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This summer I'm working a full-time, 9-5, paid internship at a major company. Since the position is full time, I'm not entirely sure how to list it on my resume.

How do I list an internship on my resume? Should I differentiate between jobs and paid internships?

To be more specific, should I include "intern" in the job description on my resume?

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7 Answers 7

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I keep both jobs and internships under one category, Work Experience, on my resume, regardless of whether they're full time or not. The only concern with not mentioning that it's an internship is employers may get confused about why you were only at a company for 3 months. Because of that, I'll specify "Summer Consultant" or "Marketing Intern" as my job title, not in the description.

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I find that keeping them all under "Experience" is sufficient. But when you are an intern, it's normally stated in your job title. So if you were being completely transparent, your resume would clearly state your status as an intern.

You could omit this by obscuring your title somewhat, but think about what you would gain. What would your employer think if you had a 4 month career in which you did limited work and were paid well under industry standard? Even if you did this, you would likely be asked about it during interviews, which would give you little choice but to reveal your intern status anyway.

Honestly, internships look good. Be confident and show future employers that you have been hard at work learning the industry and gaining as much experience as possible with whatever skills you had at that time.

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    As a side note to your statement "What would your employer think if you [...] were paid well under industry standard?" In general, companies you are applying to should not know what you were paid for previous jobs, and this should absolutely not be on your resume.
    – David K
    Jul 10, 2017 at 12:30
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List it with the rest of your work experience and just keep your actual job title, which probably includes the word "Intern". Then in the job description, make the first thing that you mention be that it was full time, or add it in parenthesis.

Example A:

Software Intern - ABC Co Startup Inc
Summer 2017
Full time paid position.... blah blah...

Example B:

Software Intern (Full time) - ABC Co Startup Inc
Summer 2017
Paid internship...Blah blah blah...

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+200

A few more thoughts that may have been more appropriate as a comment, but I'm new so I'll try compiling this into an answer. This answer is also targeted more towards a student or recent graduate as students are expected to have gaps in their employment history.

As other's mentioned, you want the employer to know the reason why you only worked at this company for a few months. I would put internships in the same category as other employment, but append "Intern" to the title even if it's not officially part of it. However, full time internships are going to look impressive and they're not assumed by default, especially if they're done during normal school semester months. So I would start off a short description with "Worked full time doing...". Up to a few sentences can be helpful if this is your most relevant experience in the field.

Another important detail to keep in mind is keep more relevant experience near the top. It may seem obvious but I've seen many students make this mistake. If you're applying for a job and your internship is your only relevant experience, you want to highlight this. If you've had more recent but non-related or short term employment, you can list these near the bottom or leave them out completely depending on how much total experience you have. Work experience does not have to be listed chronologically.

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  • "Work experience does not have to be listed chronologically." True, but in my experience you'll want to be careful with this as it's sometimes used by poorer candidates trying to hide gaps in their work history. Not showing a gap is typically preferable to the advantages of a condensed history.
    – Lilienthal
    Jul 17, 2017 at 6:41
  • And to be clear: are you suggesting two separate listings ("Relevant" and "Other" work history) or sorting your work history by relevance rather than date (Job D > A > C > E, leaving out B)? Hiring managers will not like the latter.
    – Lilienthal
    Jul 17, 2017 at 6:43
  • I was suggesting the latter, but targeted more towards a student or young person moving into the workforce. Employers aren't going to pay much attention to an employment gap from a student. To be clear I'm a student myself, and I've done this with my resume for full time positions and it usually seems to be well received. Other people I've talked to who have had to hire people also seemed to like it. Though my experience is anecdotal. Jul 17, 2017 at 13:46
  • A slight difference would be to list it under "Work Experience" and not "Employment History" as the latter implies it's chronological. Jul 17, 2017 at 13:48
  • Ah yes, for a student that makes sense, though you may want to add a disclaimer about that to your answer. You can't really get away with it once you've entered the workforce full-time.
    – Lilienthal
    Jul 17, 2017 at 13:56
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How do I list an internship on my resume? Should I differentiate between jobs and paid internships?

Here is what I would suggest:

Keep your timeline consistent, and linear, with the latest information on top.

I would have something like:

DateFrom -- Current JOBTITLE ( paid internship ) followed by DESCRIPTION of duties. ( I think the paid internship part is important. That means most likely there was some serious competition for the postion )

Now if you have other relevant thing to put on your resume, I would include that to, similar to:

DateFrom -- Current STUDENT followed by Major and Minor information. You may want to include anticipated graduation date too.

If these two are the only relevant items do it like this:

DateFrom -- Current JOBTITLE ( paid internship ) followed by DESCRIPTION of duties.

DateFrom -- Current STUDENT followed by Major and Minor information.

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Personally, I list it like any other position under work experience:

Job title intern at company, summer/fall/whatever 201X.

And then follow that with bullets describing it like any other position, specifically focussing on practical introductions to new concepts. Most internship programs feature an "Intern Project" as well, which often makes for some good bragging points here.

I don't think it's worthwhile to note that it's paid or not. Nor do I think it's necessary to specify the month. Most hiring managers understand that internship programs run for the summer, or whatever season you list - so I don't think it's worthwhile to note the month that you started and ended.

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I don't believe there exist rules for or against it in any locale. If the internship is in the same general area of work you're applying to, I'd include it in my resume.

When you don't have much experience, any experience is good to write down as it allows an employer to ask you about your tasks, responsabilities and skills.

I've always put my internship on my resume, specifying that I was an intern on the job title, and I never had any issues with that during interviews. Most of the time the recruiter would ask me what I was doing there like any other job listed.

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