Congratulations! You blew people away during your interviews and got an offer from every company you interviewed at! It’s a dream come true, except — how do you choose between them?
Back in April, I was fortunate enough to be in this position. I had received two summer internship offers and was stressing out about which one to pick. After talking to friends, losing sleep, and spending plenty of time flip-flopping back and forth, answering these three questions helped me decide:
1) What’s my end game?
Just like in chess, you do better in life if you think five steps ahead. An internship after all is a means to an end, where the ultimate goal is to put yourself in a position to land your dream job once you graduate. If you are a sophomore and still trying to discover yourself, choose the internship that you are most passionate about. If you are a junior looking to convert an internship into a post-graduation job you will want to consider how likely the company is to offer you a full time position, as some companies hire straight from their intern pool (in fact companies like Deloitte make offers to over 90% of their intern class).
Since I was graduating this year, I really needed a full time offer as soon as possible in order to avoid moving back home. The other company that I was considering had just finished hiring a new round of employees and the founder I interviewed with told me that he was not looking to hire for a while. InternMatch on the other hand, only had 7 employees and Nathan the CMO had told me in my interview that they were looking to expand the team soon. It was pretty obvious which internship was going give me the best chance of getting a full time job afterwards.
2) Will I learn something new?
An internship should not just play to your strengths, but also shore up your weaknesses. When considering offers, ask yourself which internship will let you do something that you have never done before? Companies in general have different approaches to how much they train, and teach their interns, meaning the amount you grow during a summer can vary tremendously. Look for the internship that will grow your skill set and make you more competitive for a wider range of internships and jobs going forward.
While considering my own two offers, I saw that the work at both companies would help me grow. At the other company, I was told that I would be working extensively on Facebook ads which was great and something that I was really interested in. However, Facebook ads were something that I already had a little experience in. At InternMatch, Nathan told me that I would be working on a marketing funnel targeting corporations. I had never worked on the business to business side before, so this was another area where InternMatch won me over.
3) Does the workplace culture fit me?
Loving your internship is going to be hard if you hate the place where you work at. When looking at your multiple offers, consider if the company culture fits you. Think about things like whether or not you are you going to be wearing a suit all day? Are directions strictly followed? Is the hierarchy really strict?
Both the companies I received offers from were startups, so there were lot culture similarities but there was one big difference. InternMatch only had seven people and this included the founders, while the other company had 35 employees. In addition, the other company was hiring a larger number of interns. In a 35 person company and as part of a larger intern pool, I feared that I would not get as much attention or time from the founders as I would if I was at InternMatch. For the third time, I decided InternMatch was the better fit for me.
Last Piece of Advice
In the end, your situation may not be as black and white as mine, and that is fine. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, tells us “with hard decisions in life look to minimize regret.” Whatever internship you choose, embrace and make the best of it and you will be sure to learn a lot.
