Internship Application Mania
I am a 27 year old undergraduate looking for his first (ever) summer internship. Things were looking up early this year when I used contacts I had made on our Chicago advertising agency trip to apply to “one of the world’s largest and most celebrated brand communications and consumer contact organizations in the world.”
Here’s how to get an internship interview:
1) Treat the process as seriously as you would when applying for a “real” position.
2) Use any and all contacts at a company, no matter how obscure they may be, to separate yourself from the crowd.
3) If you don’t have any contacts at an agency, try and arrange a 10-20 minute informational interview. Do not bring your resume or mention an internship position during this interview. Your goals are to learn about the company and make a contact.
4) Send thank you notes to everyone you meet!
5) Keep in touch with these contacts and then ask them to pass your resume along to the hiring individual or committee when application time rolls around.
6) When a representative of the agency contacts via e-mail you to arrange a phone interview, confirm the time and date promptly and professionally.
…and Here’s how to blow a phone interview:
1) Drink too much coffee in the morning to compensate for the fact the you didn’t get any sleep because you had to call the cops on the crazy, drunken guy setting off car alarms and screaming at the top of his lungs in your front yard at 2am in the morning.
2) Answer simple direct questions with a questioning tone. Pop culture reference: “I’m Ron Burgundy?”
3) Say “That’s a very interesting question” TWICE.
4) Answer a question, and then backtrack on your own answer.
5) Talk to fast (see question #1 for reason).
6) Call your supervisor or manager “boss” repeatedly.
7) When thanking the interviewer for their time, try to be in a room where your closing won’t be drown out by ambulance sirens.
Stay tuned. Same bat time, same bat channel, as more crazy internship application adventures are bound to follow.
Tags: advertising, business etiquette, internship, phone interview
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March 8, 2008 at 2:13 pm
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March 30, 2008 at 10:15 pm
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