Internship Cover Letter

When To Sumbit Your Internship Cover Letter

When is the best time to submit your internship cover letter? Yes, you may have guessed it - when their is not an available internship! This is the best way to land an awesome internship. I know it seems like it doesn't make any sense - applying for an internship position that doesn't exist - but, let's take a look at my it is the best time to submit your internship cover letter!

The best time to sumbit your internship cover letter is when nobody else is applying! The reason is quite simple, you have the littlest competition. For an internship, a company may get well over a 100 internship resumes. I know that number sounds crazy, but it is true. Under Armour gets over 7,000 applications for 30 intern jobs. Yes - 7,000 applications for 30 intern jobs! I know that sounds crazy, but the internship competition is fierce - why compete when you don't have to.

This is something students don't quite understand. Students don't realize that companies think about interns year round, they just all go to hire at the same time. If you want to standout, don't do what everybody else is doing - submit your internship cover letter early and get the internship!

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For more internship information, go to internship cover letter, internship resume, and intern jobs. For specific resources, go to investment banking internships or marketing internships.

Internship Cover Letters

You are EQUAL to your employers (even in your internship cover letter)

Plenty of people e-mail us asking questions about small details in their internship cover letters.  In this post, I’m going to dig a little deeper and talk about the mindset from which you write an internship cover letter. 

In all of our posts, we do our fair share of bashing internship cover letter samples and stress that you need to be confident and be different.  We’ve been beating a dead horse by putting down the traditional “To whom it may concern” internship cover letter.  And I’m going to beat it some more by going to the root of the bad internship cover letter.

Bad internship cover letters start from the “no value” mindset from which most people write them.  When students are searching for internships, a lot of them think, “I will do anything to get this internship.”  They want an internship SO bad that they don’t care who gives it to them.  If you are in this mindset (consciously or subconsciously) when you are writing an internship cover letter, it will come across like you are BEGGING for an internship from the employer.  From an objective point of view, an internship cover letter like this looks desperate in the eyes of an employer (again, consciously or subconsciously).  You are putting the internship above you, and your internship cover letter is saying, “You, the employer, hold all of the value in this relationship.  I am only a college student.  Please give me an internship.”

The solution?  Treat your employers as equals in your internship cover letter.  Treat the cover letter like you are proposing a partnership.  Say to yourself before you write it, “The employees of this company are my equals.  I can do what they can do.”  Don’t be arrogant, but show your employer that you are confident and have something to offer.

If you do this, whoever is reading your internship cover letter will pick up on it see your value.  Don’t beg for internships anymore.  Enter the “my employers are my equals” mindset, and your internship cover letter will become a partnership proposal in which both parties offer value to each other.

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For more internship information, go to internship cover letter, internship resume, and intern jobs. For specific resources, go to investment banking internships or marketing internships.

When To Go With A Bland Internship Cover Letter

Many career advisers and employers give advice to applicants that they should get creative with their internship cover letter.  Companies receive an exorbitant amount of internship cover letters for every position, and if you want to stand a chance out there, you need to capture the attention of the person reading it by any means possible.  This isn’t exactly bad advice at all; it should be one of your main goals to stand out in the crowd.  However, if it’s a trade off between writing style and innovation that you’re going to make, don’t bother because you’ll be wasting your time.

Unless you can find a way to create a fusion of creativity, relevance, and good writing style in your internship cover letter, you may better off sticking with the basic template of a internship cover letter combined with excellent writing skills and a strong voice.  As each generation applies for jobs, words like “gonna” and “legit” resurface more and more frequently and put off the older generation considering them for a position.

While firms may receive hundreds of internship cover letters from all the applicants, you’d be surprised to see how few of them are actually solid writing samples devoid of grammatical and spelling errors.  Spend your time writing as frequently as possible in order to find your voice.  Once you’ve found a good means of writing your internship cover letter, have as many people as possible proofread it.  If you really want to stand out with your internship cover letter, do it right.  Don’t pretend to be an astronaut who paints portraits on the weekends.

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For more internship information, go to internship cover letter, internship resume, and intern jobs. For specific resources, go to investment banking internships or marketing internships.

Confidence vs Arrogance In Your Internship Cover Letter

Confidence/arrogance in your internship cover letter Today, I read an example of an internship cover letter on the GrouperEye.com blog. The internship cover letter was from the candidate to Wieden + Kennedy, who allegedly hired him on the spot. The letter was confident to say the least, and borderline arrogant.

The guy writing the internship cover letter said things like, “I have between 2-3 groundbreaking business or creative ideas every single day” and “…decided that If I were to ever become successful and impact the world greatly…” Yes, quotes these were actually in the internship cover letter. In my opinion, this is ridiculous and arrogant. But it worked. It worked so well that the candidate was immediately hired. It worked so well that the no one at W + K cared about how poorly it was written. It worked so well that everyone at W + K ignored the myriad of grammatical errors (which were so bad that I wasn’t even sure if the candidate could speak proper English.)

The point I’m making is that the line between confidence and arrogance in your internship cover letter is extremely blurry. So by all means, be confident in your internship cover letter. Flirt with arrogance, and pull back a little. You need to show employers that you are SURE about yourself and SURE that you can contribute to their team. This requires a great deal of confidence, and maybe a little arrogance.

This guy writing this internship cover letter was basically equating himself with Wieden + Kennedy, which is one of the best advertising agencies in the world. And they hired him. This candidate didn’t play by the rules in his internship cover letter. He didn’t write it in the same structure that your career center tells you. He didn’t play it safe. He told his own personal story. He took a gamble, and he won.

Do whatever it takes in your internship cover letter to let employers know that you are serious and offer value to the company. If you don’t include an example of success from your past because you think it may come across as arrogant, you are shooting yourself in the foot.

Conversational Tone For Your Internship Cover Letter

I think students always forget that recruiters are not robots. So, they turn in this robotic internship cover letter that doesn't hit emotionally with recruiters. Students are missing a huge opportunity to connect with a recruiter on an emotional level - this is huge! Keeping a conversational ton for your internship cover letter allows you to differentiate yourself by being real and by connecting on an emotional letter.

It is so easy to through words like passion, creativity, drive, and commitment into your internship cover letter. Don't. Be real because real is different. Recruiters get hundreds, sometimes thousands of cover letters that talk about this exact same thing. Oh what, you have a passion for marketing and tremendous creativity? Guess what, so does 50,000 other students.

Write your internship cover letter like you would talk to your friend. Tell her a story about the funny time you launching a marketing program at school and how everybody laughed until the night of the show when they had to scramble to get more chairs for the event. Tell is like it is. Conversational tone in an internship cover letter shows confidence and recruiters want confidence.

Internship Cover Letter: How Long?

How long should your internship cover letter be? This is a question we get often and the answer is, as short as you can possibly make it. Remember, the goal of your internship cover letter and your internship resume is just one thing: get out of the pile and into the interview. The goal of these two tools, and yes, they are merely tools, is to get you to the interview. Let’s take a look at internship cover letter length.

Who reads your internship cover letter? It is probably a recruiter who reads a ton of internship cover letters all day long. So, the last thing she wants to do is sit there and spend 10 minutes reading your cover letter. But, don't forget, she is trying hard, very hard, to find the perfect intern for the summer - this is her job. If she lands an amazing intern, she looks good within the company.

Okay, you want an exact number: 200 words. But at the end of the internship cover letter, ask yourself this question: can I take anything else out of this document?

Internship Cover Letter - What's The Goal?

What is the goal of your cover letter? Why is it a letter? What do you want it to accomplish. The goal of an internship cover letter is to get an interview. That coupled with your internship resume are the tools to get you to the next step. If you want to get noticed, why on earth would you write what everyone else is writing? Why do people think that it works to have a form letter - that never works, ever.

If the goal is to get out of the pile and into the internship interview chair, then you need to standout. I fail to understand why anyone is risk averse with their internship cover letter - this should be one of the most high risk items you can hand an emplyer. There is no second place - you either win or you lose. No point in saving face or doing an average job. There is no "B+" - the class is pass fail.

In order to pass I would offer two quick pieces of advice: get specific and/or be different. Get specific - tell me exactly what you would do in the internship. How would you do it and what would you get done. Not high level, low level stuff. The second, be different. If you are not different, chance are you will not win. Different at least gets read. Different is bulletin board material.

Think about the goal: getting the internship interview. Then go about creating a tool that gets the goal. Nothing more or nothing less. Get it done and do awesome internship work!

Marketing Internship Cover Letter

Great ideas? Put them in your marketing internship cover letter

It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing you marketing internship cover letter to an advertising agency or to the marketing department of a consumer products company.  What do all marketers want?  They want someone with great ideas.  They want someone who can spread those ideas.  They want someone who can tell a story.  They want someone who isn’t afraid to try new things.

This is why the door is wide open for your marketing internship cover letter.  You can write whatever you want… just make sure you convince them that you have all of those qualities!  I’ll give you an inside tip.  Here’s how most people will write their marketing internship cover letter:

Paragraph 1:  Some background information about me

Paragraph 2:  Why I’m qualified for the internship

Paragraph 3:  Why I should get the job

There.  That’s what you’re competing with.  Tell a story in your marketing internship cover letter.  Tell them why should get the internship without literally saying, “I should get the internship.”  Study some of their clients.  Come up with some great ideas, and write about them in your marketing internship cover letter.

If you put great ideas in your marketing internship cover letter, you give the recruiter PROOF that you should get the internship.  Other marketing internship cover letters will simply be trying to persuade recruiters to give them the internship.  Other marketing internship cover letters will be telling recruiters why they should get the internship.  You’ll be SHOWING them why you should get the internship.

Getting the best internship isn't all about the marketing internship cover letter, you alos have to nail the internship resume, internship interview, and do amazing internship work.

Internship Resume Cover Letter

There is always a tremendous amount of confusion when it comes to internship resume cover letter. These sound like just a bunch of job hunting terms, but internship resumes and internship cover letters can be very important as you go to land the internship of your dreams. Do not forget these tools as you go for your ideal internship! Now, lets talk about the differences, so that you don't get confused by one long string of words: internship resume cover letter. Never, Never again use the term internship resume cover letter! it doesn't make any sense!

Internship cover letter
This is a tool to showcase who you are. It originally comes from actually putting a cover on the letter that you send in to a company. So for example, you would staple your internship cover letter on top of your internship resume. Internship cover letters are a great way to standout as an applicant. They are designed to be quickly read by an individual on the recruiting team. They are a must have for every high quality internship.Go write a great internship cover letter!

Internship resume
An internship resume is typically one page of paper that outlines your education, experience, or anything else you decide is important. Internship resumes are important for just about an internship application and almost always required. It is vital that students decide to include internship resumes. These must be well formatted and easy to skim for the recruiters.

Hope this keeps you from confusing this long string on words in the future: internship resume cover letter. Good luck with the internship hunt! Go get the best internship you can find! There are also some key things that you should avoid in your internship cover letter! Or, some great ways to make a thought provoking internship cover letter.

Example Internship Cover Letter

This is an internship cover letter example that I sent into Honest Tea for a sampling internship. I hope you get a kick out of this internship cover letter example.These types on internship cover letter examples can give you a great idea about how to perfectly craft your internship cover letter.

Top 10 Reasons I Will Be a Great Field Marketing Sampler:

I like to sample, in fact I once became full after several whole foods samples.
I am honest and I like tea - elected Honor Council in college and I drink all teas, even McDonald's.
I created a sitcom pilot from scratch (32 minutes).
I like orange juice with pulp.
I think I am going to have some chocolate ice create tonight.
I am an entrepreneur, so I know what it is like to sell.
I was the lead project manager for $2.1 million dollars ad online ad products.
I can lift 30 pounds, in fact I benched 180 the other day as a random guy spotted me.
I am average looking, but I was the prom king, therefore I am really nice.
I love your tea.

My interactive resume is online (also attached as pdf): www.visualcv.com

Thank you for the opportunity.

- Ted
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Now that you have seen my internship cover letter example, go create something great. Yes, this internship cover letter did get me the job! Got to love getting creative to get the best internship!

Go create something amazing and then we can use it as an internship cover letter example! Creating a great internship in tandum with an amazing internship interview and internship resume will allow you to dominate the job hunt!