Online Internships Do's & Don'ts
DO expand your horizons and get yourself some great experience by doing a journalism internship! There are some great possibilities in the world of online journalism that you can explore and through this you will find so many different areas that you will gain experience to further your career. You can always do an online internship while you do your studies, which will give you a chance to get experience while you learn!
DON'T expect to get paid for every internship you get involved in. Some internships will not pay anything and exist for you to simply gain experience in the industry and really develop your future journalism career. If you after a paid internship then you really need to look around and realise that they are extremely competitive and can often be hard to come by. Never discredit how important an unpaid internship can be for your journalism career.
DO as much research as you can when finding an internship for yourself! Online internships are the best way to really get your teeth into what a journalism internship is all about as you can do it from home and really expand your personal horizons as to what you will discover. There are many places around the world that can offer you online internships and given how expansive the internet is you can have your articles read by many people around the world!
DON'T ever forget to make as many contacts as you can during your time as an intern and try and use them in the future when it comes to landing a job. You may think that some contacts will have no use to you in the future but you never know unless you give them a try. A simple phone call in the future could have the ability to change your life so always make sure you keep track of contacts and keep in touch with them as your internship progresses. It could one day change your life!
Online Internship - Frequently Asked Questions
Will I get paid for doing the online journalism internship?
This will depend on the internship and the job. Some will offer you payment and will provide a decent wage for the stories you produce. Others however will be for no payment. You shouldn't be discouraged from an internship though due to this, as the experience it will bring you will be of great benefit to you further on in your career.
Can I do the internship overseas and not online?
Absolutely, you can do this in Australia and New Zealand and really experience those countries! However there is generally a fee involved and you will then obviously have to pay for your own accommodation and flights over here. Payment for these internships is also usually nothing except the experience it will bring you.
I am a full time student; will I have time to do an online internship?
Absolutely, in fact you will find most of our employees are students looking in getting some extra experience. Obviously you can work out the best time management for your work and your study but if you feel confident you can juggle your time between both then it is a great chance for you to get some experience in the journalism field while you do your studies.
Why should I do an online internship?
The convenience it will bring you by not actually having to travel far is one thing, as you can literally jump out of bed and go straight to your computer to do the work. You could even work all day in you pyjamas if you really wanted too! You also will receive large amounts of experience that will help you in the future when it comes to really expanding your career and bringing you deeper into the journalism industry. Placing a journalism internship on your resume will give future employers something to work from, and it will get you a lot further then having nothing!
Online Internship Experience brings great opportunities!
By Jessica Durnaste
I really wanted to become a journalist when I was younger so I found myself working harder each day to try and achieve this. One day I made it easier for myself when I came across some online internships for journalism jobs. The best part about this was that it would be writing about different Universities in Australia for International Students. This was easy for me as I had actually been to several universities across Australia so I could give some detailed and personal experiences from each of these! The best part about all this was the fact that I would actually be getting paid for it as well!
Given my personal experiences at the universities I started by writing a few personal experiences from my time at each one I went too. This gave the readers a bit of a chance to read from a student's point of view, and not have to deal with all the irrelevant chatter that the universities would put on their own sites. I then did a bit of further research into some of the other activities that were available at the universities as well as trying to find out as much student information that would be useful to prospective students in the future. I did a lot of ringing around and emailing to really knuckle down on this, but it did pay off after a while!
You can find some jobs online for journalism internships that will pay you and others that won't. It's all really a matter of doing the research and really trying to find out what you want too and knuckling down on getting involved. I would never discount the importance of experience, so even if you can only find unpaid jobs then you should give them a go. I was definitely lucky to get a paid one but I'm sure you can find one that will be best suited to what you are after in a journalism internship job,
I got so many different references by doing some online work!
By Georgie Brownlow
I could have never imagined the amount of experience and references I would have received when I first began doing an online internship. You see when I first started I was strictly told that in no way would I be paid for it. This was a bit of a downer of course and I was quite disappointed that I wouldn't be earning money. However I would soon discover that all the experience I earned and all the references I would receive would soon make up for all the initial disappointment!
Working online can bring great things into your career, as well as having so much convenience! You see working at home can mean so much saved on certain things but you can still make contacts! I would have to write some stories about travel so I would then need to do some contacts with travel organisations to find out more information. When I did, they would then recommend I try out certain travel magazines to get a better insight to what was already done, and then I would actually get in contact with them. They would look at my work and praise what I had done, and then even sometimes offer me work for my trouble! It definitely worked out fantastic if you asked me!
And this was only one example! The amount of other contacts I received over the course of the internship really was incredible and you have the chance to do this also if you really look into it. Give yourself ample amounts of time to research your way around various positions and never be turned away by non-paying internships. I certainly wasn't and look how many contacts I got out of it? It's the best way to really get some great industry contacts that will further develop your career as you get older. And depending on your dream job, it could move you closer and closer to that everyday!