On writing Internship application mails

So, you are a college student in your sophomore year. Having a keen desire to work in the academia you decide to intern under some professor . You meticulously search for someone working in your interest domain and have found them at long last. But how to go about the application? How to contact the professor, so that all your skills and diligent nature shine through? How to write the application email seeking a position so as to convince the reader of your efficient qualities? How to write such that the response is agreeable?

Writing an effective internship or project application request via an email is an art which gets perfected over time as one gets more and more feedback. Getting to know your interests better, researching about the institutions and people working in your domain and keeping a look-out for any opportunity that may find its way to you, are some of the first things to be aware of. To get a favourable reply to your application, the point that you are making should be clear to the professor. The duration for which you are available should be explicitly mentioned, alongwith any special conditions that may be present. Another thing that should be taken care of at the very start is that you must actually be aware of the work the profs you decide to contact are working on. Do not start off with a vague idea. Do the homework of going through the faculty profile, some of the research articles and then find that exact someone who's works aligns with your interest naturally. 

There are two components of any internship application: cover letter and the resume. Both of these should supplement each other but should remain distinct in their own right. 

When the application is sent through email, the cover letter is the body of the email. It should principally tell your story, what your interests are, where you are from, your college, your degree, how you ended up here, what are your aspirations, how you wanna realise them, how can an internship with him/her aid you in this etc. etc. It should not be a repetition of the matter in the resume. You can describe how you like a particular subject, how you started working on some projects related to it, went to this place, learned this and that. However, do not describe what you actually did in a particular project in this. Cover letter is a personal statement. Tell what you personally got to learn through say that workshop you attended rather than telling what the workshop was about. One can read about the latter on web the anyway. Basing your story on your core strengths, stressing these and the manner in which this can of use is what is going to tell the prof that here is someone I would wanna be a supervisor of. Further, giving out a probable research topic and some related details, although not necessary to add, show that you have properly gone through the topics you talk of A good cover letter can often fill the gaps in a mediocre resume. If you are able to convince the prof of your worth for the project through your enthusiasm and eagerness to learn new things, then that is all that matters.

One of the first application emails that I remember writing. Note that I list out my work experience in the body of the email which may already be present in the resume.

The resume (used interchangeably with CV in many countries), on the other hand, is a concise record of your academic or professional history. Here you gotta have concrete facts and not your personal opinions. Write about your grades, workshops and schools that you have attended, work or any prior research experience, skills, projects, awards, co-curricular activities etc. Some people tend to have hobbies too, but in my opinion these should be included only if there are relevant to the position aimed at. Similar can be argued for the extra-curriculum activities, however, it is better to add these so as to have some kinda diversity in the resume. It is specially useful for the corporate world, not so much in the academia since the reliance is more on the specific skills that would be required to tackle any problem and typically a research student often works alone and not as a part of a team, unless the project itself is quite huge. 

The actual format and length of the resume (or CV) depends largely on the nature of the position and the specific institution you are applying for. However, having short, crisp and precise content in the resume is preferable since it can read quickly. A single or double column one page resume often serves the purpose well. There are tons and tons of examples and templates online on writing a perfect resume, highlighting the key aspects of your professional life. Using a handy template can save time as well as help in deciding what to include and what to not. However, a personalised resume relevant for the particular purpose at hand is best.

If this is the first time your are planning to intern anywhere, it is likely that you somehow feel that you don't have enough experience for the desired position. In such a case, write whatever the hell you have worked on till date, no matter what the results were or how small it was. If some of projects were not successful, write how you learned numerous things in the process of discovery, although the final outcome may not have been what you had expected. Once some real concrete experience comes floating in, then for your next application you can decide upon what to filter and what to let stay. Right now the priority is getting the position you want and that is possible only when the prof gets an impression that you are hard working and a certain amount of intellectual calibre and skills, that can be honed by him/her. Reading a few lines of your mail, they should be tempted to read your full resume and possibly start to think what would calling you in entail. So write what you did in a flamboyant manner, although not much embellished with things which are untrue or which you cannot learn in a few days if the need arises. Some bragging helps initially but can turn counter productive in the long run. Say you write that you are well versed in some software and are selected for project, what if when actually trying out the software comes, you are not able to use it? Unless you are pretty sure that you would be able to get used to the skill you are bragging about, it is always better to be truthful in the internship application.

A typical application email that I write now-a-days. Overtime the skills and research experience build up and then the actual project can be discussed later on with the prof. 

One last thing, the key during such academic internship or project application process is persistence. Write to as many profs working in your area of interest as you can find. And send a second reminder email to them if they don't reply the first time. If they don't reply even after that, then probably they are not available for the time period that you have mentioned or have some other preoccupation. In any case, it's certainly not worth the trouble contacting them further and you should try with other people. But in my experience, most do reply back something after the second mail.

So, be patient, hone your skills in the meantime and hope for your successful internship application. If you are ambitious and diligent enough, I am sure you will land into your dream internship one day.

Hope this helps. 😁