Internship Cover Letter

Internship cover letters have the principles of a regular cover letter, but they should involve more risk taking. Since an employer knows that the internship position is temporary, they will be more likely to chose a candidate they find interesting and take a chance on them. Creativity as it relates to passion is extremely important in internship cover letters. That said, here are the GrouperEye tips for a remarkable internship cover letter.

The Cover letter is also an opportunity for you to focus on and communicate to a prospective employer your relevant skills, knowledge and accomplishments that match the characteristics of a specific position. The internship cover letter serves as an introductory sales letter and motivates the employer to read the resume and invite you for an interview for the position you are seeking.

1. Tell a story. My internship cover letter to Google was a story about how I asked my middle school girlfriend to date me. The best way to tell a story is to focus on a single example and then tie that into your internship pitch. The point of my internship cover letter story is that “I fumbled like an idiot asking this girl to date me, but it was then that I learned: there is never a perfect way to do something, you just have to follow your heart.” Google flew me out for an interview two weeks later.

2. Get weird. Be different with your internship cover letter. One of the best internship cover letter stories that I have heard is a girl who wrote her cover letter on a shoe. With things like “I will put my sole into it,” “I will lace up the competition,” “I am not afraid to get my foot in the door.” She got the internship with MTV.

3. Show passion. If you use a company’s product, tell them about it in your internship cover letter. I had a friend who drank Snapple like it was his job. He wrote an internship cover letter about his passion for Snapple and how he drinks them all day long. Students who like the product/service are attractive to employers. They want to make sure that this isn’t just a resume item.

4. Be short. No HR person is going to read a whole page from a perspective intern. That’s just reality. *Unless it’s remarkable and starts off with a bang.

5. Use Humor. The people who read internship cover letters aren’t robots. They go to parties, drink beer, watch movies, and tell funny stories. These HR people get so many careful, boring, safe cover letters that this will make you stand out. I had a good buddy that sent an online finacial company the “Top Ten Reason To Hire Me” and it was hilarious. If you can manage to mix humor with a meaningful message, you will win.

6. Don’t send a form letter. Ever. Unless you have a 4.0 from Harvard, you are worthless to an HR department. They just have to many options to chose somebody who cares this little.

7. Tell them what you are going to do. My buddy ran a startup with little money to spare and was not hiring. A student then sent him an internship cover letter that read: “I can get you 3 business to use your service, 100 individual accounts, 3 PR pieces and 20+ links. If I don’t, no need to pay me.” My buddy was floored and the student was hired the next day.

The internship cover letter should be problem-solving oriented letter mentioning how you can meet the job needs rather than simply listing your desires.