ORGANIZING YOUR INTERNSHIP RESUME

by the student editors of SCORING A GREAT INTERNSHIP, a Students Helping Students™ guide


Putting together a great resume is not rocket science - all it takes is some organization, some creativity, and a lot of proofreading. Here are our suggestions for how to organize your resume and what information to include in each section.

CONTACT INFORMATION: The first thing at the top of your resume. Include your address, email, and phone number. Make it easy for people to reach you.

EDUCATION: Start with the present and work your way backward. Include your major, the degree you expect to receive, and the date you expect to receive it. Some career counselors will tell you to include your GPA only if it is 3.5 or above. Others make the cut at 3.0. It’s up to you.

HONORS AND AWARDS: If your awards all relate to school, you can include them with your academic information. But if your awards are community-based, perhaps from a youth group or an organization, at which you volunteered, then go ahead and make a separate section. Provide a brief explanation of lesser-known awards, such as school-wide (rather than nation-wide) scholarships, honors, etc.

EXPERIENCE: This is the meat of your resume and the section that will require the most effort to write and organize well. Experience includes jobs, internships, volunteer positions, extracurricular activities, and any special projects you might have been part of.

You can use either a chronological or a functional format to organize your experience section.

- A chronological resume begins with your most recent experiences and works backward. For example, your current part-time job in the library would be at the top of your list; the babysitting job you had in ninth grade would be at the bottom. A chronological resume should show a steady progression of the skills and interests you’ve developed over the years.

- A functional resume requires you to divide your experience into subject areas in order to show where your strengths lie, or to highlight particular areas of interest. For example, you would include your babysitting job in the same category as your camp counselor job because both helped you develop skills for interacting with children.

There’s nothing that says that chronological resumes are better than functional ones, or vice versa. You’ll have to make a judgment call. If you’re applying for particular kinds of internships—say, those that involve some kind of writing—you might want to create a section called “Writing Experience” to highlight your writing skills. Remember that for a functional resume you need to have enough activities in each functional area to make it worthwhile. In other words, if you’ve only had one writing-related job or project, it doesn’t make sense to create a whole section for it.

"The temptation is to put everything since the Little League days on your resume, but you really have to ask yourself: Is each item I put on my resume going to help, take away from, or have little impact on my chances of getting this internship?"

Philosophy and Human Development major,
Boston College ‘03

SKILLS: List skills that you can offer the company, such as fluency in a foreign language or extensive knowledge of a particular subject area. Always include your computer skills—they’re useful almost everywhere.

INTERESTS: It’s a good idea to include a short section at the bottom of your resume that lists a few of your interests. Interviewers may start the interview by asking you about one of your interests - it’s a great icebreaker. If you don’t sound passionate when talking about it you do yourself a huge disservice.

"Many more internships exist than are listed on databases, so networking is immeasurably helpful."

Religion major,
Oberlin College '03

Networking is really just a fancy word for meeting and talking to people. People know about internship opportunities and people make decisions about whom and when to hire for these internships. The more people you talk to, the more people will know that you're looking for an internship and the greater will be your chances of learning about one that you like and successfully applying for it. Just having a connection doesn't necessarily get you the job-but it helps you to stand out from a crowd of applicants. The rest is up to you.

It's not always easy to ask people-especially people you don't really know-for help in your internship search, but you have to suck it up and do it. Networking is like those urban legends that start, "I know someone whose cousin's sister's husband..." Use every connection you have, even if it's just to Mrs. Smith next door who hands out apples and toothbrushes on Halloween. You never know-if you casually mention to Mrs. Smith that you're looking for an internship, she might refer you to her sister-in-law, who happens to be the Human Resources manager at a law firm that's just dying to take on an intern for the summer.

Even if your connection isn't as golden as that, it might lead you to look somewhere you would've never thought to look. It never hurts to talk to as many people as you possibly can. The more people you have looking out for you, the better your chances of finding something you like.

When you're looking for someone to talk to about a particular career, college alums are always a good place to start-you already have the common bond of having attended the same school. Find a few alumni by using the directory at the career services center and send them an email asking to set up an informational interview.

Any career counselor will tell you to never ask for a job or an internship during an informational interview. While that's something to keep in mind, most alums won't mind if you ask whether they know of any openings in their company.

Keep in mind that networking is an ongoing process-it doesn't stop once you've found an internship. Stay in touch with people. You never know who might be able to help you out a few years down the line.

MAKING THE MOST OUT OF BEING THE OFFICE GOFER

by the student editors of SCORING A GREAT INTERNSHIP, a Students Helping Students™ guide


Being the most junior person at your internship is no fun and brings with it a great deal of gofer work, but it's not all bad either, if you know how to take advantage of it.

"Most of my job entailed photocopying, scanning, and doing odd jobs for my boss and his group. Eventually I got bored with much of the work. What I gained from this job is the knowledge that I don't want to do office work for the rest of my life."

Mathematics major,
College of William and Mary '03

You'll have to get used to the fact that you're pretty low on the totem pole, which means that no matter how great of an internship you have, you'll still be subjected to a certain amount of gofering and photocopying. Be prepared to develop intimate relationships with photocopiers, fax machines, and filing cabinets.

But being a gofer has its benefits. Doing the grunt work for various people, even though it isn't necessarily fun, gives you a chance to interact with them and get to know what they do, and what they're like. Part of what's valuable about an internship is getting to understand what the day-to-day is like at that particular organization. Reading job descriptions can only get you so far-by observing what employees do, you'll really get a sense of what their jobs are like.

Also, when employees get backlogged they'll be grateful for any assistance you can offer, even if you're only performing the most mindless and menial of tasks-it's one less thing they have to worry about. If you stick it out with the menial tasks, you'll start to develop relationships with co-workers. This is your chance to prove that you're a responsible and reliable worker. Once your co-workers see your face often enough-and once you've shown that they can count on you-they'll remember who you are. Then, when they need assistance on more substantive projects, they're more likely to ask for YOUR help, as opposed to the help of the intern down the hall, with whom they've never interacted.

"What I've learned about interning is that you have to find something no one else in the company wants to do, and then do it well. After you do that once or twice, the people you work for will find you invaluable."

English major,
Columbia University '03

ENGAGING YOUR INTERVIEWER

by the student editors of SCORING A GREAT INTERNSHIP, a Students Helping Students™ guide


You usually get one shot to interview for the internship and you want to make the best impression during the short period of time that you have. One of the most important things you need to do is to engage your interviewer-to show that you're one hundred percent enthusiastic about the interview, that you're actively listening and participating in what's going on.

Part of projecting the right impression is using the right body language. Always make eye contact with the interviewer. People who don't make eye contact look uncomfortable and a bit untrustworthy, as though they have something to hide. If you have trouble looking someone straight in the eye, focus on their nose or their forehead; it looks exactly the same as staring into the other person's eyes, but it spares you the anxiety that making direct eye contact can cause.

Sit straight in your chair, leaning in slightly toward the interviewer, which shows that you're listening. Don't slouch, which looks unprofessional, and don't lean back and tilt your chair backward, because you may appear arrogant. Make sure you smile and appear open and interested in what the interviewer has to say. Some interviewers tell horror stories about interviewees who spent the duration of the interview examining their fingernails or fighting their drooping eyelids.

While the interviewer is talking, make sure that you nod and say "Mm-hmm" or "yes" every so often. Something as small as a nod reassures the interviewer that you're listening to what he or she is saying. Never interrupt the interviewer, but if there is a pause in the conversation, you can paraphrase what the interviewer has said, as a sort of summarizing question ("So what you're saying is...?"). This serves the double function of assuring your interviewer that you understand the information and showing him or her that you've been paying attention.

USING EMAIL COVER LETTERS EFFECTIVELY

by the student editors of SCORING A GREAT INTERNSHIP, a Students Helping Students™ guide


Email applications have made it incredibly easy to apply to as many as companies as you'd like; often it takes nothing more than writing a "cover email" and adding your resume as an attachment. But be careful when composing an email cover letter-by being too informal and not using an appropriate format, you risk offending the reader and presenting yourself as overly casual and sloppy.

Emails obviously appear less formal than actual letters, but that doesn't mean you can refer to the company's president by her first name or make grammatical or spelling mistakes. If you write an email cover letter, it should look exactly like your paper one in terms of format. You should continue to address the recipients of your emails using "Mr. /Ms." until they either explicitly state that it's okay to use their first name or until they sign their emails using only their first name.

One way to avoid falling into the trap of informality is to attach your cover letter to the email along with your resume and any other required materials. You should format and compose the attached cover letter exactly as you would a paper cover letter. The body of your email can simply note the fact that you've attached a cover letter along with your resume. Keep it brief and format it as a formal paper letter. This email will be the first thing your potential employer sees, and you don't want to ruin your chances of being interviewed or seriously considered for the internship by coming off as unprofessional.

And avoid sending emails from a silly-sounding email address (you know what we mean)-it looks immature and, worse, it might be mistaken for spam and get deleted. Always include "Application for XYZ Internship" in the subject line of your email.

Here's an example of what not to do with your email cover letter. It's appropriate for a note to a friend, but hardly as a formal inquiry to be sent in place of the cover letter we used as an example earlier.

Nick-

I saw the summer internship listed on Shakespeare's website, and I think I would make a great candidate. Here's my resume and I hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks-

Chris

Instead, an email cover should look something like this:

Dear Mr. Anderson:

I am writing in regard to the summer internship advertised on Shakespeare Publishing's website. I have attached both my cover letter and resume for your review.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Chris Stephens

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