One of the things that I love most about advising Amherst students is that each of you has such a unique and interesting story. When I meet with a new student for the first time, I always ask a few questions in order to get a glimpse into your background and interests: What type of assignments or projects excite you? Are there any ideas, questions or problems that you were interested in high school that still matter to you at Amherst? What’s something you’re most proud of that you’ve accomplished in the past year? When you imagine your ideal day at work, what does it look and feel like? These responses always provide great insight into your strengths, passions, and personality.
The internship process requires you to comfortably and confidently talk about yourself. In highlighting your skills, you can often lean into your personal background to showcase your various accomplishments and interests while connecting authentically to different opportunities. Here are a few simple ways to weave your identity into your internship search.
Personalizing Your Professional Social Media Accounts
Networking is all about building connections and relationships with peers, colleagues and alumni in order to strengthen your understanding of specific industries and positions. Handshake, along with LinkedIn, are effective tools to research and apply for these opportunities and organizations.
Picture your profile like a movie. The About Me section is your trailer and your experiences are scenes in the film. You want to hook the audience by really detailing your individual journey, story, goals, and interests. Potentially leaning into your FLI identity and background can be a wonderful way to share this information.
You can also follow different organizations and companies that excite you. Commenting and engaging with their posts can demonstrate to recruiters a genuine interest with their work.
At the beginning of every semester, make sure your profile and career interests are up to date and accurate.
Moving Beyond Your Accomplishments in Your Cover Letters
Your cover letter should be a bridge between your resume and the internship posting explaining why you’d be such a good fit for the role. You want to be specific when highlighting your transferable skills by utilizing the STAR technique. These skills can come from different academic, work, extracurricular, or volunteer experiences. You can showcase stories that are more distinctive and unique describing your resiliency, grit, adaptability, empathy or determination along with other desired skills from the position description.
Mastering the Interview through Research and Storytelling
An interview is the final opportunity to really let your personality, strengths, and experiences shine. During this process, you want to emphasize three things: you know what the job entails, you’re qualified for it, and you’re super excited about it.
One of the best ways to prepare for an interview is by thoroughly researching the organization and closely reviewing the internship description yet again. By truly understanding their mission, you can easily connect your values and narrative to the role. Why are you interested in this company? What about the position excites you and why?
Want to practice this out? Schedule a meeting with an advisor or prepare virtually through Big Interview. Effectively executing your storytelling and connecting your journey to the role will hopefully lead to another interview or even an internship offer.
