✦Job search · 13 recordsGet an internship

Internship applications open early, close quietly and mostly go unanswered, which makes it easy to send twenty and learn nothing. This builds the list first, sends applications in weekly batches, and tracks each stage so it is obvious whether the problem is the CV, the cover letter or the interview.

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Free on any plan. You will see this list again in the app, and nothing is created until you press install.

✦ Everything it creates

The whole plan, before you install it

Goal

An internship offer Month 3

Applications in batches, tracked by stage, so the weak step is visible.

Build the list Week 2

Deadlines decide the order.

  • List thirty places I would genuinely take an internshipDo firstDay 5
  • Note each deadline and how they want applicationsDo firstDay 9
  • Ask the careers service to read my CVDay 13

Apply in batches Month 3

Five a week, and a look at what happened to the last five.

  • Write one strong cover letter to adapt, not copyDo firstWeek 2
  • Send the first five applicationsDo firstWeek 3
  • Look at which stage applications stop atDo firstWeek 6
  • Practise interview answers with somebodyWeek 7

Routines

  • Send this week's applicationsweekly
  • Update the application trackerweekly
✦ It comes with a note

Track the stage, not just the count

Twenty applications and no reply tells you nothing on its own. Twenty applications, twelve rejected at the CV and none past a first interview, tells you exactly what to fix.

Apply in weekly batches, so each change you make has a batch to be measured against.

✦ Questions

Get an internship, answered.

Earlier than feels reasonable. Many large employers open in the autumn for the following summer and fill places as they go, so the first task here is a list of deadlines, and the order of everything else follows from it.
Enough to learn from, which usually means dozens rather than a handful. Sending them in weekly batches matters more than the total, because each batch tells you whether the last change to the CV did anything.
Almost everybody applying has very little, which is the point of an internship. Coursework with an outcome, a project, a society role or a part-time job, described in terms of what changed, does the work a previous internship would.
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Know the number and the evidence before the conversation, so the conversation is short.

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