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Additional Industry Tips

Aside from the typical roles listed in the previous section, each industry functions differently and getting an internship in some is much harder than others. This is a list of some useful tips that can help you find an internship in your chosen industry.

Advertising	Marketing	Travel and Tourism
Hospitality	Film	International Trade
Information Technology	Finance	Environment

Advertising

An industry that respects creative and unique thoughts, good presentation skills and the ability to be savvy. Show your portfolio and have a very presentable resume ready!

Marketing

The first thing to ask yourself is, are you looking for a product or service to be marketed? You need to ask this question to yourself because the marketing industry can be very broad. Products can be anything from house hold products, food, clothing, shoes, transportation, cell phones, paper products, furniture, office equipment, liquors etc. Canada can offer a variety of internships available in various marketing roles and a lot of times the international market is involved. While franchise or national retail chains can be good but they are not so much open to internships. You may be easily passed around to other departments and may be repetitive.

Travel and Tourism

Travel and tourism is big in Canada especially in the bigger cities such as Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Montreal and Calgary. You can find travel agencies, cruise lines, guest services and public service roles at famous destinations and at city attractions. Multi-lingual candidates have a better chance to find internship here. If you want to take an internship with a travel agency, you would need to know how to use airline reservation system (mostly Saber) and be familiar with Canadian airport codes. To start, you can try to find a travel company with out-bound service to your country so that you are familiar with the destination. This will also give you extra points in searching for a company and getting the internship.

Hospitality

Canadian travel destinations have tons of hotels and it is an excellent industry to find paid internship positions. (If you find a job advertisement none of positions will say paid-internship, it is either full time or part time position or volunteering). . For this industry, both summer and winter is great. Canada offers great Ski resorts where you can work. You can take a look at

www.cooljobscanada.com. You will have access to all the Canadian resorts and hotels in major cities.

Film

The film industry is tough one to get an internship in. Movie related film production companies are the hardest to get in touch with. Canada has its own union membership for Canadians in the industry and it is very regulated. From time to time, internships at TV stations have been successful. Radio stations are a little bit easier to find an internship with. There are a few movie, video and other media distribution companies in Canada. Early research would make your internship possible with them. All these companies expand and shrink with projects in hands so plan ahead with this industry.

International Trade

Canada receives internship applicants for international trade from all over the world including Japan, Korea, China, Mexico, France, and Germany. French students should be seeking internships under the name of International business rather than international trade. In Canada, if you visit Export Centre or a related government agency for international trade, you should be able to find information about the following categories.
• Legal service for international businesses
• Tax and financial services
• Custom brokerage
• Logistics
• Shipping and freight forwarder
• Manufacturing companies or producers

Your search should be along the lines of these business types. If you find an import company, expect to have the majority of staff as non native English speakers. When you send in a resume, make sure to specify what type of trade documentation you are familiar with. Language is important, mention if you are able to speak, read and write multi-languages.

Information Technology

IT is a booming business in Canada, and is therefore relatively easy to find an internship in. If you are looking for technical sales, companies would love you for that. Online design is easier to find internship in than offline design (prepare a portfolio of your own to use here). If you are excel during your internship and you will be staying in Canada long enough companies might decide to keep you on and pay you. Places to look are:

www.bctechnology.com

www.techvibes.com

www.itac.ca

Finance

A good place to start searching for an internship in this industry is the Board of Trade or Chamber of Commerce. Each city you are thinking of an internship in has their own Chamber of commerce office. It is a non-profit organization helping and promoting businesses in the city by organizing networks, business related training and seminars, events and publish directories. On every chamber of commerce website, you will find financial service providers registered as a member to their financial service products to its members and that is what networking is all about. Find these companies, let them know that you found his or her contact from the Vancouver or Toronto Chamber of Commerce or Board of the trade.

Greater Vancouver has number of other similar size cities such as North Vancouver, Richmond, Surrey, Coquitlam, Burnaby and all of them have their own membership listings. It may be easier to try the cities near by Vancouver, rather than City of Vancouver itself. Toronto would be same as well. A lot of business contacts for internships can be developed through Toronto board of trade or Ontario Board of the Trade. You will find all member companies in Ontario.

Stay away from multi-level marketing based financial service companies. It's Not a bad business model but most employees are individual sales people and you won't get much assistance or training. An example of this time of company would be Primerica.

Environment

There are two types of organizations in Canada. The first is an organization or NGO/NPO that tries to prevent Environmental abuse, pollution or sustain urban development for the Eco system. The second type of organization is one that makes money when there is a big environmental disaster such as oil spill, water pollution: environmental cleanup companies. In between there are labs, technology based companies for environmental application and use. But in the big picture, there are companies that make money when we abuse environment and then the other side which is trying to keep it clean. Canada is big on protecting the environment. You will find every type of NGO/NPO and companies or labs related to environment in Canada.

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