Tips On Landing An Internship From A National Geographic Hiring Manager

[bigletter]I can confidently stand by the thought that applying for jobs and internships is tedious and rough and a black hole of anxiety and uncertainty because there isn’t exactly one right way to do it. We don’t really learn the valuable subject of ‘job application’ in school where we can acquire the skills necessary to put together a resume and a cover letter that we ABSOLUTELY know will look great and that will include everything we hope will get us hired.[/bigletter]

Just the other day, a close family member of mine, who I love and adore and I am so proud of for being a badass at their job, messaged me asking the magic question, “what do you usually say in your cover letter?” And then it hit me: no matter how badass we already are at our job, the way a cover letter and resume should look is such a subjective thing, that we are still insecure of what in the world is or isn’t appropriate.

Precisely because I think that interning is so important for kickstarting a career, last week I hopped on the phone with Lina Coss, the Explorer Training and Development Manager at the National Geographic Society. She has looked over more than 300 intern resumes within the past five years. From someone who sits on the other side of the job application process, I wanted to hear some expert insight into how to properly apply for a position. So we chatted about what employers and hiring managers on a broad spectrum of positions are looking for in applications; what could possibly catch their eye and when the perfect time to apply for that dream internship is.

“In all companies that I’ve worked our biggest intern hiring season has been summer. So start checking for internship postings as early as January” said Lina.

What’s the first thing people should know?

Write a cover letter. When applying for jobs it can seem very tedious to write a cover letter, but if you’re applying for an internship, most likely you’re still in college and you haven’t really had a lot of work experience. I always look at cover letters, because they’re a really good chance to learn about you and why you are the right person for the job. You’re competing with college students across the U.S. who are really good or in interesting schools, with interesting majors so you have to tell the hiring manager why you stand out; maybe you’ve studied abroad, you’ve worked at a restaurant on campus or you had another internship at a marketing firm.

What details is the cover letter essentially supposed to include?

A good tip is, make an effort to look at the job description and tell [the hiring manager] what specifically about it you feel connected to: is there a specific task on it, is there some piece of experience that is really going to make an impact or that meshes well with what you’re studying and your background? Why are you interested in it? If it’s a media company that you’ve always admired or wanted to work for or perhaps part of the job is the chance to work with educators and that’s something you’re really passionate about, state that in the letter. Make an actual connection between the job description and how in particular you think it’s relevant to you and how it’s interesting to you. Keep it to one page. In my experience, hiring managers don’t want to read a list of all the classes you have attended or taken in college.

In terms of a resume, ‘THE RESUME,’ is it a one pager or two pager?

I don’t have a preference. As long as you are including information that is relevant, you’re not just including or throwing every possible thing that you’ve ever done on there, if it’s two pages it’s totally fine. Spell check your resume and spell check your cover letter, spell check the name of the company you are applying to. Type-os happen, it’s easy to make a type-o but if you’re applying for a job, do your best to make sure that they don’t happen. Also that goes for when you’re writing a cover letter…if you don’t know what goes where or if you should put your address on it, or do you capitalize ‘to whom may concern,’ Google it. Then have someone read it over. Google it and read over it to make sure you’ve capitalized and spelled the name of the company correctly …all of those little things are important because when you’re looking at 200 resumes, something like that can be a deal breaker.

Do you go on people’s Instagram and social media?

Typically I go and look people up on Linkedin. If they’ve included a link to their social media in their resume – which some people do particularly if they’re in creative fields or into photography or things like that. In general I try to live by the idea that your social media should be private, and I know a lot of employers go to people’s social media, so I think that it’s up to every individual person to have good judgement about what they’re putting out there in the world. If you are working in a creative field, or a field where it’s more common to share your social media and you do link out to it, just be more cognizant that you are using this even if it’s your own personal social media, and that you are putting it on your resume, on Linkedin, in your e-mails for partners to connect and using it in any kind of professional way, and therefore that you do have to be a little bit more careful with what you’re posting about.

How much does reaching out to you or HR or the employer weigh on whether someone gets the job?

I do think that it doesn’t hurt to reach out as long as you’re doing it in a way that is respectful, so that you’re not sending multiple emails to every single person in HR, or reaching out to every single person at the company. Don’t bombard every single person on the team that you’re applying to intern on. Just be strategic. Typically when you’re applying for jobs online, if it does say ‘submit a cover letter’ and you don’t, you’ll automatically get filtered out. By the time that I’m looking at your resume if you have submitted everything, I know that you’ve turned in a cover letter and a resume and that you followed all the correct steps to get there.

When it comes to e-mails and interacting with the hiring manager, remember that you are not sending someone a DM on Instagram. You need to capitalize your words, use punctuation, and don’t send a bunch of emojis.

Is there any piece of advice people should know that they should implement within their application process?

One of my biggest tips that I really appreciate is when someone sends me a ‘thank you’ e-mail after an interview. Especially if you had a chance to connect with them about something you have in common, mention the connection or something. When someone sends a thank you e-mail and reiterates their interest and maybe mentions something that we had talked about and that had come up in the interview, I always appreciate that.

Lina Coss is the Explorer Training and Development Manager at the National Geographic Society. She has worked in both the private and public sectors, including working and interning for several government entities. She is passionate about exploration, people and cultures, and conservation; particularly the interaction between natural and social sciences. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

All opinions expressed here are her own, and do not reflect the opinions, official policy, or position of her current or past employers.

Looking for an internship?

https://jobs.disneycareers.com/professional-internships
http://www.viacomcareers.com/internships.html
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/careers/internships/
https://www.smithsonianofi.com/internship-opportunities/
https://www.dcinternships.org
https://www.hacu.net/hacu/HNIP.asp
https://www.idealist.org/en/internships?q=&searchMode=true
https://latinoheritageintern.com
https://careers.google.com/students/
https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/working-in-government/unique-hiring-paths/students

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