Is it true that I will be at a disadvantage if I lack experience from internships?

A student asked:

With the limited internships and part-time job opportunities due to COVID-19, I’m feeling rather anxious when it comes to future job opportunities.

Is it true that I will be at a disadvantage if I lack experience from internships?

Here’s my reply!

I have to say… Internships are over-rated. There is a lot of anxiety over internships these days because students are essentially circulating fake news amongst themselves. I don’t know why we do this as students, scaring each other that we’ll lose out in life if we don’t do X, Y, and Z because we heard it from a certain senior as if that was a representative sample. Even if one did hear it from a senior, this is a sampling bias, because you didn’t hear it from a large representative sample of seniors. Or for that matter, from people who actually make hiring decisions. So the seniors – who are also young and naive – are drawing incorrect causal links about what works.

So here’s my advice. You don’t need internship experience in order to find work in the future. It is helpful in giving you some experience and insight, but it doesn’t really make you more employable. It is you yourself who make yourself employable: how you present and market yourself on paper (your CV); how you carry and conduct yourself in person; how you treat and interact with other people – all these factor greatly into whether an employer wants to hire you.

While an internship provides opportunities for you to explore how you can improve in these areas, internships are not the only means. You can do that in other part-time or temp jobs. Or better yet, why not try freelancing? Find something that you can do well, and offer it as a freelance service. You will be forced to learn how to manage people, how to market yourself, how to handle finances, etc. And you’ll acquire a whole host of important life skills and experiences.

I’m suggesting freelancing as a better alternative because I used to do a lot of freelance work since I was 18. My parents stopped financing me, and I had to earn my own money to pay my bills, meals, rent, and yes, even my own university education.

I grew and learnt a lot from the experience. I learnt to be comfortable talking to people in positions of power because as a freelancer at 18, I had to deal with clients, many of whom were big bosses of their companies. I learnt how to market myself, because I needed to convince clients to sign on with me. I learnt many skills along the way because the projects I took on forced me to learn them. Most internships won’t offer you this experience.