Lauren Berger - "Intern Queen"

CLEARWATER — Lauren Berger knows a thing or two about internships. The Countryside High grad, who bills herself as the "Intern Queen," completed more than a dozen of them before she graduated college.

Berger, 25, parlayed her intern status into an expanding brand that includes college speaking engagements, endorsements and an online site that boasts six-figure revenues, celebrity employers and thousands of job seekers.

This month, BusinessWeek named her a finalist in its annual roundup of the country's most promising young entrepreneurs. Culled from a list of more than 600 nominees, Berger is one of 25 finalists vying for the chance to become one of America's Best Young Entrepreneurs. Winners will be announced Nov. 9.

"Just to be on the list," she said, "that's huge."

• • •

Berger was a freshman at Florida State University when her mother saw a segment on NBC's Today show and encouraged her daughter to seek internships. Berger followed her mother's advice and stopped by the school's career center. A counselor told her she was too young.

"I didn't take no for an answer," she said. "I immediately saw the long-term value. I learned more about myself and my professional goals than ever before."

One summer, Berger worked at Fox, MTV and NBC at the same time.

"I would work Monday through Saturday, two days at each company," she said. "People assume they need to be available every day of the week. What a lot of people don't realize is that internships are flexible."

She eventually transferred to the University of Central Florida in Orlando. By the time she received a degree in organizational communications in 2006, she had 15 unpaid internships.

Friends of her parents hired her to help their children find gigs. They paid her $200 to send out their children's applications.

"We're talking small potatoes," she said. "Maybe a list of 10 people. I made gas money from it."

The Intern Queen was born.

• • •

The business wasn't off the ground when Berger received "Best Young Entrepreneur of the Year" honors from the national Stevie Awards in 2007.

"From that point on, I just made it a point to put myself out there as much as possible and to tell as many people as I could, whether I was at work or out socially, what I was doing and the company I was trying to create," Berger said.

Another year passed before she found an investor. She was working as an assistant at Creative Artists Agency, a Los Angeles talent and literary firm, just trying to pay the bills. Marshall Herskovitz, the producer behind The Last Samurai, thirtysomething and I Am Sam, was a client.

"He looked at me and said, 'I like your idea. Quit your job. You're going to do this full time.' "

She gave the agency notice and never looked back.

InternQueen.com gets 500 to 1,000 unique visitors daily. Employers pay a $75 annual fee to post an unlimited number of openings. Job candidates can apply for the first internship for free. Additional applications cost $3 each.

Berger forwards their resumes to contacts at companies such as Interscope Records, Seventeen magazine, Sirius XM Radio, Clear Channel and Nielsen Co.

Beyond e-mails and testimonials, Berger does not have statistics that detail how often and how successful she is in pairing candidates with internships. She's been quoted in the Washington Post and the New York Post and featured on Yahoo.

Berger lives in Los Angeles but visits this area often. Her father is a dentist in Clearwater; her mother, a teacher at the Pinellas County Jewish Day School.

Rodney Thrash can be reached at rthrash@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4167.
- St Petersburg Times by Rodney Thrash

Despite popular perception, twentysomethings don't generate most of the nation's startups. It is boomers who start the most businesses in the U.S. Over the past decade or so, the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity belonged to the 55-64 age group while the 20-34 age bracket had the lowest rate, according to a recent Kauffman Foundation report. Finding those twentysomething go-getters is one reason our annual roundup of promising young entrepreneurs from across the country is such a compelling exercise.

As in previous years, we asked BusinessWeek readers to nominate candidates age 25 and under who were running their own companies with potential for growth. Given the severity of the recession and that most entrepreneurs are much older than 25, we were pleased to receive a record number of nominations—more than 600. After the call for nominations ended in mid-August, our staff sifted through the nominees and looked for the most impressive. Then we profiled each of the finalists and asked readers to vote for the business they felt held the most promise. By the end of the voting period, nearly 13,000 votes had been cast.

Click the link for the rest of this article!
- Business Week by Nick Leiber

Lauren Berger, otherwise known as the “Intern Queen,” spoke to Bradley students Tuesday evening about how to obtain internships throughout college.
She gave students advice such as how many internships students should apply for, what to wear for interviews, what to do after interviews
and how to acquire various contacts.
The entrepreneur expert said applicants should follow up on internships two weeks after sending in their resume and send a thank you note after an interview.
Berger also suggested students be careful about what they display on the internet because people have been fired due to inappropriate
Facebook pictures.
However, it is helpful to “friend” possible job or internship opportunities
on networking websites to keep up with the latest news on the company as well as express a greater interest in the business.
The energetic speaker highly recommended that students take advantage of the Smith Career Center because they provide practice
interview questions and mock interviews as well as resume help. Most college graduates who did not use their career center ended up paying hundreds of dollars for career coaches.
Most internships only want students to work a couple days a week during regular business hours. They also have very flexible
schedules during the fall and spring semesters in attempt to hire more interns.
“78 percent of Bradley students participate in career-related experiences,”
Berger said. “On a national level, over 70 percent of college students have had an internship.”
She impressed her audience with her professional experience: throughout her time in college, Berger held 15 internships all over the country.
Contrary to popular belief, internships are not specifically for seniors in college. She received her first internship the spring semester of her freshman year at a communications
agency in Florida.
She later traveled to California for two summer internships for both a small and large corporation.
“I wanted to experience both types of companies,” Berger said.
After graduating college, the Intern Queen moved to California and got a job at the Creative Artists Agency.
However, she quit not long after she started because of her internship
website idea.
In 2008, Intern Queen Inc. was formed as a website to help students
find and apply for internships
easier. The site also points out the do’s and don’ts about the professional atmosphere.
Berger was recently ranked fifth in Business Week Magazine’s list of “Young Entrepreneurs 25 Under 25.” She was also classed in the “Top 10 Youth Marketing Minds of 2010” list by Mobile Youth.
Her website now extends to more than 40,000 people a month.
Any students interested in a faster way at finding internships can visit internqueen.com for free.
Last Updated ( Monday, 13 September 2010 05:23 ) - The Scout - by Meagan Ryan