid internship.

All of these features previously talked about were also just a general search. To perform more advanced searches, Grunwald had the group sign in on the internships.uconn.edu website.

"There are 721 organizations and companies on the site, and they're not necessarily opportunities…there are thousands of opportunities," Grunwald said.

Grunwald typed in a sample search, suggesting that the search remain very broad.

There are two sections to the internship page: recently announced and recurring opportunities.

"Recently announced are those that tend to expire, companies might not continue to offer it, or the deadline is two weeks away, something like that," Grunwald said.

Recurring opportunities are the internship options that will recur annually and are usually on the career services website.

After searching for an internship based off of different criteria, there are available links to companies application pages. Grunwald told the group that all application are different for internships and some cannot be applied for directly through the UConn website.

On the website, there is also the Husky career link. On this webpage, organizations and employers will post positions and internships available at UConn. Unlike the other search, it is possible to apply directly through the Husky career link. Usually the applications will ask for resumes and cover letters.

"If you haven't gotten your resume critiqued, you should come to our office and have it checked out," Grunwald said. Students can go for resume critiques everyday of the week in the career services office in CUE Room 217.

However the résumé is a step that comes later in the process. Initially it is important to find the proper internship that fits all of one's needs. This can be done through the internships.uconn.edu website.

"I thought it was very eye-opening. I learned about resources I didn't know about and I learned about more databases too," said Chris Andradre, a 5th-semester linguistics and psychology double-major.

Grunwald broke down the internships website and provided vital information for students who might be looking for an internship for the spring or even the summer.