What is background enhancement, and can an internship through OPT be used to increase background experience?
Background enhancement is about specifically improving an applicant’s resume based on their application goals. Nowadays, both study abroad agencies and job agencies have turned background enhancement into a specialized service. As long as students are willing to spend money, they promise to organize various projects for you, such as “Elephant Interaction in Sri Lanka,” “One-week Equestrian Project,” “One-week Study Tour of New York, visiting prestigious schools in Boston, and attending lectures at New York University,” or even “Paying for a one-month internship at a foreign bank with internship certification.”
But, are these effective? Can they truly have an impact when included in your resume and cover letter? Background enhancement should be tailored based on your own professional courses and future career direction, and it needs to correspond to relevant details in the resume to enhance credibility.
MaxOPT is dedicated to maintaining your status during OPT, extending OPT, converting your status, addressing Day-1CPT enrollment concerns, applying for spousal visas within the US, and conducting background checks.
Misconceptions about Background Enhancement
Volunteer / Charity Projects ≠ Professional Experience
While such experiences may have some effect when applying for education/public policy positions, they are less impactful for positions in fields like computer science, chemistry, statistics, biology, or electronic engineering. They might even make the Hiring Manager perceive your expertise as insufficient.
Rich Background ≠ Useful Background
When engaging in background enhancement, many fall into the misconception of focusing solely on enriching their background rather than considering whether the experience is useful and can enhance core competitiveness. Remember, interviewers and HR invest time and effort in hiring an intern who can contribute and alleviate their workload, not someone with a rich background but lacks practical skills. Also, activities like involvement in student organizations should be omitted from the resume, as HR is more interested in seeing certifications related to the field.
Internship Verification and OPT Background Checks
Almost all agencies claim that their background enhancement programs can provide “project participation certificates” or “internship certificates.” But can these truly prove the authenticity of your experiences? In reality, these “project participation certificates” or “internship certificates” are not mandatory materials during the application process but still carry significant weight. Before and after the interview, HR may contact your references to conduct a background check, where they assess various aspects of your capabilities and evaluate your relationship with them and the context in which you met, among other things. Besides background checks, the authenticity of your experiences can also be reflected in your responses during the interview and in your cover letter. If you’ve paid for an internship or used OPT to intern at a friend’s company, make sure that your supervisor can provide detailed descriptions and answers about your experience during subsequent interviews.
Pay for Background Enhancement program?
If you’re on a limited budget, you have two options for enhancing your background. One is OPT internship (OPT挂靠), where you pay less to do miscellaneous tasks in a small company and obtain an employment verification letter. The other option is to invest more in a comprehensive program offered by a large company. Both approaches can enhance your background and help resolve your OPT unemployment days (OPT失业期).
Before engaging in background enhancement, it’s crucial to carefully review the responsibilities of the position you’re applying for and analyze the background and skillset required. This helps determine which experiences are useful and should be targeted for improvement. For instance, if the job at the UN involves coding and testing, an internship at a major internet company would be a useful experience. If the UN position involves research, being able to independently conduct experiments, read literature, and summarize relevant research topics are core competencies. When enhancing your background, don’t focus too much on whether the internship is at a Fortune 500 company or a smaller firm; as long as the work is valuable, it’s useful.
When evaluating applicants, interviewers and HR primarily consider whether the applicant has taken core courses, their educational and academic background, the projects they’ve worked on, their skills, and whether their previous internship tasks are relevant to the current position. For research experience, they consider the nature of the experiments conducted, research directions, and whether it’s relevant to the internship. They also examine competition projects and their outcomes. Additionally, interviewers and HR emphasize soft skills such as teamwork and communication abilities. After all, they’re not just looking for top students but interns with talent who can integrate into the team and contribute to the department and organization.
