Grad school internships should never be an afterthought. This is how you’ll often get your “foot in the door”, after all. Knowing how to go about applying for your ideal internships will help to ensure that you land a quality internship that will help you to land your dream job.

Finding the Right Internship Opportunities

Before applying for an internship, you first need to learn how to find good internship opportunities. There are many streams that can help you achieve this.

 

Ask Your Teacher or Professor

Your teacher or professor will know about the available opportunities in your field because many times, companies will directly contact colleges about available internship opportunities.

 

Google Search on Intern-Specific Sites

There are plenty of sites online that are specifically dedicated to announcing internship opportunities in different fields. Sites such as LinkedIn, Wayup and YouTern can help you get started in finding the right type of internship for you.

 

General Google Search

A general Google search for internships in your field will help you identify what the opportunities are and where they are. Putting in your nearest town or city is also ideal when doing this.

Now that you’re clear on how to find an internship, let’s have a look at the steps it will take to apply for one.

 

Steps to Apply for an Internship

Identify the Internship

This first point has to do with your specific field. I’d also encourage you to be open-minded here. For instance, if you studied journalism and would like to be a magazine editor one day, if there’s an internship available for the Beauty Section of Elle magazine, there is certainly no problem in applying for one.

Although the “Beauty” section may not be something you’d ideally want to do, it is still helping you to get your “foot in the door”. Applying for this internship will also help you to broaden your mind as to what the other opportunities may be in your field that you may not have considered before.

 

Prepare Your Resume

If you’ve been in school your whole life or haven’t really had the opportunity to work in your field of study, don’t stress. This is an internship, after all.

 

All your prospective boss wants to know is what your background and interests are. To make sure that your resume is as professional as it can be, make sure that you do the following:

• Include your school courses and extracurricular activities
• Mention any volunteer work you’ve done in your past
• Of course, if you have prior work experience, include that too
• Try to be as concise and as internship-related as possible
• Don’t forget to include contactable references

 

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Write your Cover Letter

A resume is concise and briefly points out all the school and work experience you have had. A cover letter, on the other hand, is more personal. It highlights why you are the ideal candidate for this internship.

Try not to replicate the information from your resume here. Instead, highlight what drew you to that specific internship, what skills you have, and how that has prepared you for the internship.

 

Prepare for the Interview

Once you’ve applied for the internship/s (make sure that you apply to many. You want to cast the net as wide as possible) and get a call for an interview, you’ll need to prepare yourself for that big day.

Prep yourself by getting a professional outfit, practicing generic questions (such as: Tell us about yourself. Why should we choose you? What are your strengths and weaknesses?) and also make sure that you arrive early for the interview to avoid any chances of bad traffic getting in your way.

 

An internship will help you to take a step in the right direction of your career aspirations. Following these tips will help to ensure that you identify the right internship for you, and you know exactly how the process will unfold.

 

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