Spring internship deadlines are looming \u2013 are you ready for them yet? If you aren\u2019t, and don\u2019t know where to start, look no further than the tips offered by our very own team from Undergraduate Students for Publishing! Earlier in the semester, Pub Club members Olivia Lusk (<\/strong>Marketing Director), Madeline Wendricks <\/strong>(Generic Editor-in-Chief), and Tom Garback<\/strong> (Co-President) got together to offer their advice gained from experience working as editorial, marketing, publicity, or content interns for Quirk Books, Ploughshares, Candlewick Press, Digest Magazine, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trying to find an internship? It\u2019s easier than you think<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re familiar with certain publishing houses or imprints, start there! You can find the hiring pages for companies whose books you enjoy through easy Google searches, and check to see if they take interns. It helps to be an actual fan of the places you\u2019re applying to work at!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Garback recommends, on occasion, reaching out on LinkedIn to hiring employees at the companies you\u2019re looking at and asking them to look at your profile; however, he suggests keeping in mind that this is a hit-or-miss strategy, since there\u2019s as much a chance that companies won\u2019t appreciate this persistence as there is it\u2019ll make you stand out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are also a bevy of databases to check for new and upcoming internships, including Handshake (which you can enable updates with using your Emerson email address), Publishers Archive, and Bookjobs.com. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How to get into contact <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
If the company you\u2019re looking at doesn\u2019t have a direct source for turning in your application and cover letter, find the email address for the hiring manager or internship coordinator and send the information to them directly. This is usually only necessary when the internship isn\u2019t accepting applications within a specific frame of time \u2013 usually, there will be anywhere from about two months to two weeks after the internship opportunity is posted for applicants to give their information to the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rejection is always possible<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The risk of applying for an internship is, of course, that you may not be accepted for the position. However, equally disappointing but much more confusing than outright rejection is being ghosted by the company. It\u2019s fairly common to not hear back about the position at all (as Lusk put it, \u201cNot even a \u2018thank you, but no\u2019\u201d), but it never hurts to send a follow-up email a few weeks later in case the hiring staff is able to update you on the status of your application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Work up the courage to write a cover letter<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Cover letters are a \u201cnecessary evil\u201d when it comes to internships, and as painful as the process is, it never hurts to get some experience writing them. As you\u2019ll often hear from professionals, your resum\u00e9 and cover letter should feature action verbs and specific details regarding your past work (any numbers or visuals that make your accomplishments shine are musts). The panelists advised to not discount experience that seems irrelevant to publishing: include retail or customer service jobs in your resum\u00e9, and attune your tasks to \u201ca publishing perspective.\u201d You can do so by reading over the internship advertisement, and tailoring the work you\u2019ve done with previous jobs, volunteer work, or on-campus organizations to the duties and requirements mentioned in the job\u2019s description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your cover letter should mention enthusiasm for working with the company and its mission, express your reasons for interest in the job, the university you\u2019re attending, and your previous work experience that fits the job\u2019s requirements. Hard as it may seem, hype yourself up! Emphasize all of the impressive work that you\u2019ve done, and why you want to offer your services to the company or organization. White lies have always had their place in cover letters, but be sure they aren\u2019t gross exaggerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Show them that you\u2019re a person beyond your resum\u00e9<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Put as much personality as you can into your applications and contact with the company: don\u2019t become overly casual, but include your own voice in your professionalism. If you secure an interview with the company, you may have more of a chance to show what you\u2019re like off-paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interviews may be less daunting than you imagine<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
While some of the panelists\u2019 interviewees have offered intense questioning and been looking for specific answers, other times, the interviews have been as little as a brief phone call, or as enjoyable as a genuine, friendly conversation about the job. Be ready for it to go any of these ways!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prepare yourself for lots of work and potential collaboration<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
There are some tasks that just about every intern has to spend their time doing \u2013 responding to emails and working with databases among them \u2013 but the pace and requirements of the internship typically depend on its title and your employer. Marketing interns spend time scheduling social media posts, running analytics for social media sites, and doing email promotion via MailChimp, and the work is very fast-paced (Wendricks emphasized that \u201cYou don\u2019t get bored easily\u201d). Editorial internships may involve doing any task assigned to you \u2013 writing press releases, transcribing interviews, performing research projects, mailing galleys, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The level of collaboration varies depending on the type of internship you\u2019re working and the type of company you\u2019re working for. At more prestigious publishers, the atmosphere may be more strict and intimidating, while children\u2019s publishers or independent presses tend to be more involved and close-knit. You\u2019ll usually have tasks similar to other interns, though they won\u2019t necessarily be collaborative. Independent publishers especially tend to hire interns for one team, but have them work closely with interns from other departments; if the publisher is new or small, you may have more freedom granted and the ability to make your own tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Internships can become overwhelming, especially if you\u2019ve never worked at one before: while it\u2019s still important to do the best work you can and respect your coworkers, working for hours straight will only make you more stressed, so take breaks when you can. Remember that you\u2019re there for the education and the experience that internships are meant to provide, take comfort in the fact that you earned your position, and bring whatever you learn to your next position \u2013 plus, don\u2019t hesitate to come back to this piece for any advice you need to remind yourself of in the future!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emma Shacochis \/\/ Blog Director Spring internship deadlines are looming \u2013 are you ready for them yet? If you aren\u2019t, and don\u2019t know where to start, look no further than…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1621,"featured_media":2072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,20,31,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-publishing","category-generalinformation","category-generic","category-internships","category-wilde-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1621"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2070"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2075,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070\/revisions\/2075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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