Internship resumes can be nauseating but we have brought to you the remedy in the form of a guide and samples to write a perfect CV for your internship.
Internships are stepping stones for your entry into the professional world. Before you land a full-fledged job, it is demanded by experience to clinch on to an internship first.
However, getting an internship is not an easy task; it is a craft, as some professionals tend to call it. On the first impression, it may seem like only those who can secure an internship who already have a repository of different skills on their CV for internships. But, this is not the case as you need to know how to maneuver with the skills and experience you have with finesse.
If you were not cognizant, a resume serves as a list of your professional skills and experience preliminarily presented to the hiring managers before they select for the given role or designation. The more objective it is, the highly likely are their chances of being selected.
Why are internships important?
As per Dalvin Joussear Sejar, an entrepreneur and a software engineer in his book Guidebook to Securing High Profile Internships he mentions that “Internships are important because they help you figure out what you want to do and what you don’t want to do before you start your first role in your career after graduation. There is a big difference between a job and a career. A job is when you are undertaking a task for the sake of its completion. On the other hand, a career reflects your passion and life purpose, where the side effect is being paid while doing it’’.
Guide for securing an internship with resume examples
1. Examination and Evaluation
The first step that involves writing a cv for an internship is to examine and ponder upon, what is demanded by the job description, that is what kind of responsibilities you will have to undergo and what you are required to do once you assume the role, what are the soft skills and hard skills that they are asking for, how are they characterizing an ideal candidate, what kind of work background and experience are they looking for. This way, the job description can serve as a CV for internship guide to figure out what skills will be relevant for the job.
Now the second step in this process would call for introspection into your own background and experiences. You can proceed with making notes of what skills you possess. For instance,
- Your education background– This can include an array of things such as your major, your CGPA, big or small projects undertaken, research work, academic or non-academic (relevant) awards.
- Work experience before- This can be your past experiences with any form of work whether allotted through off-campus or on–campus placements or through any other means.
- Co-curricular activities- This can include all the co-curricular or nonacademic activities that you have participated in, ranging from sports to leading a cultural fest, all can be mentioned here.
After mentioning all your experiences, the third step involves sorting out the most pertinent skills required by the job description.
CV for internship tips: One thing worth considering is that don’t mention things far from relevant to the position or role you seek. Figure out the context, and then make your move. For example,
Being a waiter or waitress might seem to be impertinent from the perspective of a desk job. However, on the flip side, it involves various soft skills such as team-playing, multitasking, time management, etc. and that would be what the company at issue would also be looking for.
The catch is, what you are mentioning should include a sense of duty, how industrious you are to fulfill that duty and your work ethic.
2. Dividing sections
Another guiding factor that qualitatively affects the CV’s for internships is immaculately dividing your sections. It can be done in the following ways:
- Mentioning your contact details on the very top: This includes your name, phone number, your email address, and links to your previous experiences or portfolio work in the form of any website if any.
- Avoid writing informal email addresses: It is the general propensity of school students to write informal emails, which may irk out the hiring manager. The remedy against this is to create emails that end with formal acronyms as .edu or your institution’s name.
For those who are still in school or are recently graduated can follow this order:
- Name of the institution
- Education
- Awards received
- Work and leadership experiences
- Relevant skills and interests
CV for internship tips: You can also inculcate one thing in your CV and that is creating a different section of your own experiences if they were many within a particular category. For instance, if you have previously undertaken various kinds of volunteer work or headed a debate club, you can dedicate an entire section detailing those in bullet points.
3. Filling with the appropriate information
The most important step in writing a CV for an internship is to fill in the important information that serves as the content of your resume. The more structured it is, the more likely the job will be provided to you. The systematic way of writing it would be:
Education
This portion we have briefly covered so far, but requires a little more elaboration. To reiterate, you first need to mention the name of your school\college\university, your major or the degree that you are pursuing, if graduated, then a year of graduation. Other than this, you add other things as well. For instance,
You can mention the academic awards you have received, bestow of any particular honor in your school days.
Secondly, you can mention the extra courses that you have attended apart from your major, for e.g. you have attended a foreign language course, or a course in marketing, etc. It will be worth mentioning in this segment.
You can mention the minor subject that you took as part of your program. If the minor subject is in harmony with the job description, then you would have set yourself apart from the crowd.
Experience
Having experience of any sort is a prerequisite for entry into any professional domain. A strong array of experiences make way for a stronger CV for an internship.
- You don’t have to think of an experience in this context in terms of paid or unpaid. You need to mention those experiences where you showed resilience, a problem-solving approach, etc. which can range from community services, to participation in college societies and clubs. In this sense, experience can be synonymous with exposure. The extensive the fields of exposure, the better it can serve as the qualitative content for your resume.
- However, if you have worked elsewhere for which you received a payment, then do worry if it is not relevant to your role or job description. Regardless of the status of the job, you can mention it unhesitant because it is not the nature of the job that appeals to the hiring manager but rather your work ethic and your willingness to take up various challenges, even if it is for the sake of subsistence.
Activities
The CV for the internship will be enhanced by the activities that you have carried out in your school. However, it shouldn’t be as trivial as mentioning that you for once took participation in a dance performance. The key here is the role played by you in these activities, whether you were consistent or not, what was the takeaway and having participated, in them how can it affect your future or career for that matter.
It doesn’t matter what the activity is. However, it is worth mentioning if you played a huge role in bringing the result for the group or individually to yourself and the recognition and rewards you received for the same.
For instance: If you were part of your college’s dance society or club and played an active role in it, towards winning a competition, then you can sure as hell mention that.
Moreover, taking part in different extracurricular activities helps you initiate a healthy conversation with the hiring manager, given that he has also been a part of that particular activity.
Skills and interests
You can also embellish the CV for your internship with elusive skills. However, for those still studying, it becomes quite difficult to acquire such skills. So, you might want to skip that.
Besides college students, if you possess skills that could effectively help you in the course of your internship, you can rest assured that your professional career would be groaning with opportunities.
It is also important to note that skills are meant to support a particular career in its entirety and most efficient way. If you put skills that you have learned only for a few months, then it won’t do any good.
CV for internships tips: When you begin to list jobs, activities, skills and experience into the resume then make sure that they are in reverse chronological order, meaning that the most recent of all should come first.
Secondly, don’t mention your SGPA in your profile if the marks obtained are not worth mentioning.
4. Grafting
The next step involves putting all that we have learnt together in application.
You can consider this internship resume template for the reference.
First: Header ( contact details+ Name)
First and Last Name
Email: www.formal-email@gmail.com| Phone number: xxxxxxxx| Linkedin or any other website link: www.websitelink.com or linkdin.com/in/profile
Resume objective(based on the job description):
An industrious college student pursuing majors in (course name) from University (XYZ). Seeking to hone my skills (internship-specific hard skills such as coding, graphic design, marketing etc.) as an intern at your company. (One more reason to hire you).
Education: major and minor/course in pursuit| CGPA (beyond 5)
Name of the college: XYZ University
Graduation date or expected graduation date: XYZ month\year
Awards and honors (if any): Dean’s list, academic excellence award etc.
Coursework: (Coding, marketing, foreign language proficiency etc.)
Projects and achievements: (relevant projects and achievements name)
- Hinging the role played by projects\achievements in the benefit of the internship
- Using of strong action verbs for emphasis
- Using numbers whenever deemed necessary
Skills:
Hard skills: list the most relevant hard skills, for e.g. Coding, graphic designing, etc.
Soft skills: list the most relevant soft skills, for e.g. Communication skills, team player, etc.
Refrain from exaggeration.
5. Editing
This would be the last step towards writing a structured and refined resume or CV for an internship. Try to go through it one more time and see if you are missing something. You can ask yourself the following questions:
- Does it sound relevant to the job description?
- Does it exhibit all that I have achieved?
- Will it be able to convince the hiring manager that I am the perfect fit for this role?
Moreover, make sure that everything is legible and you have explained everything in a pithy manner. Finally, make it go through spell checks, proofread it yourself first and then make others proofread it. Neatness is the name of the game here, and you would not want to compromise on that.
CV for internship tips: Nobody expects you to chart out a resume glorifying your achievements on the virtue of you being a beginner. However, be realistic and if you don’t have a particular skill don’t mention it, otherwise that would come out as you being ostentatious.
Ways to make your CV for internship more effective
The practice of keeping it at one page
Unless you are applying to a post that demands high professional skills, don’t make your resume more than two pages long. Seldom do hiring managers want to read more than one-page long resumes, hence it all boils down to writing your resume tersely and in a space-efficient manner.
The idea is not to deploy every skill and experience that you have but rather to showcase that you have got what it takes for the role.
Spelling and grammatical mistakes
This may sound trivial, but it can make a huge difference or even may even negatively grave the impression of you being imprudent in the mind of the hiring manager.
So, it will be viable if you go through it as many times as you can.
Using appropriate tenses
This is a pretty basic one and is mostly a corollary of the previous tip. But, many people make mistakes in the usage of their tenses. So, in order to give your CV for the internship a sense of soundness, then use verbs in past tense if you are no longer active in a particular activity and use the present tense if a particular activity is still in continuation.
Sending the resume in PDF format
One of the advantages of sending your CV for an internship in pdf format is that you can be assured of the fact that the same page of the resume you created would appear on the screen of the hiring manager the same way it does on yours. In contrast, this might not be the case with MS words documents.
Systematically naming the PDF file of the resume correctly
Manier times people tend to label their resume files in such a way that it becomes hard for the recruiter to discern whether it is the file sent by an internship seeker or some random file. So, it is prudent to use the correct way of labeling, that is, First name_Last Name_Resume.pdf rather than jdhs.pdf or just resume.pdf.
Make sure that the content is legible
In order to truncate the content of your CV for the internship, don’t mitigate the size of the fonts beyond the acceptable level which mostly lies between 18 -22. This way it is easier for the reader to read and correspondingly doesn’t change the size to a much larger font either, it is irksome for recruiters to go through the trouble of reading it.
Provide it with a structure in order to make it look compelling
The maximum time a hiring manager spends on looking at a resume is 6-8 seconds, in that span, if your resume is ill-structured or is not in the exact same order, as it is supposed to be then it may be troublesome for them to navigate through your resume and you can’t certainly afford to have it this way. So, it is better if all the exact headings are arranged in their proper order to give it a little aesthetic appeal.
Don’t undermine the consistency.
The CV for an internship should be laden with consistency. This implies that if one heading is bold then the other same heading belonging to the same category should be bold. Furthermore, don’t use capital words and small words unwarrantedly, this will take away its appeal.
Using appropriate pronouns
Avoid the usage of pronouns such as I, me or my. For instance, if you want to say ‘’ I headed the team and brought the desired results then you would have to omit the ‘I’ and write it as ‘headed the team and brought the desired results’’. If you put pronouns in the starting of any sentence mentioning your achievements then it will become redundant and irksome to read.
Use contexts
Using contexts as in, mentioning the place you undertook a particular activity, in which city you had an experience of working before or the time taken for you to learn a particular skill, is an internship appropriate practice. So don’t forget to make use of it.
Putting numbers
In order to insert weight into your words, you must include numbers or quantify the statement, otherwise these will be claims made in air, and the hiring manager would not buy them even if you have truly managed to do a specific task. So, including data and statistics will give a concrete base to your achievements. For e.g. Rather than saying successfully provided results, you can say successfully provided results with cumulative growth of 7 percent. This way your CV for the internship will elevate into something worth consideration
Avoid mentioning references
It may become a temptation to mention the name or contact information of your references but, this will do you no good as the subject matter is you and only you, not your references. So, avoid mentioning them and make the right use of your space in putting out information about yourself in your CV for the internship
Don’t list everything you have done so far
While the purpose of the resume is to list out the relevant skills and previous experiences but no way does that suggest, you have to list everything you have ever done. Try sifting the relevant information from the non-relevant one.
Acting creatively according to different contexts
It is not an obscure fact that some industries such as relating to graphic designing are more creative than the likes of business specific industries. So, if you want to apply to the former then you can take the liberty to make your CV for the internship a little more creative, while you may not want to risk that in the later and stick to the structured pattern more, devoid of any creative approach.
Free internship samples
John Smith
EDUCATION
Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
Candidate for Master of Business Administration
- Recipient of Michael G. Foster Students First Scholarship
- GMAT 710
- Member of Net Impact
- President of Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club and the Environmental Innovation Challenge
POINT LOMA NAZARENE UNIVERSITY, San Diego, CA
Bachelor of Arts, Business Administration; concentrations in International Business and Finance
- 3.78 GPA Magna cum Laude
- Awarded Fermanian School of Business Student of The Year in 2009 and out 113 other senior business students
- Founded and Presided over PLNU Microfinance Club, Developed a club model that was hailed nationally
- Studied International Business and Latin American culture for one semester at University VERITAS IN Costa Rica
EXPERIENCE
EDIFY, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Provides funding and training to schools in developing countries.
Program Manager, Dominican Republic
Managed debt investments and helmed development for educational social entrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic.
- Grew school microloan portfolio from $1.1MM to $2.2MM and expanded program operation from 148 financially viable schools from impoverished children to 580+ schools in two years
- Managed a cross cultural team of American and Dominican staff with 300percent growth and management of four direct reports.
- Headed the committee on implementing the 90,000$ budget program for training and training programs
- Helped in the designing and implementation of the measurement and analysis tool for school purposes in Rwanda
- Developed financial training program for 268 school owners and directors to improve their financial management and leadership, resulting in 113 schools improving long term financial sustainability through learned strategies
- Launched a new educational technology initiative to teach English to low income students using tables and cloud based software to improve English reading scores by 19 percent during 67 student pilots. Scaled program to 300+ students in 2014
CDC Small Business Finance, San Diego, CA
Small business loans and helping in economic development.
Community loan officer
Marketing and underwriting small business loans for startups and high risk companies.
- Performed underwriting of loan applicants to evaluate risk ratios, cash flow, collateral, and synthesized data to make loan approval recommendations to the loan committee. 68 percent of loans were made to women or minority owned businesses
- Grew SBA Microloan program by 196 percent in year 1 and 39percent in year 2, from $285k lent in 2008 to $1 .17 M lent in 2010
- Provided consulting and technical assistance to 180+ new businesses to develop business plan and financial projections
- Led cross functional social media strategy team. Developed the new company website and launched first company’s social media campaign to drive leads through user friendly interface and a small business resource center with online pre approval
SAN DIEGO MICROFINANCE ALLIANCE, San Diego, CA
An organization of local micro lenders, school and college professors elevating the status of microfinance in San Diego
Co-founder and board member
- Lead on a volunteer basis to provide organizational and logistical support for Alliance operation.
- Headed a team of executives from local nonprofit organizations to serve on advisory boards and overlook the overall implementation.
- Managing southern California’s largest annual microfinance conference for six consecutive years.
Caryn. E Johnson
1134 N. 13th St.
Milwaukee, WI 53442
(414) 2289-4875(School)
OBJECTIVE: Opting for a summer internship in the field of marketing.
EDUCATION: MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY, Milwaukee, WI
Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration
Specialization: Marketing
Graduation Date: September 2019 GPA 3
Related Courses:
- SEO( Search Engine Optimization)
- Marketing Research
- Digital marketing
- Consumer Behavior
College Projects
- Produced several promotional pieces of content for different university departments.
- Designed logo, brochures, mailing database and follow up survey for different events
EXPERIENCE:
JC Penney co, Milwaukee, WI
Summers: worked as waiter
Present: Assistant manager
- Promoted to assistant manager within 5 months
- Involved in training new waiters\waitresses
- Undertook the work of cocktail hostess, when required
In the unavailability of the manager, ran tapes and tallies.
AWARDS\ACTIVITIES
- Business Marketing Association, Treas.
- Hall council for Representative
- Volunteer Coordinator- Special Olympics
- Marquette Scholarship (2years)
EDUCATION
Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
Candidate for Master of Business Administration
- Recipient of Michael G. Foster Students First Scholarship
- GMAT 710
- Member of Net Impact
- President of Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club and the Environmental Innovation Challenge
POINT LOMA NAZARENE UNIVERSITY, San Diego, CA
Bachelor of Arts, Business Administration; concentrations in International Business and Finance
- 3.78 GPA Magna cum Laude
- Awarded Fermanian School of Business Student of The Year in 2009 and out 113 other senior business students
- Founded and Presided over PLNU Microfinance Club, Developed a club model that was hailed nationally
- Studied International Business and Latin American culture for one semester at University VERITAS IN Costa Rica
EXPERIENCE
EDIFY, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Provides funding and training to schools in developing countries.
Program Manager, Dominican Republic
Managed debt investments and helmed development for educational social entrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic.
- Grew school microloan portfolio from $1.1MM to $2.2MM and expanded program operation from 148 financially viable schools from impoverished children to 580+ schools in two years
- Managed a cross cultural team of American and Dominican staff with 300percent growth and management of four direct reports.
- Headed the committee on implementing the 90,000$ budget program for training and training programs
- Helped in the designing and implementation of the measurement and analysis tool for school purposes in Rwanda
- Developed financial training program for 268 school owners and directors to improve their financial management and leadership, resulting in 113 schools improving long term financial sustainability through learned strategies
- Launched a new educational technology initiative to teach English to low income students using tables and cloud based software to improve English reading scores by 19 percent during 67 student pilots. Scaled program to 300+ students in 2014
CDC Small Business Finance, San Diego, CA
Small business loans and helping in economic development.
Community loan officer
Marketing and underwriting small business loans for startups and high risk companies.
- Performed underwriting of loan applicants to evaluate risk ratios, cash flow, collateral, and synthesized data to make loan approval recommendations to the loan committee. 68 percent of loans were made to women or minority owned businesses
- Grew SBA Microloan program by 196 percent in year 1 and 39percent in year 2, from $285k lent in 2008 to $1 .17 M lent in 2010
- Provided consulting and technical assistance to 180+ new businesses to develop business plan and financial projections
- Led cross functional social media strategy team. Developed the new company website and launched first company’s social media campaign to drive leads through user friendly interface and a small business resource center with online pre approval
SAN DIEGO MICROFINANCE ALLIANCE, San Diego, CA
An organization of local micro lenders, school and college professors elevating the status of microfinance in San Diego
Co-founder and board member
- Lead on a volunteer basis to provide organizational and logistical support for Alliance operation.
- Headed a team of executives from local nonprofit organizations to serve on advisory boards and overlook the overall implementation.
- Managing southern California’s largest annual microfinance conference for six consecutive years.
John Doe
Objective: Seeking a multimedia internship
Education:
Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, II
B.A., Journalism, May 2007
Concentration in Magazine Journalism
Minor: Graphic Design
Overall GPA: 3.3/4.0
Relevant:
Beginning Magazine Writing, News Editing and Design, Expressive Drawing, News Editing and Design, Beginning Photography, Mass Communication and Society.
Skills:
HTML, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop
MAC and PC literate
Strong editing and writing skills
Artistic, reliable, results-oriented
Activities
1/04 to present The Magazine Club Event Planning Committee
- Collaborate with a team of 20 to successfully plan and implement the 13th Annual Magazine Day, a career information event for students.
- Design innovative advertising materials for events which contributed to a 25 percent increase in attendance from the previous year.
- Interact with industry analysts and provide logistical assistance and general information.
9\05 to present Alpha Gamma Delta,
Assistant PanHellenic Chair– Elect, 9\05- Present
- Serve as a collaborator to the college campus community as an elected official.
Jane Doe
1134 N. 13th St.
Milwaukee, WI 53442
(414) 2289-4875(School)
OBJECTIVE: Opting for a summer internship in the field of marketing.
EDUCATION: MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY, Milwaukee, WI
Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration
Specialization: Marketing
Graduation Date: September 2019 GPA 3
Related Courses:
- SEO( Search Engine Optimization)
- Marketing Research
- Digital marketing
- Consumer Behavior
College Projects
- Produced several promotional pieces of content for different university departments.
- Designed logo, brochures, mailing database and follow up survey for different events
EXPERIENCE:
JC Penney co, Milwaukee, WI
Summers: worked as waiter
Present: Assistant manager
- Promoted to assistant manager within 5 months
- Involved in training new waiters\waitresses
- Undertook the work of cocktail hostess, when required
In the unavailability of the manager, ran tapes and tallies.
AWARDS\ACTIVITIES
- Business Marketing Association, Treas.
- Hall council for Representative
- Volunteer Coordinator- Special Olympics
- Marquette Scholarship (2years)
Conclusion
Making CVs for resume is a tricky enterprise, and the final qualitative judgment of it will always be in the hand of the hiring manager. However, if you take the help of these internship resume examples, then you will certainly be equipped with the idea of how a resume works and will be able to produce many more, across various industries in which you are seeking a particular job.
Internships are the way to a world beyond comfort, so any tool for making that happen would be replete with discomfort, and that is the beauty of writing resumes. Each passing moment of discomfort in writing them, would be channelized into a bliss once you get your hands on your dream job.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
1.Can you get an internship without having to write a resume?
No, a resume is a must for anyone seeking a job or an internship. However, sometimes it also varies from company to company. If it is established then the chances are higher. However, if it is yet to establish and is in dire need of interns then it may skip the whole resume part and directly call you for an interview. But again, the chances of it are very less.
2. What is the difference between a job and an internship?
Firstly, internships are usually of a shorter span then jobs. They may last for 3 months and sometimes more, but the bottom line is that they are not permanent.
Secondly, the payment that you get in an internship is lesser than the amount you get paid in a job.
And last but not the least, internships help you secure a concrete career ahead and can be considered as a prelude to a particular job itself.
3. How do I find an internship?
There are several ways to find one. You can avail them both offline and online. Both have come to be feasible in the modern era.
If you want to lay your hands on an internship while sitting at the comfort of your home then online internships are perfect for you, and if you are cynical towards this approach then you may avail them by physically approaching a company.
4. What is the right time to start looking for an internship?
Well, it depends upon your country’s education system and the amount of time you have to spend in your school setting. However, the ideal time is after you have graduated from high school or university. That is because by this time, you have acquired plenty of skills that can lead the way for your entry into the professional world. However, high school graduates are not that technically equipped, so they should seek out other less technical internships such as content writing, graphic designing, etc. Whereas, a college graduate can seek out a profession such as marketing, accounting etc.
5. What salary can I expect from an internship?
It depends upon your experience. If you have previously held an internship in a particular company, then chances are that you might get paid higher. However, if you are a newbie to the profession that you are applying for then the company has enough reason to not to pay you a substantial amount of salary.
In order to receive a coveted salary, you will have to strive towards improvement and honing your skills.
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