Combine internship with an unrelated full-time position?

May 30, 2012 2:26 AM

How can I combine an internship with a full-time offer from another place? What could go wrong?

I have a full-time job offer from one firm and an internship offer from another firm. I think that the internship would teach me valuable skills that wouldn't be gained from my full-time position, so I was going to see if I could do the summer internship and then leave after it ended to pursue my full-time opportunity.

I know this sounds weird, but I can't see anything wrong with it. Can you?

posted by molamola to Work & Money (5 answers total)

It's a perfectly reasonable plan as long as the company is willing to wait for you. They might, they might not. I assume you are not going to forego the full-time offer, so you have to be prepared to let the internship go if they want you to start right away. And you need to be extra clear about what you are asking for and what you would accept. E.g., "I will accept the offer, but if possible I would like to start on Sept 1 in order to take advantage of a special opportunity. I am of course willing to work with your schedule if this would not be possible."
posted by PercussivePaul at 2:37 AM on May 30, 2012

If you can argue that the internship would (also) teach you skills that would be of use in your new full time position, the company might be even more happy to wait and get the new upskilled you instead! So you should highlight anything like that if you ask them about it.
posted by lollusc at 5:02 AM on May 30, 2012

Definitely highlight the internship as a unique opportunity that has a firm end date, that would actually benefit the full-time company because you would be learning more and get skills they can benefit from.

My concerns if I was the full-time company would be: 1) do we need this person to start asap and not wait 3-4 months? and 2) will this person decide to turn us down and work full time for the intern company?

My pluses if I was the full time company would be: 1) our person is getting trained for free and 2) we are saving some money by not paying them for 3 months.
posted by manicure12 at 5:48 AM on May 30, 2012

Would the internship teach you skills that are useful at the full-time position? In other words, if there's no direct benefit to the full-time company, this will be a MUCH harder sell, so stress those benefits!

As for your doing both at once: sure, there are lots of us who can and do keep two separate jobs happy, but the key is to avoid conflict: what happens if (when!) one of them wants you to do something, but the time conflicts with what you'd already promised the other? The last thing you want is to have BOTH of them annoyed with you.

If it turns out that you can only accept one, the internship OR the full-time position, considering the state of the current job market I'd have to recommend you take the full-time one.
posted by easily confused at 7:06 AM on May 30, 2012

Dude, go for the Full Time position. There's not even a choice here.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 9:43 AM on May 30, 2012