Your journey · Work-based learning, capstones and internships

You are not behind. You are early.

Name the fear Steady

The fear in this lane is that having no work history means having nothing to say. It does not. Everything a workplace actually needs, showing up, saying early when something is wrong, getting a careful thing right twice in a row, you have already been doing somewhere. The job of a first placement is to find out whether the part you like in class is the part that fills the day. Finding out it is not is a good outcome, and a cheap one.

  • School work is work. The part that took care is the part to name.
  • Nobody expects you to know how. They expect you to say when you do not.
  • The people hosting you are often more nervous than you are. Most have never done this either.

Build your answer What to say when you have no work history

Work these out loud or on paper. Nothing you write here goes anywhere: this site stores no practice content, by design.

Run the room Practice scenarios

First meeting with your workplace mentor "So, tell me about yourself" The question that assumes you have a career to describe. Asking a business to host you Making the ask Most places say no because they do not know what yes involves. You got something wrong on site When you break something The moment that decides what the rest of the placement is like. Presenting your capstone to people who do the job Presenting to the room that knows They are not there to catch you out. Most of them are nervous too. After the interview After the no A no is data with bad manners. Here is how to collect it and keep moving.

Handle the day The room

  • Ask before you move anything you did not set up.
  • When you get something wrong, say it the same hour. The delay is the damage, not the mistake.
  • Write down what you did each visit while you still remember it. Your hours have to be documented, and reconstructing them in June is how people lose credit they actually earned.
  • If you are not given enough to do, say so once, plainly. They usually do not know.

Land it well The offer, and after

  • Ask for one piece of feedback before you leave, and write it down.
  • Ask whether they would be willing to be a reference. Ask while they still remember you.
  • Log your hours before the week ends.
  • If it turned out you did not like the work, that is worth as much as if you had. You just bought that answer years earlier than most people do.

Find the humans Your people

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