How important is an Position?

(Spoiler Alert – very, but are you ready to handle the truth?)

How many of us are ready for the future?

Didn’t you just spend most of the past 15+ years learning and studying things that are supposed to impact your future?

Do you have a savings account? Life insurance? Career goals? A diversified portfolio? An Underground bunker? All the medical supplies, canned goods, and bottled water you would need to survive 1-2 years, in case of the apocalypse?

Some of these sound ‘over-the-top’, while others are simply… ‘normal’. In fact car insurance is mandatory and yet we only need it in case of something POSSIBLY happening in the future.

Let’s take an extreme example – ‘Preppers’, those people who build themselves bunkers under their houses and stock up on everything they might need to survive the zombie apocalypse. We have all heard about this segment of society and just how insane they are. There are shows pointing out just how far some people go to make sure that they are prepared for the ’inevitable’ future. Last night I watched 10 Cloverfield Lane, and though the movie made the ‘Prepper’ (you gotta love John Goodman) out to be an insane monster (he was), SPOILER ALERT in the end he was proven correct. Now keep in mind, that from last night until I sit here writing this, I have not yet begun drawing up my blueprints for the bunker. Will I? I doubt it, but it did make me think about the concept of being prepared.

Be Prepared – the motto of the Boy Scouts of America.

Some time in the next few years you plan on embarking on your careers. Are you ready? Do you have all of the tools you need? Do you even know what tools you need?

Hopefully at some point in your education you figured out what sort of knowledge base you would need to potentially be successful at your chosen profession (this is assuming that you have already chosen your chosen profession). You hopefully took that knowledge and focused your education to make sure that you had all of the knowledge needed for your future career.

I’ve hired many people in my career and I can tell you that a resume that only listed an education background quickly found its way to the circular file. The world is looking for doers not people who might be able to do. Ideas are great and understanding is important, but if you can’t show that you can make ‘it’ happen (whatever ‘it’ is), what employer is going to pay you while you ‘figure it out’?

Interning gives you more than just a few lines on your resume. While you are interning, you will learn what you are good at and what you enjoy doing. This is very helpful in planning the next steps in your career path.

Beyond the skills and knowledge that you will gain from an position, there is another important value that cannot be overlooked – relationship. There are people that you are going to meet while interning who can be very valuable later in life (see Welcome to the Start-Up Nation to get a better understanding of the value of relationships when it comes to your career), whether they are your manager, coworker or even someone from a completely different department (heck, there could even be future benefit in your relationship with the delivery guy).
An position will only prove to you that when it comes to your career, being a ‘Prepper’ is not insane.