Megan Riksen:

Hello and welcome to the Work Like a Laker podcast. I'm Megan Riksen and today I'm excited to talk about some new ways that students and alums can gain experience and skills, especially when time is at a premium, which I think that's probably everyone. So these are called micro internships or short term experiences and they've been growing in popularity. We are seeing many more employers offering these sorts of opportunities and they really can be a great way for learners to grow their resume without taking a ton of time. So to help me with this topic today, I am excited to chat with Natalee Williams. She is actually the graduate assistant here in the Career Center. So we already work together and Natalee participated in one of these micro internships. So hi Natalee.

Natalee Williams:

Hi Megan.

Megan Riksen:

How are you?

Natalee Williams:

I'm good. I'm excited to be here.

Megan Riksen:

We're excited to have you. So awesome. Can you start by introducing yourself? Tell us a little bit about where you've been, what you're doing now.

Natalee Williams:

Yeah, so I'm originally from Concord, Michigan and about five or six years ago I moved up to Grand Rapids to go to Grand Valley. So last April I graduated with my Bachelor of Social Work degree and just started my second and final year in the dual Master of Social Work and Public Administration program. So I'm very excited to graduate next April.

Megan Riksen:

Yay. You're so close.

Natalee Williams:

Yes, so close. But throughout my undergrad program I got to work on a lot of really cool on-campus jobs. So everything from GVSU libraries to COVID testing. I was a KSSN or Kent School Services Network intern for social work. But then I was also an HR intern for Comfort Research, so they make the Big Joe bean bags.

Megan Riksen:

Those are comfy.

Natalee Williams:

So comfy.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, those are great.

Natalee Williams:

There were beans everywhere all the time and it was so much fun. But like you said, right now I'm a grad assistant for the career center. And then I'm also back at KSSN as a macro intern for their admin team, writing grants, gathering data, supporting coordinators, everything in between.

Megan Riksen:

Wonderful, that sounds great. And I know you do a lot here in the office too with our Communication and the Arts Career Community, and career connectors a little bit. Awesome. Great. Well thank you. So yeah, before I kind of jump in and ask you more about your experience just wanted to talk a little bit about what a micro internship or short term experience is. I'm probably going to refer to them as micro internships now for the most part. Typically a micro internship takes anywhere from 10 to 40 hours to complete and that's total, that is not weekly like a typical job would be because it usually is targeted to one specific project that might take 10 hours, might take 30 hours to complete. And we at Grand Valley, we are partnering with an organization called Parker Dewey and they have a site that hosts these micro internships. And the really cool thing is that these experiences are paid through Parker Dewey and you actually know up front how much you're going to be making and many of them are remote. So Natalee, really glad to have you here because you just completed one, right?

Natalee Williams:

Yes.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah. Okay. So yeah, tell us a little bit about what you were, what you were doing, what the actual micro internship was. tions.

Natalee Williams:

Yeah, so my internship was with Marine Solutions. It's a construction company out of Kentucky. Oh, and they serve locations across the US, so they do everything from marine engineering and construction and on like bridge infrastructure and also diving, commercial diving. Super cool.

Natalee Williams:

This is a pretty different industry than you're used to?

Natalee Williams:

Yes. So even comfort research with my undergrad HR internship that was mostly manufacturing. So this was a little bit more into the construction side of things, and was fully remote since they were based out of Kentucky. I was able to work fully remote for a month out of Grand Rapids which was pretty cool. So what I was really doing, they had a specific project in mind. Their handbook needed to be updated, they had a new department. So I got to help revamp their employee handbook. And so this internship was pretty cool because they were really focused on me learning and having a really good experience. So I got to research into all the different laws because they're federally, federally contracted. They have a lot more, a lot of legal things they have to think about. So kind of thinking about that with employees, government employees and all the things in between. So I got to learn more about that.

Megan Riksen:

Nice. Awesome. How many hours did it end up being?

Natalee Williams:

Yeah, so it was a 20 hour internship but I got to spread it out across a whole month. So if certain weeks I was more busy with classes I got to, you know, cut down on hours, but then if other weeks I had more free time, then I could increase. And then throughout the month I just checked in with my supervisors on teams. So it was all remote. Phone calls, face-to-face, Zoom, which was really nice just to have a flexible schedule that worked with what my availability was.

Megan Riksen:

Absolutely. You could still do other things as well, at the same time.

Natalee Williams:

Yeah.

Megan Riksen:

Great. So as you had mentioned in your little intro, I know you've done more traditional internships in the past in your BSW program. So can you kind of like compare those a little bit for me? Like the micro internship versus the more traditional internship?

Natalee Williams:

Yeah, yeah. So with the traditional internship, there's typically an onboarding process. You get to know the company, you get to immerse yourself in all the opportunities, meeting the different people in the office that you're working with. And also for a lot of students it's getting to understand what an office environment's like, the culture. I feel like too with a traditional internship, you might be learning more of the foundational skills over a longer period of time, whereas with the micro experience, you're typically working on a project, you're often remote. And it's based like I said, on the hour spanning over the course of potentially a week to a month. Maybe at most two months. But this type of internship typically has a specific project or end goal. So it's really giving students the opportunity to apply the skills that they've learned in classes or previous internships to a specific project.

Megan Riksen:

Which is cool. And when you're on the site, and that's kind of what I would like to talk about next is the application process. I guess first kind of tell me how you even started to look at the site. I know it's like a site with a bunch of micro internships listed. So talk me through how you kind of sifted through those and then what that application process was actually like once you chose something you wanted to apply to.

Natalee Williams:

Yes. So Parker Dewey has like this big job board, which is really cool. You get to see all the different experiences, and what's also nice is typically all of these employers want to hire students from a variety of majors. You also don't have to be a student to apply for Parker Dewey. If you're an alum or you recently graduated or you're looking to explore different career paths you could get to -

Megan Riksen:

That's a hot tip right there. If you just graduated and are still in the job search process but can gain some experience while you're searching for something, that's awesome.

Natalee Williams:

Definitely. Yeah. Especially with the flexible schedule too. And I think too, some of the students that I've helped advise and work with, they're coming back after maybe years in a specific field and they're like, I don't know how to pivot. I don't know how to kind of jump to the next thing. This can be a great way to dip your toes in, see if this is something you might like. And kind of go from there. So I've noticed that the jobs tend to range from HR to communications. There's opportunities in business and finance too. Lots of social media opportunities. So, like I said, open to all majors, but they're really looking for students who've learned similar skills and can apply them to the new job or experience. My biggest advice would be to check every morning or day. There's so many jobs that get posted and because you're competing against students across the US they can go really quickly. So talking to my supervisor, for their experience with Parker Dewey, they had dozens of applicants and so they had to close the application pretty quickly because they were just getting so many. So if you apply in the morning, apply, check it every day, there's going to be new opportunities. And also I've noticed some employers will close those in the afternoon if they've gotten too many.

Megan Riksen:

Oh wow. And was the application just kind of filling in an online application? Were you submitting a resume with that? What did that look like?

Natalee Williams:

Yes. So you'd be submitting your resume and then answering some questions. So in my experience, I didn't have a cover letter, but the questions were really tailored to whatever the employer's looking for. My biggest advice with that and my supervisor echoed the same thing, tailor your resume, tailor your questions, do your research. My supervisor had said mine really stood out because I had taken the time to connect my skills to the project that they were doing and show that I did some of that research on marine solutions and what they were doing.

Megan Riksen:

So very similar really to applying for a regular internship, a regular job. Kind of do still need to take that extra step, especially if we're kind of dealing with a competitive environment where lots of students are going for these. So yeah, that's a really good tip. Awesome. Great. So I'm really glad to hear that overall it was a positive experience.

Natalee Williams:

Yes. Yeah. And it was super easy throughout the whole process. From application, to interviews, to landing the job, even with the payment and Parker Dewey. Super easy to navigate.

Megan Riksen:

Okay. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us. So I'll let you go now and we're actually going to get to hear from Natalee's supervisor next.

Sara Soard:

Hello, my name is Sara Soard and I'm the senior human resources generalist at Marine Solutions located in Nicholasville, Kentucky. And recently we had the opportunity to participate in the micro internship project. We are a marine engineering, marine construction, bridge inspection, commercial diving business, and are located all across this nation. Prior to this experience, I had never heard of the micro internship program, but had received an email from SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, and they were sponsoring micro interns and so we had the ability to apply for one.

Megan Riksen:

Great. That's helpful. Thanks Sara. So why did you decide to post a micro internship rather than hire a traditional intern?

Sara Soard:

The reason we chose this program is that we felt it was cost effective since SHRM was providing the funds for it. We never had heard of it, but we wanted to test it out and see what it was about and what type of candidates that we would get from it. Having considered an intern before, but we wanted to make sure that we could devote enough time to them. And sometimes with having somebody who is always in your office, you worry if they are getting the experience that they need to make sure that they're learning and accomplishing what they want to throughout their summer internship. So we thought for the project that we had discussed that this would be the perfect opportunity.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, that's great. Sounds a lot like what Natalee described. So can you talk about what stands out to you in a micro internship application?

Sara Soard:

What stands out when looking at applications is looking for those who have had past experience with human resources in any way. So if they had the opportunity to intern under a generalist or with different parts of HR is what I was really looking for. Another thing I was looking for was those students who had had experience with the project that we were doing. We wanted a student to look at our handbook and kind of find what we were doing right and what maybe needed some help. And so if there had been students before who had had the opportunity to work on handbooks, that was really important to us. A handbook isn't a super exciting project, so I believe that it takes the right person to apply for that internship and want to be a part of it. Experience in the project they will be completing was one of the main considerations when looking at applications. We also provided additional questions for them to answer, so students had to submit their resume, but then I also listed three additional questions for them to answer and those questions were really important to see if they understood the scope of the project and was this something that excited them and that they thought they could get behind and do a micro internship with.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, I definitely agree. I think thoughtful responses to those extra questions is definitely a game changer with an application. And finally, what advice would you have for students interested in participating in a micro internship?

Sara Soard:

Advice I would give to students who are interested in participating in this program, go for it. You have nothing to lose by participating in it and putting yourself out there. I think networking is one of the most important things that you can do and you never know who you're going to meet through this program. And finally, some advice I would give a student for this is make sure your resume's up to date. You all have some great services with career services on campus advisors, career counselors to help you with your resume and to look at your resume. So make sure that your resume has had another set of eyes look at it and that you've put your best foot forward. But I would tell any student, go for it network. You never know what is going to happen. We are actually talking about doing this again and maybe extending it out and seeing what can come from it.

Megan Riksen:

Great. I'm so glad to hear that it was a good experience and that you'd be interested in doing it again. Hopefully everyone listening can get onto Parker Dewey and check out some of those opportunities. But really Parker Dewey is just one option, one way to gain some short-term experience when you don't have a lot of time. So there actually are some other options as well. One of those is through Open Avenues, which is another organization that GVSU partners with and they provide eight week projects with an industry professional also in a variety of fields. And while these are unpaid, they are free to participate in and one of our students here at GVSU recently completed an eight week project and here's what they had to say about it.

Jagadish Mandava:

Myself Jagadish. I'm an international student. I'm from India. Currently I'm pursuing a master's in health and bioinformatics at Grand Valley State University. Thank you for this amazing opportunity to connect with you and share my experience with the Build Fellowship Projects. Currently I'm working on the project yeah, about dollar product and contracts for in the US healthcare industry. My mentor is, his name is Ranganath Narayanan. He's also, he did his major in the health administration. So one of the enjoyable things with the Build Fellowship is like the mentor. We are working with the team. He's an industry professional, so he's currently working in the industry. So it becoming invaluable experience for the students to know about the how was the difference between the school and how was with the how industry. So it gives a valuable experience. Before going to the Build Fellowship, I learned about Build Fellowship from the GVSU Career Center, also with along with my PSM coordinator, Anirudh Chowdhary. Advice that I give to the students interested in the program is like never fail to apply for this program because I am the one of the student, can I say my resume is, like most of them, empty, because I don't have any professional experience before I joined my master. So my education is so much continuous. So eventually when I try to apply for the jobs, most of my resume is empty so I just want to fill it with my course work and my corse projects with my skills and objectives. But when I try to apply for these positions, I got some of the certifications from the, from the employer and also then adds me on the LinkedIn and all the, so I also get some other professional experience. So when we get some other professional experience, it make more easy to get some of the outside full-time or internships for the all the students. So the people who feel like they are depressed with, I don't have any experience can I get for the, can I apply for full times or part-times. So I'm I'm sure to give advice, like just feel free to apply for the jobs. The Build Fellowships, they have an excellent opportunity with all the mentors and also they have open positions and every month every student can apply up to five job positions, depending upon their interest. So they're going to select one of the one of the positions which is more near to you and more relevant to your positions. Then you're going to combine and you can teach with their mentor and it's like eight week short project so we can get more invaluable skills to gain in your industry. Yeah, thank you so much for this opportunity.

Megan Riksen:

All right. Thanks so much for sharing your perspective. It sounds like you had a good experience with the Build Project and hopefully it will make it easier, as you said, to get additional internships or jobs because of the skills you've developed. And overall, it is important to remember that employers really value skills and experience even if they are developed in less traditional ways. So for more information on these opportunities as well as traditional internships, be sure to check out our website. As always, we will link it in the show notes. And now I'd just like to thank everyone so much for listening and we hope you tune in to a future episode soon.