3 Things to Do Before Your Internship Ends

3 Things to Do Before Your Internship Ends by: Angela Guido on August 21, 2014 | 0 Comments Comments 148 Views August 21, 2014Summer internships offer an incredibly important opportunity to build relationships, skills, and experience en route to a rewarding full-time position. Before your internship ends, consider seizing these three opportunities to get the most leverage from your experience.Say Your ArrivedercisWhether you accept a full-time offer, start a new job search in your backyard, or move across the world to join a completely different firm, it’s important to cement the relationships you built over the summer. A robust and thriving network is key to your long-term success: it will lead to future opportunities that you can’t predict now. So remember to take time to ensure that the people you have met and worked with become solid members of your network.Start by making a list of everyone who fits into one of these categories:Supervisors, mentors, champions, and advocatesCollaborators, peers, and colleaguesSubordinates, people you managedPeople you didn’t work with directly but who helped you out at some pointPeople you wish you had gotten to know betterAnyone else who comes to mind as someone you want to stay connected toNow, take time to personally connect with each of these people before the summer ends. It is one thing to send a mass â€Å"Goodbye, everybody, it’s been real!† email. Definitely be sure to give people your personal email address and let them know how to reach you in the future. Connecting on LinkedIn is also a good idea. But those actions won’t deepen the relationship. Real relationships require a personal touch. So take them out for coffee or lunch. Pass by their office for a final quick chat. Call them. Have a genuine conversation with them to let them know you appreciate them and that you want to keep in touch. We call this â€Å"saying your arriverdercis† instead of â€Å"sayin g your goodbyes,† because arrivederci is Italian for â€Å"until we meet again.† It promises that the relationship has a future.Collect Constructive FeedbackLearning how to fail gracefully could be one of the most important things you do in your career, because failure ultimately leads to success. But even if you have excelled during your summer internship, do not forget to leverage a final opportunity to learn from it. If your supervisor delivers a final performance review, be sure to think carefully about the areas for development he or she identifies. Schedule conversations with your key reviewers to ask follow-up questions and seek guidance on next steps for your personal growth.But don’t limit yourself only to your official reviewers.   In your farewell coffee chats with collaborators, peers, and subordinates, take a moment to ask them for some final advice and feedback.   Don’t neglect office staff and other people you worked with indirectly in t he course of business. Asking people for their input not only further deepens your relationship with them, but can also yield surprising insights into potential areas for growth.Get Out of TownLast but not least, plan a vacation. Don’t neglect your friends, family, or desire to explore the world! Work is important, but so is play. Taking time off allows you to internalize the lessons you gained over the summer. More importantly, if you return to campus with some new experiences under your belt   and refreshed from a week or two of relaxation, your next term will get off to an even better start.Angela Guido is a Founding Partner of MBA Career Coaches. She helps early career professionals define and achieve ambitious goals, embrace learning opportunities, and have more fun in their work.This bi-weekly series will teach you how to get the most out of your career by building meaningful professional relationships, elevating your self-awareness, learning to talk about yourself po werfully, and positioning yourself to get what you want in the long term while making the most of the opportunities you encounter along the way.  To learn more about how to actively manage your career, check out Angela’s advice at the  MBA Career Coaches blog  or schedule  a  free consultation with her. Page 1 of 11