Winter Term (the month of January) presents an opportunity for you to share your expertise with a current student and help them learn more about your career field.
Winter Term internships provide students with realistic exposure to career fields that interest them. Alumni offer a majority of our Winter Term internships, but we also welcome internship offers from parents of Oberlin students, employers, and other friends of the College.
Organization Benefits
- Host an eager assistant to help with projects
- Share information about the profession and provide career mentoring to an Oberlin student
Student Benefits
- A firsthand look at what it's really like to work in your field
- The opportunity to apply their liberal arts skills in a real-world environment
- Information to help them in their career decision-making
- Experience to strengthen their future job and internship applications
How to Post a Winter Term Internship
There are two ways to post a Winter Term internship:
- Post the internship to Handshake (please see Posting to Handshake, below, for full instructions).
- Email your internship description to internships@oberlin.edu.
The priority deadline to submit a posting is Fri. Sept. 27, although we will continue to accept Winter Term postings through the date of the Winter Term fair (Thu., Oct. 10).
- Mid-August through September 27: Submit Winter Term internship postings to internships@oberlin.edu
- Tuesday, October 1: Winter Term internship postings "go live" to students
- Thursday, October 10: Winter Term Fair - Career Development staff will attend to promote opportunities posted by the deadline
- Monday, November 4: All Winter Term internship postings close
- Tuesday, November 5: Employers receive application packets
- Employers should contact applicants directly to arrange interviews and extend internship offers. We also recommend notifying candidates that have not been selected, so they can pursue other opportunities.
- Friday, November 15: Employer deadline to make internship offers
- Monday, November 25: Student deadline to accept or decline internship offers
- Please notify the Career Development Center of the status of all applicants no later than this date by emailing internships@oberlin.edu.
- Friday, December 6: Student registration deadline for Winter Term—student must have accepted an internship and identified a faculty or staff sponsor to register
- January 3-28: Winter Term
To create a Winter Term posting in Handshake, you must first create an account and request to connect with Oberlin College. Due to the volume of employer requests we receive, to ensure we find and approve your request, please email internships@oberlin.edu to notify us that your request is pending and that you wish to post a Winter Term internship. Once your employer account is connected with Oberlin, you will be able to create your posting and share it with Oberlin.
- Follow the naming convention: "Winter Term __________ Intern" (fill in the blanks with one or more words best describing the intern's job duties or focus)
- Set the expiration date to Mon., Nov. 4 at 5:00 pm EDT
- Under Applicant Package Recipients, enter the contact information of the person who should receive students' application materials. Select "Email a summary of all applicants once my job expires;" you will receive an automatically-generated email from Handshake with a PDF of all applications.
- If your posting remains in "pending" for more than two business days, please contact us to expedite approval.
If you have questions about Winter Term, please contact the Career Development Center at internships@oberlin.edu or 440.775.8060.
Fair Labor Standards for Internships
If you are offering an internship with a "for-profit" organization in the private sector, and have questions about how the Fair Labor Standards Act applies to interns, please download the U.S. Department of Labor's fact sheet: Fact Sheet #71: Internship Programs Under the Fair Labor Standards Act . Additional information is available through the U.S. Department of Labor.