Opportunity! You might have heard this word many a times and must be waiting for one. You must be wondering what opportunity is? And how can I come to know about this? Answer to the above question is very simple. Opportunity is an appropriate or favorable time or occasion. It is a situation/condition favorable for attainment of a goal or a good position. It is a chance or a prospect for advancement or success.

It is very important to know when and how opportunity comes and it is equally important for anyone to foresee the same and work in same direction so as to utilize and make full use of it. At times it becomes very difficult to know how opportunity comes and how to take advantage of the same. But if u can envision that, then probably half of the work is done and you will only need to work on the remaining half. The biggest question that arises now is how to foresee good opportunity? What shall we do so that we get good opportunities? Answer to the question is simple, even if you are doing business or a salaried employee.

Broad Minded– It is very important to be broad/Open minded as it helps you to understand the situations in a better way and come to know more about different things. If you are narrow minded then you don’t give room to your mind which will close most of the doors for thinking. If you give room to your mind to think, then probably you can get new ideas and you can work on the same. It is always wise to understand different people and respecting their thoughts as well. You only can learn and grow by doing so. If you become stubborn then you probably don’t grow and become contended in your life.

“Nothing makes a man broad-minded like adversity.”

The above quote is true, it’s better to become broad minded from the beginning than to wait for an adverse situation and change the mindset. If you take efforts to change it from the start then gradually it will become a habit.

Eyes and Ears open– One of the very important ways to attract opportunities is to keep your eyes and ears open. You never know from where a good opportunity may come and you can grab the same. If you keep your eyes open then you can see if there is something which can help you in your future course. If you keep your ears open then you can hear about a good opportunity from someone and make use of it.

Opportunities may come in various forms – in the form of a scholarship, a raise in the salary, promotion at work, and a chance to spend quality time with family and friends. So, it is important to keep one’s eyes and ears open so that these opportunities don’t slip by. Once these opportunities slip through our fingers, it may take a long time before they come knocking on our doors again.

Hard work– Hard work is very essential to attract opportunity. It is very simple if you work hard and if you do good in your activity then good things are going to come to you and you will get desired fruits for the same. If you don’t work hard and only wait for an opportunity then probably it’s not going to happen. To get something you need to work hard and in right direction. The most essential character to success is hard work.

Let’s take an instance, if you want to do a business and you don’t know what business to do and from where to get finance? If you will wait for an opportunity to get you an idea and money to start a business than probably it’s not going to happen. But if you go out and do market research try to find out demand of a particular good or service then you get an opportunity to start something. If you go and meet investors and visit different banks than probably you can arrange finances. Sitting ideally at home gets you nothing and you end up waiting for an opportunity and fail.

“The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”

 Desire – All above qualities are very important but desire to work and foresee an opportunity is equally important. If you desire to find a good opportunity then it is very to do that. If you don’t desire then probably you will ignore opportunities coming to you and will end up getting nothing.

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.”

The human race is divided into two classes-

• Those who go ahead and do something, and
•  Those who sit idle and enquire, out of idle curiosity that: – “Why wasn’t it done the other way?”

Success in life, be it in any task or field brings happiness and once reached must be won over and over again. It’s not easy, but in the difficulty lays the opportunity, its rewards are great, but it belongs only to those brave and courageous souls, who care to have the faith in themselves. Who recognize and opportunity when it comes their way, grab it, make the most of it and continue to move forwards towards success. The winner says- It may be difficult, but it’s possible. The loser says- It may be possible, but it’s difficult. Now which category do we want to belong to? Winner or loser?

One thing is certain, that if a person is willing to brave the hazards of the road, he will grow strong in the journey. Only the strong, courageous and the determined, find success in their journey. Such people don’t explode into success; they GROW into it. A successful man once said “When I can run, I will run; When I can walk, I will walk; When I can only crawl, I will crawl; I will sat least always be moving forward.” Successful men always move forward and grab opportunities. The secret of being successful is grabbing the opportunity and make full use of it.

“If you have the opportunity to play this game of life you need to appreciate every moment. lot of people don’t appreciate the moment until it’s passed.”

I have read the ‘One Minute Manager’ (Ken Blanchard & Spencer Johnson, Berkley Books) at various times during my life and each time it is with a new perspective.

The first time I read it was when I had just started on my career. Frankly, I was a bit bored by the book and I missed the whole point of it. Then after some years, I again read the book. This time the concept intrigued me. Everything done in a minute!

Then more recently, I read it again and this time I got the idea and it was no longer intriguing, but downright enlightening. It seemed the most efficient way to do things – in the shortest possible time.

The purpose of this blog is not about the book as such but to extrapolate on the concept that is explained in the book and what we can learn from it. To those who haven’t read it, the book is essentially about managing people, who are the most important resources in any organisation. If we extend the learning from it, you can also interpret it as getting the results you want in as little time as possible. As a manager, you should not be spending too much time in doing things – whether it is setting goals, praising your employees and chiding them.

The one-minute time is not that important. What is important is how much time are you spending on doing things? How fast is your reaction time? Are your goals so complicated that your employees get confused?

I am sometimes amused reading the mission and vision statements by companies. It runs into several sentences and statements. You have to be able to explain your vision and mission in one sentence. If you are putting in too many of them then you have lost focus.

In the same way, as a team leader or manager you should have well-defined goals for your team that can be read or seen at a glance. Goals, whether the manager or the team members set it, should not occupy more than a sheet of paper. In addition, it should be written in such a way so that it can be easily

We have lost the art of simplicity. In fact, we like making things sound complicated because we think that makes us look clever. If what you say sounds too complex to be understood by others, then the problem is not with their understanding but your ability to explain and communicate.

Since our thought processes are not simple, the way we go about doing things is not simple. Our corporate structure also reflects our complex thinking processes. India’s retail king, Kishore Biyani is a staunch advocate of the simplicity theory. He holds the idea that an organisation should have as few layers as possible, in order to simplify the decision-making process. The more layers, the more time is spent in transmitting information.

The essence of any good manager and management principles is being ‘people friendly’, that is, treating employees with care. Finally, organisations and corporations are all about people and if they are not happy, you cannot have a happy organisation.

The root of all enterprise is people; they are the most important resource. Next comes the processes and systems and then we have the purpose for which the enterprise has been set up. It doesn’t matter if an organisation has two people or 200 people. If their attitude is not right then it doesn’t matter how innovative or how novel the venture is; it will not work.

In the book ‘One Minute Manager’, the manager takes just a minute to praise or reprimand his employees. Extrapolating on this idea, we can conclude that timely action is of the essence. React to events – positive and negative – as soon as they occur. Events do not wait for you. Sometimes you also need to anticipate events and then take action accordingly.

Managers and senior team members in corporates spend a large amount of their time in meetings. Those who have been part of these meetings know that there is a good amount of time wasted in these meetings. Most meetings are inconclusive and some of them have no agenda at all.

If you were an efficient manager, you would not need these meetings. If you have conveyed your instructions properly to your team, they would not need to speak to you frequently, unless it is to update you on their progress – and does it require hours to do that? As a team member, how much time would you really need to explain to your boss how much of your goals have been achieved?

Even meetings need to be efficiently held and should be productive. The meeting agenda should have the objectives clearly laid down. What is the purpose of the meeting? What are the items to be discussed? What are the actions points and by when should they be achieved? Finally, what are the conclusions reached?

People often have meetings to raise issues but they come up with no solutions.

This is a wasted meeting. Some people hold meetings because they claim that is the way they interact with team members. Even if this is true, you have to keep such meetings short.

Large projects need to be broken down into smaller ones with short-term goals. All the short-term goals lead to medium-term goals, which in turn lead to longer-term goals.

Simplifying things and making them into smaller achievable targets is the way to introduce efficiencies in the system. If your systems and processes are efficient, then employees can perform at peak efficiency and be more Processes and systems in a company are meant to help employees. They are not to create roadblocks or hinder them in the course of their duties. Keep them simple so that it is easy for employees for them to follow it and most importantly, understand why they are there.

I have seen some organisation where their workers’ manual, run into several pages. Do you really expect employees to remember all that and work according to it? What’s wrong with a one-page set of instructions?

As aspiring management students and future managers, you have to internalise this idea in your DNA – simplicity is of the essence.

Contributed by Disha Parekh Mohanty

Short term gain, Long term loss! I would like to share an incident which made me write an article on this topic. I am currently based in Bangalore and my family is in Ahmedabad. I work with an Investment bank as an analyst and current CTC is a bit less. Actually industry pay over here is a bit less. One fine day I got a call from a US financial institution based out of Ahmedabad. I went through the process and fortunately or unfortunately cleared the interview. They were ready to pay me according to my expectations and then I got caught in dilemma. On one hand I can get settled in my home town with my parents with a good pay. And on other hand I had my growing career in the current company. I adopted the culture of my Company and doing well in my work. It was always a tough decision for me and here comes a classic example of Short term gain, Long term loss! It was a matter of decision and obviously you should know what would be my decision. It was long term gain.

The reason I opted to stay back in my company is I was doing good in my current role and earned bit goodwill over here by working well. If I can continue my good performance over here I can get good increment and promotion as well. Currently I would have only got benefit of a lakh or so but if I wait in my current role I will reap the benefits of lakhs in future. Brand name is also equally important and can reap us good benefit in future.

Purpose of sharing my experience at this platform is not to boost myself but to provide emphasis on decision making. It is very important for a person to make right decision at right time. We should never make decision hastily as it can have adverse impact on our future. It is wise to take decision taking into consideration our present scenario and future prospect. At times you can also get trapped in this type of tricky situations, most important thing is to think about short term and long term prospect as well.

“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”

Short term loss, Long term gain:-

This probably is a better situation in which anyone would want to be! The only reason for me saying this is, it is fine if we struggle a bit in initial stage but we would always want ourselves to be in better situation at the end. No one likes to end the path in negative note everyone would always want to end the path at good note. The struggle in initial stages also teaches us few important lesson and we can implement the same in future course of career. There are many people who have opted for short term loss and long term gain. We can take the examples of those who rejected a good high profile jobs with healthy pay check to start their own venture. They also have ended up being successful.

 “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”

Few examples who have opted for short term loss and long term gain:-

 Chetan Bhagat-He is an Indian author, columnist, screenwriter, television personality and motivational speaker, known for his English-language dramedy novels about young urban middle-class Indians. He worked in Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong as an Investment Banker for nearly a decade, and wrote Five Point Someone while still in Hong Kong, before moving to Mumbai to focus full-time on his writing career.

He sacrificed his job and started writing novels. Today he is known public figure and is loved for his writing by most of the youth in India. There was a choice for him to continue the job and be there but he opted to leave that and followed his passion. He decided to select the path which is beneficial for him in long term and sacrificed short term gain. Today he is enjoying stardom and price which he deserves. He has earned his living a long back and now only work for passion.

“Better to die doing what you love. Than to live doing nothing at all.”

Sachin Bansal – Bansal graduated from IIT in 2005 and joined a company called Techspan for a few months. In 2006, he joined Amazon.com India as Senior Software Engineer. Binny Bansal also worked at Amazon India at this point.They initially thought of starting a comparison search engine, but realized that the market for E-commerce in India was very small. Hence, after leaving Amazon in 2007, they founded Flipkart as an e-commerce company.

Flipkart went live in 2007 with the objective of making books easily available to anyone who had internet access. Today, they are present across various categories including movies, music, games, mobiles, cameras, computers, healthcare and personal products, home appliances and electronics – and still counting! With over 11.5 million book titles, 11 different categories, more than 2 million registered users and sale of 30000 items a day, we can say with utmost confidence that we are one of the leading e-commerce players in the country.

Sachin Bansal took risk and started a company which is now well known and giving competition to U.S. giant Amazon. It is very big achievement for the young duo. Taking risk can lead to a good career but at times can destroy the career as well. It is important to take calculative risk and there comes a difference between a normal man and a wise man. Wise man always take calculative risk where as normal man know there is high risk and it is do or die situation still he will go for it and wait for the best result. Normal man taking abnormal risk can also be effective but the probability of the same is minor.

“Biggest risk is not taking any risk….In a world that is changing very quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risk.”- Mark Zuckerberg

 From all the things I mentioned above we come to a conclusion that it is very important to take right decision at right time considering future into account. If you want to write your fortune, act wisely and take decision smartly.

I remember an incident some years back when I had just joined my first company. Our Big Boss had come all the way down from Delhi to look at us minions in the far-flung branch office and flex his muscles, so to say.

In his typical brash style he was standing one evening, one leather-shod foot up on a chair, the other planted down on the floor, while he was aggressively beginning to take to task our hapless branch manager, who was trying to bear it.

The Big Man had just begun on his tirade when one of our colleagues from another department, known to have a wit (and as we discovered, also a presence of mind) came into the room, summed up the situation at a glance and then going up to the Boss told him, “Ah excuse me, but I think that is my chair on which you are resting your tired feet. I’ve been searching for it and I find that it is hiding itself in this room. May I take it back into my custody please?”

For a second the Boss looked astonished and then he started to smile. That broke up the tense atmosphere. It was a huge lesson to me and one, which I have never forgotten – the power of humour in handling tricky situations and indeed its importance in the workplace.

I’ve worked in many places since and I’ve been very lucky that most of them have been places where humour and laughter were encouraged. Those whom I’ve worked with, including my bosses, were easy-going people, though very committed to their jobs. They had the rare ability to laugh at themselves. I have also been fortunate enough to work with teammates who were never too busy to respond to a joke or laugh even when we were working under tough deadlines.

Of course, there have been one or two places, which were too stuffy and I was never comfortable there and could not stick it out for more than a few months.

But, I have found, that humour is not, in fact, tolerated in many offices much.

People tend to take themselves and their jobs in a deadly serious manner. Laughter is taken as a sign of frivolity. Any humour consists of the unkind one where people are often laughing at others, or at the expense of others.

Do you know that humour actually makes people relax? It also relieves stress and employees tend to make fewer mistakes in such an atmosphere.

Evidence has shown that humour invigorates and makes people more humour doesn’t mean only cracking jokes or sending around those chain mail ‘forwards’ of internet jokes that are circulating forever. It means being able to keep a stable perspective on things; seeing the lighter side of a situation; knowing that being a few minutes late on a deadline will not really push the universe off its course.

Humour also has the ability to unite people and it is one of the best ways to create teams that can work together in harmony. Have you seen the way old friends laugh and bond when they are together? If we can do it with friends, why not with our colleagues at work?

Offices rivalries are notorious and often have the potential to escalate into disruptive situations. However these kind of hostilities can be defused if people have a sense of humour and the principles concerned realise that it is after all, not a ‘life and death’ matter.

A boss with a sense of humour will be better able to lead a team than one who takes her job and herself seriously. This is because she becomes more approachable and her team members feel at ease with her. They feel able to take their problems to her. Remember that even a strict boss can have a sense of humour – as I said before, it’s an attitude.

Conflict situations in the boardroom or at the workplace can often be resolved with a sense of humour. It helps to ease tension, lessen pressure and puts us in a better mood. This makes us more receptive to the opinions and viewpoints of others and enables us to meet them halfway.

Creativity and innovation can be stifled in an atmosphere where there is a constant pressure to adhere to deadlines and meet targets. Humour can actually help to dispel the sense of undue gravity and it is necessary because the mind has to be free of fear.

I remember once we were all asked to work on October 2, Gandhiji’s birth anniversary. There were a lot of grumbles and rumbles throughout the office but nobody actually dared to challenge the fiat. One female colleague, who had recently married and had made plans for that day, decided to be bold. She walked up to the boss and asked him openly, “I want to take an off on the second. Can I?”

The boss looked at her in silence and then said deadpan, “only, if you are dead!”

He however said it with a smile and that took the sting out of his answer. The rest us cracked up at his reply and that sort of eased the whole situation. It put us in a better frame of mind to lose that holiday.

One should however note that it is never good policy to laugh at others, at least not in a mean way. Making fun of others in front of everyone and laughing at them is not humour, especially if you feel that the butt of your jokes is not appreciating them. This becomes all the more important if you are a team

The first team that I ever led was a young bunch of raw recruits and the kind of job we were doing required us to be alert and fast. There was very little scope for making mistakes and learning from them and the only way I could ensure their enthusiastic co-operation was by keeping the atmosphere light and taking away the psychological pressure. By not stressing too much on the critical nature of their work, the first few difficult weeks passed off uneventfully.

Some people have a natural sense of humour and for those who don’t – I think you need to cultivate it. It definitely pays to have it, especially when you are at the receiving end of a tongue-lashing.

Dr. Albert Einstein famously said on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s 70th birthday that “Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth.”

Isometime wonderthat wasGandhiji merely a freedom fighter,or a national leader, or a revolutionary, or a smartstatesman? It totally depends on the way you analyses his life. You may have disagreements with many of his thoughts. But, all said and done, one cannot deny the fact that he was a super leader who changed the lives of billions of Indians in last century. It required some extra ordinary powers to fight against the British empire and bring freedom to this country and that toowith weapons like truth and nonviolence.

I have always been inspired from Gandhji’s journey and attracted towardshis qualities of a leader. I have read his autobiography when I was 16 or 17. I believe he was a super leader, though I personally have some reservationsfor some of his decisions. It is very difficult to sit down and write about Gandhiji and his leadership skills as they are unquestionable.While writing this article, I feel that the steps and ways shown by Gandhiji are proving more and more relevant in today’s time where complexities have increased many a fold. Here, I have tried to do so and have noted down qualities which depict his great leadership skills.

1. Honesty and transparency – the best policy

Gandhiji’s honesty and transparency were beyond question. His life was an open book. Barring few incidents in the childhood (which he confessed and corrected), he had never made any compromise whatsoever. I believe leadership starts from the very virtue of ‘honesty’. A dishonest leader never gets respect from his team members and he miserably fails to lead them effectively. Further, honesty automatically leads to transparency as honest leader has nothing to hide from anyone.

2. Stay on course

Gandhiji had a solid willpower. After, his life changing experience of Pittsburg railway station in South Africa, he decided to fight against injustice. I believe India’sfreedom movement was not even in his mind at that time. His fight was against injustice only and he committed himself for this cause and fought for it. He decided one thing and stuck to it in every odd situation.

The same continued when he returned to India. On his entourage across India, he observed and experienced the pain of injustice done to poor Indians by British rulers. And then he decided to start a mass movement to fight against such injustice which later on converted into the freedom struggle for India.

He said once that “To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.” He lived this sentence for his entire life. This is a finest quality of great leaders. They take time in deciding goal but once they decide something, they spend entire life behind achieving it

3. Make a team of talented people

One of the basic qualities of a smart leader is that he is around with talented people. He discovers talent and keep them with him on his side to discuss, understand,seek views on the variety of issues. He shares his dream with them and converts it in a one shared dream for the entire team.

Gandhiji had army of super talented and highly skilled people like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Maulana Azad and many more.He created rock solid team with such people. The team in a true sense was inspired by his dream and helped him in communicating his message to the mass. This teamcreated fire and wave for freedom fight acrossthe country.Gandhiji formulated strategies and his team successfully implemented them effectively across India. This made him very effective compared to any other leader in the world.

4. Communicate with everyone

I believe Gandhiji’s ability to communicate and stay connected with everyone and involving them was the key to success of our freedom struggle. As being a smart leader, he knew that it was very important to communicate his vision of free India to common man. Hence, he travelled length and breadth of this country and conveyed this message. He always travelled in a third class of train so that he could stay more and more connected with average poor Indians and understand their problems, communicate with them.Further, he also started magazines to reach out to large number of Indians with his vision. He used to write a lot of letters, regularly answered themto be more connected evenin his busy schedules.

It is absolutely necessary for a leader to communicate his vision and convey message to team members. With this approach, team members feel that his leader is talking to him and it lifts up their morale. In today’s time, leaders are not able to reach to bottom of the pyramid because of variety of reasons and leave it to his subordinates. This does not give desired outcome as subordinates cannot share the message with same intensity and conviction as it was not their message. People always like to listen directly to the leader.

5. Ensuring involvement of everyone

Gandhiji knew that it would require involvement of everyone in order to achieve success in the freedom struggle. Hence, he introduced “the swadeshi movement, charkha, picketing of foreign goods, Dandy march, Satyagrahs”etc and involved almost every Indianin his battle with all these programs. He made them felt that they are important contributors in India’s freedom movement.

I can correlate the famous quote from Benjamin Franklin (one of the founding fathers of United States) in this regard that “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn”. Hence, It is utmost important for a leader to keep his people involved and engaged in the process of achievement of ultimate goal.

6. Ability to manage conflicts

Gandhiji had a team of stalwarts. But these people were having their own perspectives. However, Gandhiji was able to resolve thesedifferences of opinions effectively and did not let the team break. Such an exceptional quality! And these differences were large in the magnitudes which only he could manage.

When there are people, there will be issues. It is difficult to manage differences arising from people in today’s time and hence, it requires patient hearing, persuasive skills, open heart and honesty to solve them.

7. Be what you are

It was absolutely sheer courage and strong determination to attend round table conferences, meet Britain’s kings/queens/viceroys in merely “dhoti”at that time. People laughed at him but he believed in one thought that “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”.He simply put that as a representative of billions of poor Indians, he cannot afford to have lavish clothing. It provides us the most important lesson to us that we should be what we are. Sometime, we just fake it to impress others.The simple thing is to let our thoughts and actions do so.

 At the end

The above is a non-exhaustive list as Gandhiji’s entire life is a lesson for us. Gandhian thoughts are more relevant in future then past. Let’s try to follow and practice some of these lessons in our life.

Contributed by Janmang Mehta ( Class of 2010, IBS AHEMDABAD )

Your internship can be a great way to gain experience, meet networking contacts, and prove your worth to an employer. It can also be the necessary foot in the door to land a full-time position at the organization.Wondering how you can turn your internship into a full-time gig? Here’s how:

1. Choose the right internship

Seek out internships that require substantial work. Often small and medium-size companies, which can be notoriously understaffed, provide the best opportunities. Before you accept the internship, try to talk to former interns to get a sense of whether they found the experience valuable.

2. Do you really want to work there?

Be sure you want a job with the company with which you’re interning. Interning gives you a chance to see if you’d enjoy working permanently for your internship company and how well you fit into the organizational culture. Once you’re convinced the employer is right for you, your enthusiasm — based on real-world, insider knowledge — will be a major plus in helping you land a full-time job there.

3. Act the part

Once you’ve decided you like the company culture, show you fit in. Demonstrate a work ethic that’s at the same level as regular employees.Show up with an eager, positive attitude each day. Come in early and be the last intern to leave. Dress at least one step above your current position. Take pride in each project you are assigned and ensure it’s your best work before handing it in.

4. Ask for feedback on a regular basis

Although you don’t want to cross the line into being annoying, it’s important to have a grasp on your strengths and weaknesses by getting feedback from your boss.Seek input and feedback from supervisors and co-workers during your internship so you know how to improve as you go along. Show those you work with that you want to be the best you can be.

5. Go Above And Beyond Your Job Description

Show that you’re always thinking ahead by anticipating others’ questions and needs. Do more than is expected of you to stand out among other intern candidates. Volunteer for additional projects when you can, and be flexible with your schedule for a chance to impress the team by staying late or coming in early.Taking on additional tasks, being flexible, and thinking ahead shows your dedication to your role and helps your supervisor and co-workers view you as an integral part of the team.

6. Be Consistent

Always maintain focus and discipline while at work – and avoid distractions such as text messaging or checking social networks.

7. Ask questions.

Don’t be shy about asking questions, especially if you need clarification on an assignment. Carry a notebook with you at all times. Be energetic and alert, but don’t pretend to know something you don’t.Don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’s a great way to show your level of engagement and connect the dots. It will also help you obtain a rounded, realistic preview of a prospective employer and job so you can make an educate decision about your career options down the road.

8. Develop your skills

Learn unfamiliar software programs. Try projects that help you to hone skills you’ve never used or don’t use often. Observe the skills used by people in the kinds of positions in which you envision yourself working, and polish those skills. The wider your range of skills, the more valuable you will be to the employer.

9.    Set goals for yourself.

Within the first week of your internship, make an appointment with your manager to establish goals. Discuss projects you’d like to tackle and specific skills you hope to gain over the internship. Always have a positive attitude about the work, however menial it may seem to you. Once you show you can be trusted with small tasks, managers will give you more responsibility.

10. Be assertive.

Learn as much as possible by staying busy with projects and volunteering for assignments. Don’t overextend yourself, but raise your hand when a manager asks for help. Don’t stick just to your department, either; volunteer to work in other parts of the company so you can get an overview of as many as possible. Prove that you can meet the responsibilities of a full-time job.

11. Record Your Accomplishments

Be sure to keep a record of all the ways you’ve contributed during your internship and be prepared to present this list when you make your pitch to the employer for a permanent job. After you’ve finished a task or a project, write down any accomplishments you’ve had. Showing that you can produce results is a great way to move up at the company.

12. Secure A Mentor Within The Organization

Moving up is much easier if you have someone to lean on for advice and insight. Convert at least one of your network contacts within your internship into more than just a contact. Cultivate a mentor who can guide you in developing a strategy for obtaining permanent employment.

13. Have A Solid Grasp On The Company

 Know what the organization needs and how you can fill those needs. Understand each product or service. Get to know the clients and customers the best you can. Learning this vital information will not only make you do your job better – you’ll have a clear understanding of how you can move up in the organization, too.

14. Keep in touch after the summer

Before the summer ends, get your colleagues’ contact information so you can send them thank-you notes. Network with them throughout the year, sending them casual e-mails asking about their work. If you performed well over the summer, they’ll think of you when a job opens up.

15. Don’t be shy about asking about permanent job opportunities

 Your employer won’t know that you’re interested in a job unless you ask. Also be vigilant for opportunities to create a position. Look for employer needs that aren’t currently being met and consider proposing a job to meet those needs