Internships for Mechanical Engineering Students: Complete Guide

With more and more companies using internships as a way to screen talent, engineering students will have an added advantage if they do an internship.

Rather than looking at internships as a short time opportunity, students can use that in a productive way and look to convert it into a full-time job.

But how should I get past the internship and go about securing a full-time offer from the same company?

Note:

Have you checked out our Summer training programs
Get hands-on experience on latest technologies.

Summer Training in Robotics

Summer Training in IoT

Summer Training in Mechatronics

Summer Training in Wireless Communications

Summer Training in Embedded Systems

Summer Training in Computer Vision

Summer Training in Machine Learning

Summer Training in Structural Engineering

Summer Training in BIM & CPM

Summer Training in Quantity Surveying

This is one of the generic questions that most of the mechanical engineering students have. Since they are going for internships in their core mechanical industries, they really don’t want to stop their learning at that point.

So, if you are a mechanical engineer who wants more than an internship, here are some insights for you to make the most of your internship and convert it into a full-time opportunity.

4 steps you need to do to convert your internship to full time:

1. Find the right mentor: You might find some interns in your workplace who will be touting around all the departments in an attempt to grab everyone’s attention. But trust me, you don’t want to end up as that intern.
   
   What you need to do first is to identify the people who talk to you well and willing to offer help if you are in trouble. Every workplace will have persons who assist others and care more than others.
   
   Once you find that person, now your goal is to make sure that you get his/ her attention by letting know how well you are doing your tasks. Get acquainted with that person more and try to become junior to them. This will help you to get their vote of confidence and develop a reputation for you in the organization.

Make relationships with most of them: Well, it takes more than one person to give you the vote of confidence for the full-time offer. You need to build relationship with as many people as possible.

You can do simple things like greeting them with a cup of coffee, involving in discussions that happen during lunch/ tea breaks, staying back late to talk to people who are among the top layer, participating in their weekend plans or a movie night frequently.

By doing such things it will not look obvious for them that you are trying to pursue them but rather it would create an impression about you which will continue to your workplace. If you spend some quality time with them you will be able to identify their roles and know where the company is heading.

Note:

Have you checked out our projects on Training & Internship yet?
Training & Internship Kit will be shipped to you and you can build using tutorials. You can start with a free demo today!

1. Robotics Training & Internship

2. IoT Training & Internship

3. Mechatronics Training & Internship

4. Embedded Systems Training & Internship

5. Computer Vision Training & Internship

6. Machine Learning Training & Internship

7. Wireless Communication Training & Internship

1. Take more responsibilities:Unless you are in some well-run internship program, you will probably have some free time, when you don’t have much to do. Rather than chilling out or leaving early, you can take new initiatives.
   
   You can just go out to people and assist them in their work, by taking some of the work load onto you. Ask the people around you and check if there are some side projects that the company is running parallel in which your contributions will be valuable.
   
   Just make sure that you frame it as “I’d love to help, I want to learn, I need to know it...” rather than “I have nothing to do, so...”.
   
   Taking new responsibilities and initiatives is a great way to show your enthusiasm for the company and that will make them think that you would be a great asset to the team if hired.


2. Communicate with your Manager The most important thing you need to do in your internship is to regularly communicate with your manager. Ultimately it is going to be your manager’s word that will carry the highest weightage while evaluating your performance.
   
   So make sure you are utilizing the opportunity well whenever you meet your manager and let him/ her know what you were doing and what you are up to. And also get prior permissions from your manager before you go around and assist in other projects.
   
   If the company is not scheduling weekly meetings for you with the manager, just summarize the activities and tasks that you did in that week and send an email to your manager. Being on the same page as your manager will help you to become a star intern whom he/ she would like to see as a full-time employee.
   
   Hope, you would have got some insights about how to increase your chance of converting from an intern to a full-time employee. Below are some additional points to help you land the right internship.

What are the companies that offer internships for mechanical engineering students?

There are lots of companies that offer internships for mechanical engineers. Some of the companies include,

1. CESC
2. NHPC
3. DAAD WISE
4. MITACS
5. General Electric
6. CMERI - Durgapur
7. Tata motors
8. Eicher Tractors
9. Ashok Leyland
10. Private automobile companies ( TATA, Honda, Hero, Hyundai)

If you want to do in steel plants then you can apply for internships in the following firms,

1. TATA Steel
2. JSW
3. SAIL
4. VIZAG Steel Plant

Apart from these, there are other organizations like ONGC, NTPC, BHEL etc. also offer internships for mechanical engineering students.

You can simply search for these companies in Google to get their official website. You can browse through their website to understand their work and check if they have some internship offerings in your area of interest.

How to apply for internships?

You can find information about the internships offered by various companies in many public forums. Some of the commonly used ones are internshala, letsintern, twenty19, hellointern etc.

You can register on these forums to get timely updates and notification about the internships. You will also be able to apply for the internships in these forums directly. They even display the status of your internship in that portal itself to ease the recruitment process.

If you want to apply for other government organizations/ MNCs you can visit their careers/ offerings page on their website, where they would have mentioned about their current openings and their interview process.

Generally, companies will ask for the resume, cover letter, bonafide certificate and other Bachelor transcripts. So prepare them in advance and show it to your seniors/ faculties to get their inputs and make changes accordingly.

What can you do other than Internships?

If for some reason you are unable to get an internship, don’t worry. There are plenty of other opportunities that you can utilize to develop similar skills and experience you get by doing an internship. For example, you can try the following activities instead of wasting your holidays.

1. Hands-on training programs: Attending hands-on training programs are the traditional way to learn new technologies and develop skill sets. You can undergo summer training programs or winter training programs that are offered by reputed institutions to spend your vacations in a productive manner. You can choose the training programs as per your requirements and improve your skills accordingly.
2. Building Projects: You can improve your skill sets by building projects on latest technologies to understand them better. Learning while building projects will be an effective approach for you to gain necessary skills. This experience will also add values to your profile and you can use that to impress your recruiter, as most companies prefer candidates who are more hands-on. You can also try several online project building courses.
3. E-Learning: This is also an effective way for you to learn and gain new skills. There are various online platforms available for you, through which you can enroll for some certification courses. Top mentions include Udemy, Udacity, Coursera, Simplilearn etc. The advantage of doing these courses is that you can just log in anytime, anywhere and learn without any hassle. You will also be awarded a certificate of completion which you can use to showcase skills to recruiters.

Skyfi Labs Courses/ Training Programs:

If you are planning to improve your skills by doing projects, we at Skyfi Labs have developed some amazing project-based courses that make learning by building projects super easy.
You can either enroll for our online courses to build projects in your home at your own convenience or you can join our hands-on training programs at one of our venues.

Build awesome projects at your home
Join hands-on classroom training program

Leave your comments below..

Internships for Mechanical Engineering Students: Complete Guide