When recruited by Drake University, you probably heard about internships. They’re a point of pride for the school. A large percentage of our students have internships before their junior year — a rare feat owed largely to worker friendly Des Moines and Drake’s programs. One of their most successful is now in its sixth year and still going strong.

Started in 2006, Career BluePrint was made to give students access to internships, jobs and work study opportunities.

“We wanted to make sure we had a system which would be flexible to our needs and the students’ needs,” said School of Journalism and Mass Communications Internship Coordinator Carlyn Crowe.

Now the program has featured over 5,000 companies with an average of 600 jobs available at any given time. There is no requirement for applying to these jobs or using any of the other tools on BluePrint.

The website has announcements about large opportunities such as presentations and workshops, a personalized profile page to show to employers, and a section dedicated to documents such as resumes, portfolios and cover letters.

In addition to these tools, there is Drake’s impressive job list. There are specific jobs listed for Drake students as well as nation-wide opportunities. Then you have the difficulty of narrowing down the list.

You can look at scholarships, internships, full-time jobs, post-graduate work or volunteer programs. Once you’ve completed your profile, the website will also filter the listing to highlight the jobs that you are qualified for. Then all you have to do is click the “Apply” button, and the website will take your resume, cover letter and any other required material from your documents page and send it straight to the company. It’s that simple.

The key to this process is persistence.

“Look often and apply when you see something that interests you as many are posted on a daily basis and some have a short application deadline,” Crowe said.

If you’re interested in getting an internship through Drake, log in to BlueView, go to the student services tab and click on the blue square on the right lower tab labeled Career BluePrint.