Hello again, engineers and engineers to be! I hope the semester has been treating you well, and I want to sincerely congratulate you for making it through half of semester 2! I’m sure you have a lot of mixed feelings about it. Some of you may love it, and some may absolutely hate it, but you’re halfway now and on the home stretch to the end of your first year!
I’m sure you are all looking forward to the summer break, multiple uninterrupted months of rest, relaxation and travel. Enjoy it while it lasts because in this installation, I will be talking about what you will be doing for the next two summers instead of having a fun and relaxing time. That’s right, internships!
As you may know, our degree requires 800 hours of engineering experience to be gained over our 4-year programme. Some of you may feel eager to start this requirement early, but I advise you to please enjoy your break, as you will not be yet eligible to complete any practical work until you specialise. Here comes the part that may be new to you: you must complete a practical work report, which reflects your work and the hours you clocked in at a particular company. There are two intakes for these reports, lasting a month each March and August, and depending on when you finish your internship, you will graduate six months after that submission date! Most of you are likely to be doing two reports and two different companies and positions as this is what is recommended for you to get the most experience and help you decide where you want to go; your internship can open a door for a future full-time job in the same company, helping you become much more employable. Now that the technical jargon is out of the way, this blog post will be about my experience internship hunting and a small glimpse into the types of career opportunities you can find yourself undertaking as a chemical and materials engineer!
Where to from here?
CHEMMAT is a very multifaceted degree that can lead you down a wide range of pathways. The most common of these will be factory work or manufacturing. Many internships offered will come from companies like Watercare, Contact Energy, Meridian, and Fonterra, to name a few. These careers are focused on the operations and processing parts of the degree, as you may be asked to design and supervise plant operations.
For all of you research lovers, many companies like Fonterra and Cirrus Material Research offer a wide range of research and development internships that will have you undertaking a large project over the summer. This can also be done from the comfort of UoA with the University of Auckland Summer Research Scholarship, which is paid!
The last sector you would likely be working in is consulting. This includes companies like Beca, AECOM, WSP and many more. Consultants work on various projects for other companies, providing assistance and expert advice on project design and implementation. As an intern, your work will likely include writing reports and talking to people as well as field work and analysis. You may not be qualified to sign off on others work yet but you will start learning how you can get there.
These are only the most common pathways that I have seen from personal experience, but you may find yourself a more niche internship or career pathway such as working at a startup.
The Process
The internship process is relatively simple. You browse the internet for engineering internships at your favourite career-search websites, such as LinkedIn, Prosple, Seek, and more. Most companies start posting their internship applications in June and end at the end of August.
A company internship description should usually contain what specialisation they are looking for, either for their whole internship programme or a specific internship; if they don’t state who they want, apply anyway. There is no harm in trying.
As a person who applied to 20 different internships this year, here are some of the tips I have picked up after applying way too many times:
- Make sure you have a nice CV. Like most students, you will likely have a skills-based CV, so most of your CV should be your personal and technical skills. This will be the main thing your employers look at, so make it look nice and easy to read.
- The second most important is your cover letter. This can be written with just a glance through the job description and a Google of what the particular company you are applying for does. I spend the first part of my cover letters gushing about how cool I think the company is, showing off the fact that I understand what the company does, and the latter half explaining why I want the job. Link it back to the skills they can find in your CV and how you believe they will benefit the job. The best cover letter template can be found on careers.org; basing your cover letter on that means you are unlikely to go wrong.
- Lastly, apply, apply, and apply! You miss every shot you don’t take, so try to apply to as many internships as possible! Even the ones that say they will only take one person—you, my friend, could be that wonderful person!
I have to be realistic with you; you will get rejected often. Failure is, unfortunately, just part of the process, and that’s okay. Sometimes, companies give you actionable feedback on improvement, which you can use to give it a better shot next time. Please remember that rejection never means you are a bad worker and does not mean you are unemployable, so don’t take it to heart.
For more professional advice than some 2nd-year CHEMMAT student who blogs online, visit careers.org or UoA’s Career Development and Employability Services. They run CV workshops and have many trained individuals who can help your CVs and cover letters look employment-ready!
Interviews!
At last, we come to the most dreaded part: the interview process. There is no bigger advice I can give you than just be yourself and keep as calm as possible. Employers want to get to know you, not the one you have created for this interview. Trust me, you don’t want to keep up an act for multiple months of your internship; that’s exhausting!
My advice on conducting interviews is this:
- Brainstorm and answer some of the potential questions they could ask you. The most common questions I found are: ‘Why do you want to work for us?’ and ‘What do you know about the company?’ but common behaviour questions like ‘What would you do in this situation?’ are very common. You won’t be prepared for everything they throw at you, but you can try to be!
- If you have an online interview, keep some notes handy about potential questions you want to ask and some facts about the company. Printing your cover letter and CV could be beneficial as they could ask you about them anytime.
- Dress well! Some companies have a dress code, and following that would make a great first impression. But I cannot stress this enough: Wear something you’re comfortable in! An interview is already an uncomfortable process, and being uncomfortable in what you’re wearing will only make things worse.
- Keep calm and breathe. This is a stressful situation, and it’s okay to be nervous. Remind yourself that you have prepared for this.
Thus ends this installation of how to infodump like a professional with Zlata. I hope you find these tips and tricks handy when you are in the fun position of undertaking interviews, and I wish you happy job hunting!
Zlata