Publié le 22 August 2024
Gain experience and build connections with 6 strategies to network during your summer internship.
Summer internships —what comes to mind besides getting a peek into the corporate world? Opportunities for building a professional network, of course!
But, networking will take a little more work than that because the staff isn’t just hanging around waiting to chat with the new summer interns. They’ve got too much on their plate, and sometimes they need an icebreaker just like you do. Yes, even established professionals can get nervous starting conversations!
Not sure how you can network during your summer internship? Then, this guide is definitely for you.
What Are The Takeaways of Networking During Summer Internships?
Need some fuel to get you started with your summer internship? Here are some great benefits you can get from connecting with people during your internship.
Let’s get into them one by one.
Get Familiar with Your Industry
You could be a brilliant student in your field of study, but nothing beats hands-on experience, and this is where the summer internship helps out.
During your internship, you’ll get into the nitty-gritty of your industry—trends, roles, work approaches, and challenges—directly from seasoned professionals. This invaluable experience will definitely give you a clearer picture of the career paths you might want to pursue.
More Visibility in the Market
Let’s say you’re an IT graduate specializing in app development, and on your lucky day, you landed a summer internship at Notion. Your work gets featured on their blog, social media, and even at their quarterly events. Just imagine how impressive that will look when you’re job hunting in the future.
The idea of showing up will help you keep a foot in the door and make potential employers aware of your presence in the market when they’re searching for their next app developer.
Get Powerful Recommendations
Continuing with our previous example, let’s say you scored an internship at a major productivity app like Notion. Think about the number of thought leaders you’d get in touch with during your short internship period. The daily interaction with these key players won’t just give you valuable feedback on your performance; it will also raise the bar on what you do and how you do it.
What’s the takeaway from all of this, you ask? Well, if you show some special skills to these industry leaders, they’ll definitely spread the word, and their references carry a lot of weight.
Understand the Workplace Environment
As an intern, you’ll quickly realize that every company has its own culture, and what better way to understand that workplace environment than getting to know your new colleagues, collaborating with them on projects, or just chatting with them over coffee breaks?
And that brings us to our next takeaway 👇
Develop Communication Skills
We saved the best for last: Another key takeaway from a summer internship is how much you’ll improve your communication skills in a professional context.
Jump on every chance to chat with your co-workers — quickly respond to emails, stick around with the team during overtime, share your thoughts and findings — do anything that can spark a conversation.
You’d be surprised at how much you can develop your communication skills during this internship. Communication is a door opener skill for your career journey, so you should always have some cheek to interact with professionals around you.
6 Strategies To Network During Your Summer Internship
The key to networking during your summer internship is to beat that imposter syndrome and try to form ties with people, even if things go wrong, this won’t destroy your career. It’s not the end of the road for you — not even close.
Do Your Homework
Whatever your networking strategy may be, it’s best to go back to basics: researching your company. This way, you can familiarize yourself with the organization’s core values and culture.
Checking the LinkedIn profiles of your future co-workers is a great way to start. It tells you a lot about their titles, professional achievements, interests, and career paths. A great way to identify like-minded people and break the ice right from the start.
You can’t afford to kick off an internship in the dark without knowing a little about the company’s leadership and staff. So, always go the extra mile and do your homework before starting your summer internship journey.
Take the First Step Wisely
Connecting with your manager and co-workers on LinkedIn is a no-brainer. But don’t do it randomly. “It’s all about the right timing”. The ideal period to connect is while you’re still interning because interns keep changing frequently, so if you take too long, they might end up forgetting about you or your work.
Many assume that you should connect with all your company co-workers. However, this isn’t set in stone. It’s totally fine to prioritize certain relationships and profiles over others because, at the end of the day, only a few connections would be useful at different stages in your career.
Think about it this way: If you’re an app developer, it would make more sense to network with IT professionals, product managers, and HR specialists rather than marketing executives or finance managers.
Provide Value First
You send the connection request, and they accept it. Congratulations. But you’re not done yet. Now it’s time to move on to the more complicated part of building a relationship for the long run, and the first red flag is to start for favors right off the bat without providing any added value in return (never do that).
Focus on giving value first; you can start with simple gestures like writing a LinkedIn recommendation for a colleague, sharing with them a “spec work” related to their project, or introducing them to a friend who could be a great fit for a position they’re hiring for. Even these small acts can nurture your relationship.
Don’t Forget Other Interns
If you’re interning at a company, chances are you’re not the only summer intern there. You’ll likely be working closely with other interns, so don’t wait for things to come up naturally — they never do. Take the initiative and talk about what you’re good at and what you want to learn.
Depending on your respective field of expertise, you can help each other grow and overcome work-related challenges. You can even join forces to achieve great things in the future. Who knows?
Since you’re all interns, you can openly chat about career expectations and goals. And it doesn’t always have to be at the workplace—try meeting up at a coffee shop or a restaurant instead.
Don’t buy into the idea that you should only network with established professionals. That’s not how networking works. Building professional bonds with people at the same career stage will also give you valuable insights and fresh perspectives.
Never Miss Company Events
Attending company events takes your networking game to a whole new level, so make sure you don’t miss out on these opportunities. Many companies, especially larger ones, have sports teams, community activities, and other events that align with your interests, your best bet to connect with new professionals and expand your network in a more relaxed environment.
Even if your company isn’t hosting any events, you can still find plenty of networking events around the city related to your industry, and it’s not as tough as you think—just do a quick search for similar companies in your field and you’ll come across event listings. So, what are you waiting for? Google it up and secure your spot!
But your work doesn’t end with the event. Follow up with the professionals you met, and strengthen your ties with them down the line. A simple LinkedIn connection request is a great way to start.
Keep the Lines Open
Here’s a big piece of the puzzle that doesn’t get talked about enough: Maintaining the relationship with your network. Hate to break it to you, but all the hard efforts you put into building your network won’t pay off if you don’t stay in touch with the people you’ve met.
Make sure to reach out to people in your network on a regular basis, once or twice every few months is a good rule of thumb, and to keep your relationship meaningful and engaging, show genuine interest in their career updates and ask questions beyond just job-related topics.
And if you want to level up your networking game, invite the members of your network to events you’re attending or even hosting your own. It’s a fantastic way to connect and show your initiative. And don’t forget to give yourself some credit for going the extra mile! 😅
Over To You
These are 6 strategies to network during your summer internship, and ways to effectively put them into practice.
But remember one thing: We can keep listing networking strategies all day long, but they’re not going to do much for you unless you actually take action and start conversations.
Is your creative battery recharged yet? You’ve got the strategies—now go connect with professionals in your field. We’d love to hear how it goes!
Oh, you made it to the end—thanks for that!