The Nightmare of Internship Hunting

This upcoming summer will be the summer before my senior year of college. I’ve been told time and time again from literally everyone in my life: I need to get an internship.

Well maybe I’m the only one, but this is a LOT EASIER SAID THAN DONE.

Theoretically everyone get’s internships, and you need a experience to get a job, and all big companies offer them… so what’s the hold up?

I’ll tell you what my hold up is, I simply don’t know where to start. This is the advice that I get told repeatedly:

• Talk to the career counseling people
• Look on Handshake
• Check Indeed
• Make connections on LinkedIn

Great. All great advice. But this doesn’t just solve all my issues. Because I still don’t know where to apply!

Looking on job sites, there’s only so many options. It looks like there’s a lot, but when I start looking for positions limited to the summer, internships where I don’t need qualifications, something related to what I’m studying, ideally in person or hybrid, and somewhere close enough to where I live? Suddenly not so much.

That means I need to start looking beyond. Start going to company websites directly to apply straight through them. But then I have to know where to apply.

I can barely even tell you the companies that are near me that would have relevant opportunities. I literally have been looking at a map.

Incase it wasn’t clear already… I have no idea what I’m doing.

Where I’ve Already Thought of:

• Special Olympics National Communications Internship (online) – applied
• Ace Hardware Corporate Internship – applied
• Aldi National Headquarters – on job update list
• Kane County Cougars Cougar Crew – need to call to see if this is applicable to me
• PepsiCo
• USCellular
• Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits Trade Marketing Intern
• Circle K Marketing Intern

It’s a starting point. Kind of.

This is the time to start applying to internships. They’re going to start the hiring process pretty soon. Which means I’ve got to get going.

Hopefully I can find something. And hopefully that something is good and beneficial.

If this is how chaotic the internship hunt is for me, yikes next year looking for an actual real life job will be something else. Maybe though if I find a really good internship this year it will lead me somewhere? I hope?

I don’t know. If you have any suggestions for marketing/advertising/PR/communications internships in the Chicago suburbs, please let me know. I’m desperate.