So... you need an internship.

Matt Wilson who is teaching Marketing / PR, president of MIMA and works at Evantage Consulting where he deals with online marketing took some time to post his thoughts on the relationship between students and prospective internships

I get asked a lot by my MCAD students, "how do I get a really great internship doing X?"

You all know the easy answer is to go to the MCAD Career Services office, see what's available, and fill out the necessary paperwork. And while that's a good start, you and your classmates are all competing for the same internships… the one's Career Services knows about.

This isn't a knock on Career Services in the least, in fact, it's really hard work for them to build relationships with companies, identify their needs and place students accordingly. But the simple secret on internships is that they are everywhere... it up to you to find them. And the potential internships you identify on your own mean you have a great chance of landing one… one that you have specifically sought out.

The real reason more internships aren't widely available is because it takes time for companies to idenitfy their needs for a possibile intern. Then, they need to work through various colleges and academic institutions, contact each one's respective Career Services department, then review applications, meet with students and make a decision. And we haven't even factored in the training and day-to-day mentoring time once an intern comes on board.

You see, companies make hiring decisions based on the potential return they will get from that employee bringing their skills (and associated potential revenue) to that position. When you hire a new employee, you incur a series of sunk costs in bringing them onboard; training time, space, salary and benefits (and while the latter two don't appy to an intern, the former two do). With an intern, who will most likely be at the company for six months or less, this return isn't there. At least not in an immediate monetary gain.

Alright... I'm throwing around a lot of seemingly boring internal HR crap... but I write this because it underscores your need to seek out your own position and make the case why their time investment in you is worth it.

You've all seen the news about the current state of our economy and I can tell you that the financial crisis has companies looking to become leaner and to find ways to cut costs. I don't know exactly how much this could impact things like internships, but I would assume it will trickle down to the HR/hiring department who manages internship programs and could potentially make it a tighter and more competitive market.

If you only go through Career Services, you're fishing in a finite pond filled with a lot of other boats angling for the same fish. Expand your reach. Look for other ponds and start thinking about the tactics you are going to utilize to make your lures more attractive to the tightening school of fish currently looking.

Up next, the first two steps you should take in finding your internship.