Resume Guide for Internships

Consider this situation before reading the rest of this article-
Are you going to apply for your internship and having an anxiety attack at the same time? Well do not worry because we are here to calm your nerves .
We are here to help you and guide you through all the steps required to make a short, crisp and impressive resume.
There is a huge difference between writing resumes for experienced employees and for interns who have just completed their graduation .
However the one thing common in both these resumes is that it creates the first impression on your employer. As the famous saying goes “First impression is the last impression” . You can definitely apply it here, because trust us if your employer is not cast with a good first impression while seeing your resume, you can definitely forget the internship that you are applying for even after being qualified enough to get the job.

Top 7 Mistakes in Internship Resume

Before we explain in details we will be listing the top 7 mistakes which you definitely should not make while drafting your resume. The mistakes are as follows -

i. Typos and Grammatical errors in the document . ii. Lack of Specifics in your document . iii. Using an unprofessional email address in your resume . iv. Including irrelevant information in the document . v. Including incorrect information in the document . vi. Annoying buzzwords ,short forms and obvious keyword stuffing in the document . vii. Displaying an “any job will do” attitude in the document .

An additional tip would be to never include a head shot in your resume unless it is required for the job that you are applying to . Those fields will respectively be Modelling, Acting or any other fields where the physical appearance plays a major role in getting the job.

However if you are applying for a job where the physical appearance does not play a role , refrain from including your head shot because that gives employers a very narcissist vibe along with a hint of arrogance and honestly we do not need to tell you why that would be bad for your first impression with your employer.
Before we discuss in details about the topic, for your convenience allow us to divide this entire article into two different parts -
i. How to write a Resume when applying for an internship ? ii. The basic 4 steps which are required in writing a resume and how to detail on your skills?

Questions related to Internship Resume

So let us address the first question which is as follows -
How to write a Resume when applying for an internship? As we have elaborated on this before a Resume makes the first impression on your employer. Before receiving your Resume and scanning it your employer does not know anything about you. Your professional skills are not known to your employer by then, thus you should make sure not to brag, because even a single hit of arrogance can simply cost you your internship and honestly that is the last thing that you want to happen. Try to express rather than impress because your employer is more interested in knowing what kind of a person you are and what kind of skills you will be bringing to their firm.
A study shows that your average Human Resources manager takes a maximum of 6 seconds to take a glance at your resume and they only scan it any longer if anything catches their eye within those 6 seconds.
So our aim is pretty clear and that is - Establishing a relationship in less than 6 seconds !
Well at this moment if you are hoping that we will say “just kidding” and relief you of that 6 second cycle , you could not be more wrong.
However on the contrary we want you to calm your nerves because it is pretty simple if you follow a number of simple instructions.
The first thing to do while writing a resume is to determine if you have any skills that are relevant to the field that you are applying for . We are including an example below to help you with it. Check it out -
If you are applying for a internship in the human resources section of the firm, you are required to mention skills and qualifications which are relevant for the field . For example if you have taken courses in compensation,training, recruitment and appraisals as well as courses in principles of management, you should definitely mention it.
As we have now elaborated on how to write a resume for applying for internships, we will now consider the second question that is the second part of this article. The question is as follows -
2. The basic 4 steps which are required in writing a resume and how to detail on your skills? So without further delay in time, let us get straight into it -
Instead of complicating things we like to keep it simple here, so we have divided the process of writing a resume for an internship into 4 basic steps. Let us get into the steps one by one.
Step 1: Brainstorm all the information that you have about yourself - The first step would be to check the requirements and responsibilities as soon as you choose your internship.
Professionals advise using the job requirement ad as a guide to making the perfect resume. Focus on the following things -

a) What kind of skills are they highlighting ? b) What kind of interests are they looking for ? c) What kind of employee are they looking for ?

Once you have brainstormed this, jot down the following things about yourself -

• Your educational history
• Summer or part-time jobs
• Volunteer work done
• Participation in Student Organizations or Sports or Clubs

Once you have jotted down these basic things, list down those things which are going to be relevant to your internship .
Step 2: Create the respective sections in your resume - At the top you will first include your contact information like your phone number, email address. We advise you to use a professional email instead of your personal email id.
The next step is to make respective sections in your resume which should be as follows -

• Education and Awards received .
• Work and Leadership Experience at college .
• Activities participated in .
• Skills and interests .

Professionals recommend new interns or students who are applying for their first internship to list their educational qualifications in the beginning so that it is the first thing that catches the employers eyes . You are at the liberty to add sections or subtract them on your own , you are also allowed to modify them on your own. In the next step we will elaborate about what to include in these sections .
Step 3: To fill in those sections let us take a look at it section by section -

Education: Your school, major, degree, graduation year and GPA. Apart from these obvious things you can include other things like the honors you received along with your study abroad program.
Experience: When you apply for an internship ,the recruiters are not expecting a huge amount of experience , so there is absolutely no need to fib on your resume . Be sure to mention your participation in leadership training programs .
Activities: This mainly contains your duties performed in fests. A lot of club activities make up for great resume material and some does not. It depends on the factor that whether it is relevant or not for your resume .
Skills: When you are still in college it is OK to not list a huge number of skills. Remember honesty is the key here. In this section the employer is mainly seeing if you have some skills which may have been missed through the rest of the resume, like speaking another language or being fluent in coding or having management skills. All these skills are going to highlight the kind of employee you would be and thus you can say that it is an important section.

Step 4: Putting it all together and refining it -

• The last step would be to put all the information that you collected in the last 3 steps and putting them together. Once you have put it together your only concern would be to make it short and crisp thus by refining it.


• Here we come to the end of this article and we hope that we helped you get the hold of the point that we were trying to make. All the best making your resume.