Work experience is a bit like puberty: painful but unavoidable. It’s not easy to prove yourself when you have no experience and no one trusts you to do anything interesting, but a successful internship can lead to CV points, contacts and even a job. Just don’t do what these poor souls did.

Make a bad impression before you start. Sonja Stockton, the head of graduate recruitment at PricewaterhouseCoopers, which recruits 1,200 students a year, has lost count of the interns-to-be who phone up expecting a personal service. “They call and say ‘Hi, it’s Dave, I’m not sure what line of service I’m supposed to be in,’ They assume that I know who Dave is.” Some ask their parents to do the dirty work for them. “We get a lot of parents who ring us as secretaries. ‘My son’s travelling and he needs to return this information, etc.” In a word: unprofessional.

Phone friends from the office. Rajeev Syal, a former reporter for The Sunday Times, didn’t ask for feedback from an intern, but got it anyway. “On the second day [he] came in, put his feet up on the table, picked up the phone then started speaking in a very loud voice about how he was doing work experience for The Sunday Times and how it was really boring. He wasn’t given much to do after that.” Esther Oxenbury, the head of investment banking graduate recruitment at JP Morgan, has seen interns fall asleep at their desk. If you’re bored, don’t show it.

Forget to check important details. A reporter colleague says: “I had a friend who did work experience for an Australian newspaper and wrote a piece in which she quoted a well-known businessman whose name was Mr Burger. She had a brain freeze and in the article she quoted him as Mr Hamburger. Neither Mr Burger nor the editor saw the funny side and she was told never to come back to the paper.”

Pass on confidential information. Alastair Lindsay, a founder of RateMyPlacement, an internship feedback website, was at the Bank of England, where a royal visitor, Prince William, was expected. An e-mail went round the bank alerting staff to the Prince’s arrival. Lindsay decided to gloat to friends at other companies about meeting the prince. “Unfortunately I missed the ‘confidential’ tag on the e-mail and it got flagged by the bank’s security system. I was handed an official warning, and probably labelled a threat to national security,” he says. Press ‘Reply All’ without thinking. A former intern at Jansen-Cilag, a pharmaceutical company, says: “A fellow placement student was arranging taxis for the Christmas party and e-mailed round asking for our addresses. I replied saying that I hoped I wouldn’t need a taxi because I planned to go back with her manager. When my colleagues started sniggering I realised I’d ‘replied all’ to the entire company.”

Assume that your boss shares your sense of humour. Chris Wickson, a fellow founder of RateMyPlacement, recalls: “I was on a placement during the Ashes series of 2006, and a few of us thought it would be funny to get Monty Panesar masks and wear them down to the canteen. A lot of people looked at us with alarm and we realised that to the noncricket fan our light-hearted banter could be taken the wrong way. We were told to take the masks off and given a stern talking to by our bosses.” Ignore a problem. “The whole PR industry is underpinned by work-experience people,” says Justin McKeown, a divisional director at Tri-media UK, a PR consultancy. They are a great help, he says – usually. An intern was asked to fax an important press release. “The next day I realised that it hadn’t been sent. He confessed that he was embarrassed that he didn’t know how to work the fax machine.” If you don’t know, ask.

Think the small jobs are beneath you. “A very important task is cutting out press coverage from newspapers,” McKeown says. One intern finished the job, then left. “When we came to have a look, she had stuck all the cuttings face down. She was quite clearly trying to say that she didn’t appreciate menial tasks.”

Get drunk when you’re trying to impress. Stockton has encountered several interns who spend too long in the bar then struggle to get up for induction the next morning. “I have to go down and say ‘You’re representing PricewaterhouseCoopers. This is not an extension of the student bar’,” she says.

獲得工作經驗有點像青春萌動期：痛苦但是不可避免。沒有工作經驗想要證明自己的實力實屬不易，沒有人會把有意思的事情托付給你去做。但是如果你有成功的實習經驗，這些都會為你的簡歷，人際或是工作加分。所以千萬不要效仿以下囧人的做法！

開始時給人留下極其不好的印像

普華永道，每年招聘1200學生實習生。Sonja Stockton，普華永道畢業生招聘的的主管已經記不清接了多少次這樣將要成為實習生的人關于需要個人服務的電話。“他們打電話然后說‘喂，我是Dave，我不知道我應該打進哪條服務線，’他們以為我會知道Dave是誰。”有些呢就要求父母為他們干他們不愿意染指的活。“有些就像秘書一樣給我們打來電話。“我兒子現在正在旅行，他需要把這些信息反饋給你們，等等。”總而言之：太不專業了。

在辦公室打電話給朋友

Rajeev Syal,，曾經是The Sunday Times的新聞工作實習生，從來沒想過會得到實習反饋但還是得到了。“工作第二天他進來，將腿放在桌子上然后就開始打電話，聲音還非常大的談論在The Sunday Times的工作經歷以及這份工作是如何的無聊。自此之后，就沒分太多工作給他了。”Esther Oxenbury，作為一名摩根大通的投資銀行畢業生招聘主管，曾看見實習生在桌子上睡著過。如果你真覺得無聊，不要表現出來。

忘記核對重要細節

一位干新聞工作的同事說：“我有一位朋友曾給一家澳大利亞報紙干過。他要在一篇文章中引用了一位名為Burger的知名實業家的話。但是就在那一瞬間不幸腦殘，將這位實業家的名字寫成Hamburger（漢堡包）。當然這樣的事Burger先生以及報社編輯都不會覺得有意思。所以他被迫與報社永遠說拜拜了。”

關于機密信息的發布

英國銀行，一般去的人都是像威廉王子這樣的英國皇室成員。Alastair Lindsay, 實習生反饋站點的創始人曾在此實習過。一封電郵通知所有員工說威廉王子要來。Lindsay決定洋洋得意的向在其他公司工作的朋友宣告這件事。“不幸的是我忘了看電郵上的小標“機密”二字，并且還標上了銀行機密系統標志。我被給予了官方警告，并且可能打上了妨害國家安全的標簽，”他說。另外還有一種情況就是不假思索的“回復所有人”。Jansen-Cliag，一家制藥公司。其一名前實習生說：“一名負責工作安排的實習生正在處理圣誕節聚會的出租車安排并且向每人都發郵件詢問我們的地址。我回復說我希望沒給我安排車因為我計劃與她的經理一起回去。當所有的同事都開始竊笑時，我意識到我已經向全公司告知了一遍。

妄想老板懂得你的幽默感

同是RateMyPlacement創始人的Chris Wichson回憶道：“2006年，在骨灰板球系列進行得如火如荼當中，我們中幾個人想如果去餐廳戴上Monty Panesar的面具肯定會很有趣。但結果出人意料。很多人受驚似的看著我們。于是我們意識到對于非板球粉來說我們這種無心的玩笑只會適得其反。我們被告之要將面具摘下來，之后老板又嚴厲的斥責了我們。”還有就是忽略問題的存在。"整個公關業都被有工作經驗的人支撐著。，”英國Trimedia的部門主管兼公共關系咨詢師Justin Mckeown說。他們通常貢獻巨大。一名實習生需要傳真一份媒體發布的重要信息。“第二天我意識到我根本沒發出去。他坦誠道實際上他不會用傳真機，這令他很窘迫。”如果你不知道，那么就向他人請教。

錯誤的認為自己不改從小事做起

“將報紙上的新聞報到剪裁下來是一件非常重要的工作，”Mckeown說。實習生做完此工作后，然后離開了。“當我們去看的時候，她把所有的剪裁部分都面朝下粘著。然后她嘗試非常明確的說她瞧不起這項工作。”

不要在嘗試建立第一印象之前喝醉

Stockton曾幾次遇到這樣的情況。有些實習生在酒吧呆太長時間而第二天早上必定搖搖晃晃去就職。“我必需平靜下來然后說‘你代表著普華永道。這里不是學生酒吧’，”她說。