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Espresso and Ambition

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How to Land Your Dream Internship – Part 2: The Cover Letter

January 15, 2018 by Taylor 2 Comments

How to Land Your Dream Internship, Part 2: The Cover Letter - Espresso and Ambition

Welcome back to week two of my internship series! Today’s topic is everyone’s least favorite part of applying to internships: cover letters.

Cover letters feel so awkward to write – you don’t want to restate your résumé, but there’s only so much new content you can come up with to fill the page. Cover letters also can hurt you more often than they help you. Grammatical errors or accidentally misstating the company’s mission can cause your application to get denied. (For this reason, I’ve actually heard a lot of people suggest not writing a cover letter if it’s optional. I’d suggest still writing one, but make absolutely sure you don’t make any glaring errors.)

CHECK OUT PART 1 IF YOU MISSED IT!

 

MAJOR NO-NO: Mass cover letters

When someone is reviewing cover letters, it’s painfully obvious which cover letters have been written in a one-size-fits-all style. If the only thing you change between cover letters is the name of the company you’re applying for, there’s a good chance your cover letter won’t sound genuine. Just like with your résumé, it’s worth the effort to write a cover letter that’s customized to the position and company you’re applying to.

 

Step 1: Plan it out

If you go into writing a cover letter without a clear outline, there’s a pretty decent chance it’ll turn out a bit ramble-y. Go in with some sort of structure – it’ll flow more naturally and you won’t find yourself going off on unnecessary tangents. Typically, I like to start my cover letters by talking about why I want to work for the company, then go into my relevant experience, and wrap it all up by connecting the content of those two paragraphs.

 

Step 2: Tell them why you want to be there

This is one thing that can’t be conveyed in your résumé, so it’s important to kill it in your cover letter. Connect the organizational mission with your personal ambitions. Feel free to use the company’s website to get a little inspiration for this section, but be sure to explain why you would fit with the company and how the internship will help you achieve your future goals.

 

Step 3: Tell them why to deserve to be there

This is not an opportunity to restate your résumé, but rather an opportunity to go into greater detail about something on your résumé or to add an additional experience that doesn’t fit on your résumé but is still relevant to the position you’re applying for. For example, I don’t put my blog on my résumé, but when I’m applying for writing or social media positions, I’m always sure to mention it in my cover letter.

 

Step 4: Wrap it all up

My cover letters are almost always three paragraphs. Steps 2 and 3 are each a paragraph, and I end with a short paragraph that ties everything together. Turn everything you just wrote into a cohesive narrative. Weave your experience, your ambitions, and your desire to work for the company into a few short sentences. There’s no one way to do this – just write what feels the most natural. A cover letter that shows genuine personality and style will do much better than one that follows a fill-in-the-blank format that you find online.

 

Step 5: PROOFREAD

If I didn’t emphasize this enough in my last post, spelling and grammatical errors are the Achilles’ heel of job applications. Little errors suggest that you are careless and miss important details – even if that’s not the case in real life. Read it out loud, get someone else to read it, do whatever it takes to make sure you avoid ruining a well-written cover letter with an embarrassing minor error.

 

With cover letters (and internship applications in general), quality is always better than quantity. I promise you’ll get more interviews/offers from 10 customized, well-written applications than you will from 30 mass-written ones. See you next Monday for some interview advice!

xo, Taylor

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Filed Under: Etc., Lifestyle, Work

Comments

  1. Emily says

    January 16, 2018 at 9:53 pm

    This is all such good advice. I think the biggest thing I’ve always heard emphasized is your major no-no! You should ALWAYS tailor your cover letter to each job you apply for!

    Reply
    • Taylor says

      January 17, 2018 at 1:32 pm

      I helped with intern selection at one of my past internships, and one the the most painful things was coming across a cover letter that was so obviously written as a mass cover letter. Tailored ones just sound so much better and more genuine!

      Reply

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Meet Taylor

A real-life combination of Elle Woods and Hermione Granger. Recent graduate of the University of Georgia, currently living and working in DC. New blog posts every Monday, new YouTube videos every Thursday. Subscribe by clicking the link below for post updates and exclusive content!

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tayy_kay

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🔥 nasm certified personal trainer
✨ self-love + balance
🎥 2 new workouts per week!

tayy_kay
without heavy weights, it’s sometimes a little c without heavy weights, it’s sometimes a little challenging to really feel like i’m working at my full potential on leg days 😶 enter: single-leg movements. since all the weight is in one leg, you’re putting way more emphasis on it than you do during two-leg movements - and you’ll definitely feel that 🔥 you also get some added bonuses in the form of ensuring you’re working each side of your body equally AND a balance challenge!!
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you can add in weights or bands to up the challenge level, or do it all bodyweight like i am here!
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1️⃣ 15 single-leg box squats per leg (use other leg as a kickstand for an easier modification!)
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2️⃣ 15 bulgarian split squats per leg
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3️⃣ 15 single-leg hip thrusts per leg
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4️⃣ 15 single-leg deadlifts per leg
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throw on at the end of a longer leg day workout or do it 3-4 times as a workout all on its own!!
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👚 @girlfriend 🎧 numb - neffex
🖤 go easy on yourself 🖤 this is a weird time 🖤 go easy on yourself 🖤 this is a weird time to be alive, and it’s more important now than ever to listen to your body and stop being so hard on yourself. motivation is a fickle thing and working out when you don’t have all the equipment you love is weird. give yourself permission to take a break when you need it. don’t beat yourself up for missing workouts - exercise should be something you do because it makes you happy, not because you feel like you have to punish yourself. if it doesn’t make you happy that day, that’s okay. give yourself a break, come back and try again tomorrow. 💪🏼
circuit-style upper body workout 🖤 honestly not circuit-style upper body workout 🖤 honestly not kidding about how much i love this long resistance band, it’s so versatile! definitely worth getting your hands on one for home workouts 😊 (although almost all of these can be completely with dumbbells or heavy objects if that’s what you’ve got in hand)
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also please watch to the very end of the fourth video for quality footage of greg 😂
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1️⃣ 12 long band shoulder presses to standing chest presses
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2️⃣ 12 upright rows to bicep curls
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3️⃣ 12 overhead triceps extensions per arm (the one leg stance is some bonus balance work!)
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4️⃣ 12 rear flies, featuring greg trying to fight my shadow
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5️⃣ 12 commandos
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6️⃣ 12 side-to-side pushups
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repeat 4x total!!
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👚 @underarmourwomen
🎧 best of me - neffex
giveaway 🔥 we’re all handling this weird, cra giveaway 🔥 we’re all handling this weird, crazy time in the world a little differently, and for me, it’s looked like a lot of establishing to and sticking to routines (seriously, sometimes it feels like my skincare routine and workout split are the only thing still giving meaning to days of the week, lol). my morning smoothies have been another important one - there’s a recipe in my story highlights and surprise surprise it uses this protein powder 😛
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anyways, onto the real reason you’re here! i’m giving away 25 $20 giftcards for @310nutrition with NO STRINGS ATTACHED 🤯 you hear that? you ain’t gotta do a thing to win - the first 25 people to use the code KAYGC20 on their order automatically win. get your hands on some fire plant-based protein powder, courtesy of me and 310 😋 (p.s. if you’re still seeing this caption, there are still giftcards available!!)
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sometimes you just gotta get hella dressed up and sometimes you just gotta get hella dressed up and hold a fake photo shoot just to prove to yourself that you’re still a real human
posted a new youtube video. this picture is tangen posted a new youtube video. this picture is tangentially topical. link in bio.
upper body circuit ‼️ i’ve been gravitating upper body circuit ‼️ i’ve been gravitating towards circuit-style workouts lately, because they really work up a sweat and home workouts just don’t feel as legit to me unless i’m hardcore sweating 🤷🏼‍♀️ i don’t mind not breaking much of a sweat at the gym, but it feels weird not to when i’m working out at home - anyone else feel this or am i just weird?? 😅
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do all exercises back to back with no rest in between!
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1️⃣ 10 push-ups to renegade rows
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2️⃣ 12 alternating bicep curls
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3️⃣ 12 diamond front raises
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4️⃣ 8 sets of 3 tricep pulses to this lil cross-body weight move that doesn’t have a name {keep your core tight to feel it on your obliques!}
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5️⃣ 15 bent-over rear delt rows
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6️⃣ finisher!! 🥵 10 burpees with 2 shoulder taps and 2 toe taps in the middle of each rep
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repeat 🔁 for a total of 3 rounds!!
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👚 top from @gymsharkwomen, shorts from @nike 🎧 dangerous - neffex
would be nice if both sides of my head could agree would be nice if both sides of my head could agree on whether my hair is wavy or straight, but apparently that’s a little too much to ask of it 😂
got a circuit-style leg workout for you today! 🥳 there are 3 sets of 3 exercises that you’ll complete back-to-back - once you’ve done those three moves, rest for 30 seconds before repeating them all over again 2 more times! rest for 1-2 minutes in between each circuit - keeping your heart rate up is the goal here, i was driiiiiiipping sweat by the end of this one 🥵
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circuit 1️⃣: 10 step-ups to reverse lunges per leg
10 reverse lunges to curtsy lunges per leg
20 lateral lunges
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circuit 2️⃣:
10 squats to surrenders (stop in a squat position before standing up at the end to really feel this one)
10 stagger-stance rdls
20 criss-cross squat jumps
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circuit 3️⃣:
15 leg lifts per side
10 single-leg glute bridges per side
15 frog pumps
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👚 top from @fabletics, joggers from @gymsharkwomen
🎧 watch me - neffex
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