Career Coaching and BlogJobs and Internships

INTERNSHIPS VS JOBS: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

Often when applying for career opportunities it is difficult to decipher which opportunity is best for you at a certain stage of your career. It is therefore vital to differentiate and understand what a certain opportunity entail before you commit to pursuing it. This applies especially to two main career paths; an internship and a job.

An internship helps you gain professional experience in a particular field you are pursuing and can be paid or unpaid. In contrast, a job can either help you gain professional experience or not depending on the type of job, but you get paid. To illustrate, lets focus on a university student studying towards a degree. The student can lend an internship in their pursued field during their studies or as soon as they graduate thus gaining professional experience. On the other hand, a student can lend a part time job like waiting to pay the bills which does not aid in their professional career or if lucky the student can get a part time job for example as a Researcher related to their field of study.

Internships are temporary and can last for a few months or a year depending on the contract requirements while jobs can be long term from seasonal work to more years if individuals maintain their performance and prove their skills in executing the assigned responsibilities.

The simplest takeaway is that an internship is more of a learning experience whilst with a job you must showcase skills gained to perform the desired tasks. When you choose to take on either of the two remember both can be beneficial to your future career, if you look for opportunities that align with your career objectives.

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