So a nervous four-day wait was ended with disappointment earlier this afternoon, when my interviewer from the Singapore Police Force called to inform me that I did not get the internship. I guess it was silly and complacent of me to assume that I was going to get it, but a series of assumptions had led me to believe that the possibility was truly high.
The first of which was that the internship listing had been up for at least two weeks prior to my application, before being removed shortly after I applied. I assumed that this was a result of my acceptance, as I didn’t think that anyone else had applied for this particular internship. The second was the interview I had earlier on Monday, which I thought I might have done pretty okay, considering I had quite an interesting conversation with the interviewer about the relevance of new media in the government sector, which seemed to indicate that I had made that vital connection with my then potential supervisor.
The third was probably the worst, and on hindsight maybe a gross misinterpretation on my part. During the interview and initial phone calls, the interviewer asked no less than 3 times whether I was applying for an internship elsewhere. I thought it was a question of the sincerity of my application, and so I honestly told him I wasn’t and faithfully stuck to it throughout the process. As it turns out, he was probably subtly trying to hint to me that my odds of securing this internship was low, and that I should already start looking somewhere else.
My tone is mostly that of frustration, mainly because of the high hopes I had for this internship. Another reason is because the entire process from application to rejection spanned two weeks, which to me is really precious time wasted. I’m not going to singularly apply for another job or internship again because it’s just not worth the sincerity.
The rejection also led me to wonder why I even wanted an internship so badly in the first place. Industry experience is one thing, but it’s probably not something I need at this stage of my university education. Furthermore, most firms are only looking to hire undergraduates closer to their graduation, and it’s likely that such positions will actually involve relevant and useful work. Most internship listings I’ve come across are companies simply looking for someone to perform a certain set of tasks, without so much as any learning involved.
It’s probably easy to frame internships with such a harsh degree of negative bias after getting rejected, and I concede that it’s most probably my bitterness doing all the thinking. That said, I’m definitely less drawn to internships now after this reflection, and I’m likely going to pursue much better-paying alternative of part-time jobs for now, if there are any available that is.
Tags: Internship, Part-Time, SPF
