Congratulations!
You’ve now spent several weeks in an unfamiliar environment where your skills have been tested, your adaptability pushed to its limits, and your work ethic critically examined. You’ve faced the fire of practical experience and you’re ready to take the next steps along your chosen career path, hopefully by starting your first full-time job.
But before you celebrate completing your internship you need to make sure that you’ve finished it properly. It would be a waste of all your hard work if you walked out of the office on your final day and weren’t fully prepared for your next steps. With this in mind, here are ten crucial items that should be on your last day checklist:
1. Update your resume. It’s prudent to always have an up-to-date resume as you never know when you’ll quickly need it. Make sure you write a brief summary of the company as well as what you did there.
2. Update your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn is the best place to collate all your experiences and is essentially your digital resume. Making sure your profile is always updated is also a great way of finding new connections!
3. Individually thank your colleagues. It goes without saying that you ought to thank every person with whom you’ve worked for their time and patience throughout your internship, but a personalised thank you will make you stand out in their memory.
4. Ask about employment opportunities. These conversations should have been sprinkled throughout your internship but of course your final day is the last chance you have to confirm if there is a future for you at the company. If not, make sure your supervisor puts you in touch with other businesses that may want to hire you: start using your newfound network!
5. Connect with your colleagues on LinkedIn. You should have already done this but it’s a good idea to double-check on your final day. These contacts are going to be your strongest for some time yet, so make sure you’ve got access to them!
6. Get feedback from your supervisor. You must make sure that you set aside time for a final debrief with your supervisor for your own personal and professional development. Make sure to mention what worked and what didn’t and take detailed notes from your supervisor’s comments.
7. Ask for a reference. A reference goes a long way towards landing you a job and showing other people that you can backup what you
say. These days a reference on LinkedIn is best but a short letter (on a company letterhead!) is also nice to have.
8. Return company property. Make sure that everything the company lent you is returned in the same condition you received it.
9. Tidy your workspace. When everyone else goes back to work the day after you leave, you don’t want your final impression to be a messy workstation.
10. Register for a networking event. Just because you’ve finished your internship doesn’t mean you’re all done! Keep the momentum going and ensure you’re already looking forward. Bonus points for getting your supervisor to go with you and introduce you to their connections that you have yet to meet (and give a good reference on your behalf!).
Now you’ve checked that everything has been finished properly, you’re ready to move onto your next opportunity. Say thank you to everyone, update your profile, and use your newfound abilities to keep striding towards your goals.
Joshua Tinner is part of the placement team at Outcome.Life in which he talks to new students and host companies every day about the importance of work-integrated learning. With several years’ experience in people-focused industries, Josh is always up for a chat and his booming voice can often be heard echoing down Hardware Lane! Josh is a life-long student of the humanities and envisions a world where there exists a balance between education making us well-rounded members of society whilst practically preparing us for our working lives.
If you have any questions...
The Outcome.Life team are always here to answer any questions or help with any problems you might encounter during your internship.
You can contact us between 9am – 5pm, Monday – Friday at:
Phone: 03 8899 7424
Email: hello@outcome.life
