5 Pro Tips to Land Your Dream Internship

STEP 1:

Perfect Your Resume/Linked In Account

Your resume in general is the most important step of the internship search. It is your initial gateway to the internship of your dreams! Resumes are significant, they tell employers who you are without actually speaking to them. Look at your resume as your networking buddy. It travels through the internet to the human resource department of the company, just to give them a short spiel on who you are and your experiences which will make you a great candidate for the position.

A resume is a document you definitely want to take seriously and make sure it shows you off in the best light possible for a specific internship. This document should include all activities, awards, work experiences, special projects, and any other categories you feel are important to portray and make you stand out as an applicant.

If you’re reading this and you think to yourself, . Then my tip to you would be to make sure that you are always active and doing activities, projects, and internships within your field to help build on your experience overall. Some of you may say,

“I need an internship to accept me so I can get experience”

“I need an internship to gain experience, but internships reject me because I don’t have experience”

Honestly, I use to think the same way but over the years I have come to discover that these are all underlying excuses! Excuses, excuses, excuses, there are always opportunities to gain resume building experiences outside of getting a fancy internship with your dream company.

BUILD EXPERIENCE BY (Fashion Major Examples):

Join school clubs related to your industry (ex: Fashion Industries Association)
Participate in an online internship (ex: College Fashionista)
Start a side business (ex: Sell DIY jewelry through etsy)
Go to campus events both on and off campus (ex: Fashion Sustainability Roundtable)
Study Abroad for a short course or semester (ex: China 2018 Spring Break)
Become an intern/apprentice for a peer with their own business (I interned for a Grad student from my school with a closet organization business)
Take advantage of special programs and scholarships which require you to do a project (ex: YMA Scholarship Fund)
Get amazing grades so you can qualify for different honors and leadership programs your school has to offer (ex: National Society of Leadership)

These companies can’t just accept anyone as an intern, they want to see candidates with a drive and passion for their field. They want to see students who have a drive and want to increase their knowledge within industry. You need to show them why they need you at their company. That’s the whole purpose of a resume, to prove yourself and show your best qualities which make you stand out from the crowd.

** If you need help creating a resume I would recommend going to the Career Services office at your university and talking with an adviser. Or you can check out my Pinterest bored and find great resume templates for you to follow!

STEP 2:

Sign Up for Indeed.com

Another pro tip from me to you is to sign up for Indeed. This site is really amazing and a number one source to look for internship openings and opportunities. First you make an account and then you can get started on your internship search. The site allows for you to search for any type of job opportunity by job title, company name, key word, and location. After a list of results appear, you then will have the option to narrow down your search based on salary, job type, location, company, and experience level. These tools are great when it comes to finding the best internship for YOU.

Another great thing I love about the site, is that you can save and favorite jobs. You may see an opportunity that you like but you don’t want to apply right away, this is when that tool comes in handy. You can save a job today and come back to it next week or whenever you’re ready to apply. Now, when going about your internship search, you may have an idea of where you would like to intern, but its also super important to search for others and to keep your options open. You don’t want to apply to your top 5 and that’s it, you need to make sure there is some allotted wiggle room and other internships you can fall back on in case you don’t get your top internship. Now let’s be honest, the goal is to get the “dream internship”, but in reality that is always what life has planned out for us and its best to be prepared with a back up plan, rather than to be without an internship at all for the summer.

STEP 3:

Apply to Internships That BEST Fit You

This may sound simple but it really isn’t as simple as it seems. During your internship search process, it can be easy to fall into the trap of “juicy incentives”.

Juicy incentives relate to the perks of different positions which may pull you in more than the actual position. When searching it is easy to be drawn to a job due to high pay. If you were getting paid minimum wage at you previous job, an internship paying $12-20 an hour will be very attractive to you. You can even be drawn to an internship that is out of state and the company covers your housing costs. With an opportunity like that you get to live in a different place, rent is covered, and you will receive an incoming check on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

Yes, these incentives are great, matter of a fact they are amazing! But, at the end of the day you need to remember why you’re looking for an internship in the first place and the ultimate purpose of a internship. They are meant to give students first hand, real world experience into a career path they may be considering after graduating and completing their studies. While pay, location, and perks matter, they come secondary to actually finding a position which you are interested in and can learn from. Learning whether it is about the position, or about yourself and determining if this specific position is for you or not. The question you need to ask yourself is,

STEP 4:

Use an Internship Organizer

One thing that I will say about an internship organizer is that it has honestly saved my life! Organizing any aspect of your life can be beneficial, but when looking for an internship this is a must! An internship organizer allows you to keep track of all the internships you apply to. It includes information such as job description, company name, website, pay, etc. Everything is neatly placed in one section and it allows you to refer back to the internships, pulling information quickly as a reference. An organizer also allows you to keep track of important links and phone numbers. For example, an internship organizer comes most in handy when doing an interview over the phone. Many times during an interview, recruiters will ask you why you applied to the internship, or even which specific position you are interested in. And the reality of the situation is that after applying to so many internships your going to forget some information when it comes time to do the interview. But to save you from embarrassment or seeming as if you aren’t interested in the company, you can pull up your resume and internship organizer on your laptop and you’ll be more than fully prepared to rock out with an awesome interview!

Luckily for you I’ve created an easy/simple Internship Organizer guide for you to follow click the box below to download it and get your internships organized today!

STEP 5:

Make Follow Up Calls

The last and most important step in landing your dream internship would be making follow up calls. Whether you applied through indeed or went to a career fair, you need to always

make follow up calls. The HR department of the company is most likely receiving hundreds to thousands of applications, it’s very easy for your application to get forgotten and that is never a good thing. If you want to stand out, then you need to put in that call or send an email about two weeks after applying.

On the FREE Internship Organizer, you will see a column named, Follow Up. After officially applying to an internship make sure to fill in the date two weeks from that day. For example, if you applied Thursday November 2nd your two week follow up date would be Thursday November 16. If you apply on a Saturday or Sunday, the follow up date still needs to be two weeks later except it would be the next available business day. For example, if you applied Saturday November 4th, then the follow up date would be Monday November 13, rather than Saturday November 11, because there wouldn’t be anyone in office to answer the phone or reply to your email.

Remember when sending a follow up email to include your first and last name, when you applied, the position you applied for, and ask about the status of your application.

**If you would like a FREE Follow up email template, then CLICK HERE, to send me a message letting me know you’re interested in the template and I’ll send it to you ASAP!