For those of you who are currently in college and hope to find a job when you graduate, I have one word for you: internships.

The economy is sluggish, unemployment levels recently spiked, and companies are growing more and more cautious about whom they hire.  What is a graduate-to-be to do in this environment?  My advice: get as many internships as you can, while you can.  As a recent graduate, your goal will be to convince employers that you are a well-rounded and valuable candidate. Having an internship listed on your resume will go a long way toward establishing that idea in their minds.

Here are a few benefits that internships can offer you:

• Training in basic office skills, which will help you hit the ground running at a new job. College teaches you a lot of things, but it probably won’t teach you how to operate a multi-line phone, collate and staple large amounts of documents using a commercial copier, or write a professional email to a client. Employers really appreciate these skills because, as trivial as they may seem when compared to the study of macroeconomics or Voltaire, these skills are crucial to surviving in most white-collar jobs.  The stronger your grasp of these skills before you start a new job, the less time the company will have to spend teaching you, and the faster they’ll be able to expect you to start producing results.
• An understanding of the office environment and culture at different workplaces, which will give you insight into which types of organizations you might want to work for. An internship will give you a jump-start by immersing you in a professional environment before you begin your post-graduation job hunt.  Whether it’s paid or unpaid, each internship is likely to be a valuable experience because it will teach you the ropes of surviving in an office.  If you manage to snag an internship in your chosen profession, you’ll have the added benefit of being able to test-drive your dream career before committing to it.  If you wind up hating what you thought you’d love doing, you still have time to find a new career before you graduate.
• The opportunity to start building your network of job contacts, which is an essential part of job-hunting today. Internships also enable you to make valuable contacts and begin establishing a professional network that may help you find a job in a year or two.  It’s much easier to find a job at a good company if you know someone who works for that company and is willing to vouch for you.  Resumes have a strange way of floating to the tops of piles when someone in the company puts in a good word.

Since internships are often unpaid, it can be hard to fit them into your schedule. But if you can find the time to squeeze in even one internship during the summer, your resume will be that much more impressive.