Getting the internship

I found out about the ASU Foundation internship through a friend that I met through the MPA program who worked there as a researcher. The official title of the position is the Micheal Boulden Memorial Internship. The job was created in honor of Micheal Boulden, a former Chief of Staff at the ASU Foundation who was killed in a hit and run incident in 2007.  My friend put me in touch with the current intern, and I had a couple good phone conversation with her about the job. It sounded pretty interesting and it was a paid, part-time position (between 20-30 hours a week), which were both important to me because I didn't want to take out more student loans and I wanted to be able to focus my time on school in my last year. I submitted my resume and cover letter - making sure to use as many terms to describe myself that were in the job description as possible :-). I was asked to come in for an interview and I had the first one with three young women (one who was my age and two who were younger than me) - It was an interesting situation because I had never had a panel interview before, or been interviewed by people younger than myself. I've never cared too much for interviews because I get nervous pretty easily and I don't really like to talk about myself, let alone sell myself. This interview was a even worse than normal because they asked the kind of questions I hate most - "tell me about a time when...blah blah blah". Every question was structured like that! I feel that those questions are just to see how you act under stress and don't really measure how qualified you might be for the job...but anyway, it turned out ok because I came in with a few questions of my own which changed the end of the interview period into a good long discussion between the four of us. I was asked to come in for a second interview with the VP of Development and HR manager, which was much more of a comfortable and casual conversation. It apparently went well because I was offered the position a few days later. It felt pretty good considering I had gone through so many months of constantly applying to jobs and not even getting an initial call back - it gets very frustrating after a while, and I'm not looking forward to being in that situation again come next May! But I'm trying not to think about that and just take advantage of this opportunity for the time being!

I wanted to share this story, because it was one of the better experiences I've had trying to get a job. The process helped me to realize the importance of networking and getting in touch with potential employers before submitting an application. Talking to people within the organization, whether it be in person or on the phone, really helps you get your foot in the door and gives your application a much better chance of being considered. I'd love to hear about experiences others have had getting their internships.