Students searching for internships during the COVID pandemic must be prepared for AI-driven interviews

Have you ever met someone and immediately enjoyed their company as you share a common interest and then find, over time, that you share more and more interests? For me, one of those people is Chaim Shapiro, career service expert and Director of Student Success at Touro College.

Chaim and I got to know each other one evening watching a National Hockey League playoff game on a ridiculously big television in a ridiculously big bar in a ridiculously big hotel in Dallas, Texas. It is true that everything is bigger in Texas. But I digress.

Aside from a passion for hockey, Chaim and I also share other interests including his love for the Chicago Bears and my love for teasing him about his love for the Chicago Bears. He’s also a fan of barbecue and pointed me to a wonderful barbecue restaurant in Chicago where I discovered that turkey can actually be both smoked and moist. That discovery led me on a quest to replicate that feast using my own smoker. I’m happy to report that I’m now really good at smoking turkeys. But I digress again.

More relevant to your interests, I suspect, is the passion that Chaim and I share for helping students find internships and recent graduates find entry-level jobs despite the COVID-19 pandemic. As well stated by Chaim,

COVID-19 has really changed everything. In addition to the medical and health issues, the pandemic has left an unprecedented trail of destruction in the employment world as well.

Internships posed a unique challenge for companies last summer. The inability to host traditional internship programs on-site, led to many companies canceling or significantly curtailing their summer internship programs at the last minute, sending thousands of students scrambling to make summer plans.

Sadly, it looks like COVID will still be our reality come next summer as well, but we can use the lessons learned this last year to our advantage. How can students secure an internship and prepare for success in a COVID world?

Here are the 3 things interns need to know about securing internships during COVID:

1. Remote is Reality. Let’s face it. We are not going back to in person meetings for a long while. Students need to be prepared to apply, interview and complete an entire internship remotely. That means having reliable high-speed internet, a reliable computer, webcam and speaker at home are essential.

2. LinkedIn Is Essential. LinkedIn has been necessary for a long time, but social media is even more important now. Employers will not be seeing candidates in person, so LinkedIn will be one of the primary ways they screen candidates. Make sure to have a professional LinkedIn profile that enhances your professional image.

3. AI Interviews. The work world was moving this way anyway, but students need to be prepared for computer-based interviewing. Be ready to go through the entire process remotely. Often employers will utilize Artificial Intelligence as opposed to a live interviewer, so be prepared for that.

If Chaim’s words of wisdom resonate with you as they do with me, then I encourage you to dive deeper into another of his passions: how students should use LinkedIn to network their way into a new job. Start by watching his LinkedIn webinar.