Finding Work in a Summer Clerical Program

An internship is almost like an apprenticeship. An individual joins a company and receives ground training for a job in its field. This helps the individual to acquire practical working experience whether it is a high school student, undergraduate student, graduate, or a post graduate student. While undergoing an internship a student can evaluate if he is well prepared to enter the field. Internship could be a paid internship, voluntary, or unpaid internship. In a paid internship the student receives a small amount as a stipend. This is generally done in medical colleges and big multinational companies. Voluntary or unpaid internships are usually part time when the students attend university classes.

The US Department of State also offers student internships. There is no limit of your career rising once you candidate join the US Department of State as a student intern. Through this internship a student gets the opportunity to associate with the global community and gain knowledge about the US foreign policy and diplomacy. Here a student can explore a life long career avenue and skills as America is represented in the world through you. The Department provides internships to all levels of students such as high school students, under graduate students, graduate, and post graduate students.

For high school students there are internship programs like a Cooperative Education Program, Stay-in-School program, and Summer Clerical Program. A Summer Clerical Program provides a good career opportunity to high school students. The United States has perhaps the largest occupational group of clerical workers.



This program lets you know about the US Department of State, and on the other hand you earn while you learn. While the student has the opportunity to find a path about its career in this Department, the department gets fulfilled its staffing needs arising out of employees' going on summer vacations. You also feel proud of doing something worthwhile for our Great Nation.

A summer clerical program obviously involves office support duties. Some of the prominent duties include duties related to the receptionist and answering telephone calls, filing of documents and maintaining files, typing and/or using computer for various routine office functions like photocopying and assembling briefings and reports for distribution, initial entry of drafted material using computer software packages, reviewing the correspondence that is being sent outside to ensure the correct format and to avoid grammatical punctuation and typographical errors, etc.

The policy of the Department is to provide a transparent, systematic, and equitable job process to attract the best qualified individuals to fill the positions. New entries for this program are made through competition that is in accordance with the guidelines of the office of Personnel Management. Job related criteria and merit are the basis for being selected.

The eligibility requirements for a Summer Clerical position are that a person should be a citizen of the United States and of the age of 16 years or above at the time of appointment. He or she should be enrolled or accepted for enrollment as a student seeking diploma, certificate, etc. He or she must be taking minimum half-time academic/vocational or technical course load in an accredited vocational, technical or high school, 2 years, or 4 years college of university, graduate, or professional school. Besides this, the candidate must have the ability to complete a background inquiry to determine eligibility for a security clearance. There are positions like GS-1, GS-2, GS-3 and GS-4 levels that also call for some minimum school and/or work experience requirement.

Compensation and benefits admissible to a person having a position in a Summer Clerical Program includes a competitive salary and paid federal holidays. Besides a competitive salary he also gains work experience that helps him to build a successful lifelong career with the US Department of State. In the year 2004 the median salary for clerks in US was $23,000 per year. For the workers of the age of 25 years and above, the national median income was $33,000. The annual median salary for general clerks was $22,770, and for secretaries $34,970, while administrative supervisors got a median annual salary of $41,030.

A Summer Clerical Program offers a good career opportunity to high school students. An internship is helpful in getting a job after completion of graduation. An Internship is beneficial to both the student as well as the employer. Usually a student is taken for employment in the same company where he does the internship once they finish college. On the other hand, when a student joins regular employment in a company, the company gets an employee who is already familiar with all working procedures of the employer.