Internships

Internships are a great way for students to extend their education, gain meaningful career contacts and create a significant differentiating advantage for themselves in the job placement market.

The primary purpose of an internship is to provide practical perspectives on the academic concepts and theories you have studied. It is not designed simply to give you work experience! Although work experience and an in-depth look at an organization and at a particular industry are desirable results of an internship, they are not the principal objectives. Therefore, emphasis throughout the internship will be on providing you with the opportunity to make significant contributions to your employer's operations through your insights and applications of what you have learned at CMU. Thus, not only will your employer gain the optimal benefit from you, but  you will also obtain the most benefit from the experience and opportunity to discover more about theory and practice.

The Departmental Internship Advisor for marketing is Professor Robert Miller, whose office is 109 Smith Hall.

Goals of the Internship Program

There are many reasons why our department requires internships of all marketing majors and strongly encourages them for all of our other majors. Among the goals of the program are:

  1. to provide practical perspectives on the academic concepts and theories students have studied.
  2. to encourage students to interact, network, and collaborate.
  3. to provide students with an in-depth look at an organization and at a particular industry.
  4. to create opportunities for the exchange of ideas, research, and expertise between students, faculty, and employers.

Finding an Internship

Begin by contacting the Internship Advisor for information beyond that supplied here on our Web site.

You are encouraged to look for internships independent of the Internship Advisor. If you are able to find an internship position independent of officially listed positions, then you must contact the Internship Advisor who will evaluate your chosen assignment to ensure the job qualifies for an internship. (See approval process.) If you are offered, and you accept a position with an approved organization, then you must complete the Application (Form A) and return it to the Internship Advisor before you can be given permission to enroll in the course. Upon the Internship Advisor's approval of your application, you will receive a permit to enroll.

The student must receive approval of the employment position from the Marketing Internship Advisor before beginning work for academic credit. The intern position must truly involve some marketing management experience. The following are examples of tasks which would satisfy this objective:

  1. Planning of marketing activities and merchandising
  2. Designing and/or conducting marketing research
  3. Forecasting
  4. Coordinating marketing activities
  5. Developing sales territory allocations or commission schedules
  6. Providing for marketing control systems
  7. Building relationships within channels of distribution
  8. Developing media schedules.

Internship Examples

Here are a few examples of the kinds of positions previous students have found for internships:

Advertising Administrator

Duties: Manage prospect database, generate letters using database, telemarketing update of database and follow-up of direct mail.

Assistant Marketing Coordinator for Manufacturer

Duties: Trade show management; develop sales and technical promotional material; direct mail promotions.

Commercial Real Estate Development Marketing Assistant

Duties: Identify local and national retailers as prospective tenants, analyze competitive developments, conduct research.

Restaurant Management

Duties: Restaurant management duties, supervise food preparation, catering, billing and budgets.

Retail Executive Development Program

Duties: Department management, merchandising, stocking, staffing, promotion, security, inventory control, information systems.

Sales Representative for Manufacturer

Duties: Retail territory management, sell promotions to retail food stores, shelve products, Nielsen tracking projects, market research projects.

Internship Requirements

Final acceptance for MKT490 credit is determined by the Internship Advisor and is based upon the nature and duration of the work, the presence of an acceptable salary and the prospects for a suitable research project that merits academic credit. Non- paid employments are usually not permitted for MKT490 credit nor are internships that are in essence summer sales jobs.

The technical requirements for an internship include an orientation paper early within the Internship, submission and approval of a research topic, completion of the approved research, and submission of the research report to the Internship Sponsor and Internship Advisor. Historically an informal diary of the summer's work experience has also been required. Marketing research firms and firms with designated marketing departments have been the most active sponsors of MKT490 internships.

The work has to be consistent with that done in entry level positions by college graduates. For example, while typing, filing, and telephone answering are important office functions, they would not qualify for an internship. Also, it is expected that the intern will have responsibility for a variety of marketing-related tasks and that the intern will be supervised by someone who is knowledgeable about marketing. This means that we can't give a student credit for a marketing internship if the work is predominately finance or accounting. Likewise, work which is very narrow in scope, although marketing-related, does not qualify (e.g., strictly telemarketing). Students have earned internships with a wide variety of companies, both in Michigan and elsewhere.

Internship Approval Process

Students who want to apply for Marketing Internship credit must first contact the company and establish (a) who the supervisor will be and (b) a description of the job to be done. The supervisor must agree to fill out an evaluation form and to provide a written evaluation letter. It is up to the Internship Advisor to review the information and decide on whether the job meets the spirit of an internship.

Since the objective of the program is to assist students in exploring new real-life career opportunities, students who are already employed may not use their regular job as credit for MKT 490.

Student Benefits from Internships

There are many good reasons to do an internship. Here are just a few:

  1. Gain practical work experience in your chosen major field
  2. Earn academic credit for qualifying experiences
  3. Acquire additional professional experience to list on your résumé
  4. Opportunity to apply classroom skills and knowledge to on- the-job experiences
  5. Potential for improved grades after internship completion since relevancy of course work becomes more evident after seeing what professionals do
  6. Earn money for school tuition and expenses
  7. Get a jump on networking for future job contacts
  8. Develop confidence and learn to interact professionally with peers
  9. Learn additional professional skills, such as business writing and public speaking
  10. Take a break from school to avoid "burnout"
  11. Begin at a higher level of responsibility in your first position after graduation
  12. Help in deciding if your chosen career is really right for you before you complete your degree

Employer Benefits from Internships

There are many reasons for organizations to partner with our department in providing internships for our students. Here are just a few:

  1. Opportunity to observe the performance and potential of future employees without obligation to hire.
  2. Excellent strategy to meet staffing needs for short- term projects.
  3. Availability of continuous flow of motivated students for selection.
  4. Our department's programs are nationally accredited by the AACSB- The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

If you represent an organization that is considering an internship program involving our students, please contact our department's Internship Advisor, Professor Robert Miller.