Micro-internships are an excellent way to gain some exposure to the working world, while not committing your entire holiday to work. The annoying thing about Oxford’s holidays system is that six-week is a long time to be doing nothing (there’s only so much traveling you can do!) but it’s usually not enough to do a full-internship. While these microenternships are just for one week, many are rather established companies and have established a strong partnership and program to make it productive for one-week interns. These micro-internships occur every vacation, usually in the first week. That gives you the chance to plan your travel after the internship.
Future Planet Capital, Synergy Global and Osney Capital are some of the popular micro-internships back in 2022 among the E&M cohort. Because of this, competition will usually be really high and getting a spot will be difficult if you lack relevant experience. I would recommend stacking your resume with the relevant society experience in order to stand out to the committee. In addition, because many of these companies are smaller ones, referrals are particularly important.
These internships are unpaid, though some will reimburse expenses for travel if necessary. While I’m not a huge fan of unpaid internships, I cannot see how companies would be willing to pay for one week – the tangible value you can really provide in that week is probably negligible – and this exists more as a way for them to expand their hiring pipeline. Some of my friends impressed their micro internship supervisors so much that they were given full-time, paid roles for the rest of the vacation thereafter.
There are a huge variety of roles across multiple industries, so this could also be a valuable way to experience another industry instead of doubling down on another. However, there is a cap on the number of micro internships you can apply to each season. What I did was to apply for one that is more competitive, and then apply for another in a less-competitive industry, but still something that I was interested in – such as in creative industries or sustainability.
Application usually opens up at the start of term, so do be prepared. You will have to write a statement of interest as well as submit your CV, so this could take some time.
Do speak with the Careers Service and leverage their expertise in guiding both your choice of micro-internships as well as your application – they were immensely helpful for me.
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