What to Do Before You Finish Your Summer Internship

Count yourself among the lucky to have had a summer internship. Not only will you be able to chalk it up for experience, but you’re more likely to earn a higher salary after you graduate. Career Coach Tracy Brisson shared a stat in her blog last week that college students that do an internship earn on average $11,000 more after graduation that their counterparts who didn’t complete an internship. Bonus! Before you finish up your summer internship, here are three things to do to to make the most of your experience.

Connect with Colleagues on LinkedIn. Building a sphere of professional contacts will make you more valuable as an employee after graduation. If you’re not already on LinkedIn, start an account, complete your profile, and invite the people you’ve worked with this summer to connect with you on LinkedIn. If you’re new to this professional social media site, Personal Branding Expert Beth Campbell Duke has a great article on how to make LinkedIn work for you.

Ask for Letters of Recommendation. If you are proud of the work you’ve done this summer, ask your immediate supervisor for a letter of recommendation. This is another reason to be on LinkedIn! If they write glowing words of recommendation for you on LinkedIn, this professional recommendation will appear on your profile for all the world to see.

Build a Portfolio. Especially if you were working in a creative field, make sure that the projects you were working on become part of your professional portfolio that you can use to showcase your experience and expertise down the road.

Internships are essentially a recruiting strategy for companies that give them an opportunity to “test-drive employees”, says Trudy Steinfeld, executive director of career development at New York University. By doing an internship, you will be that much more employable to the organization you worked with — some companies have been known to hire 80-90% of their interns after graduation.