Consider these lessons learned.

This week has been rather stressful in various aspects of my life, but hopefully on the internship front it will work out for the best. I’ve recently been asked about a summer work opportunity with Indika, which I greatly showed my interest in. Of course, I mentioned that I would need to get some sort of compensation for the fact that I’ve been unpaid for the past and next couple of months. They knowingly said that they would work something out, and we’d discuss it sometime soon. That soon, became more of a prompt need as I further my plans for after graduation and summer. I’m the type who likes to have some sort of plan set for the not so near future, and if that doesn’t work out… a back up plan.

Before I was offered the opportunity to work past my internship, I applied to another said company that I worked at last summer. Where their offer was not quite livable for the future fresh-out-of-college gal, I really had to start thinking more realistically. So when the timing became more prominent and other offers arose it came the time where I really had to make a move to figure things out.

I think it’s wonderful that Indika wants to keep me longer, but not having any experience in negotiating and what the rights and wrongs were in the process has kept me slightly paranoid with my actions. To get past this though, I used the resources that I had around me and I was able to get some advice in order to get the ball moving. It also helped to talk to the HR/Office Manager type person that works in the studio about what I should do. The result was sending them a breakdown of what my living expenses would be along with a rough estimated offer based off of that. I know that I didn’t have to give them how I would budget things down, but I felt that the more backing I had the more comfortable I would be with making the offer.

As of now, they mentioned that they were thinking about creating a full-time position with the jobs and responsibilities I have now, and they want to do more research on the pay, etc. This being said, at some point today or by Friday I should find out what their negotiation will be. My plans in the fall are still unclear seeing that I have also applied to various Graduate Schools for this fall as well. There might be some tough decisions that have to be made in my near future so we will see how that goes. Because if they decide to make a full-time position out of my job… that might mean choosing between Grad School or a job offer.

I think as an intern it’s really important to use the resources you have around you and to ask the questions that will help you in the future. I don’t know how I would have been able to really get the confidence to make an offer without the advice of others in the field, etc. I know for myself I felt really awkward about moving forward with negotiations and such, but in the end it never hurts to try. You also don’t want a company taking advantage of your services, so to be able to communicate with each other openly is always a good idea. Sometimes it’s not the easiest, but I guess that’s part of learning what is necessary in the field to move forward.