Cram Your 2024 College Summer Internship Application in 5 Days!

What if we told you it’s possible to cram your summer internship applications for 2024 in as little as 5 days?

If you procrastinated applying for a 2024 summer internship because of holiday brain, we totally get that. But, now, you gotta get things done! Including your 10-minute ukulele apology video for putting this off until the last minute (jk don’t do that one)

We won’t waste your time with a long intro. Here’s how you’ll pull off rushing your summer college internship applications in just a week!

Day 1: Talk with your school’s internship coordinator or career counselor for tips and recommendations

U on ur way to bother ur internship coordinator/career counselor

Your best resource for everything you need to cram your summer internship applications is usually whoever is in charge of internships or career development for students. Your school’s counselor will know which companies are still looking for interns with your specific course or career path.

Book a schedule with them ASAP. You’ll need to adjust your schedule to fit in their earliest available time since they’re also likely meeting with other students looking for college summer internships like you. But that’s better than starting blind!

When you meet with your internship coordinator or career counselor, you should have a list of questions prepared. Here are a few things we recommend you ask:

• Which of my skills and campus involvements should I include in my resume or cover letter?
• Which companies offering summer internships are the best choice for my potential career path after graduation?
• How should I prepare for an interview for my summer internship application?

Day 2: Search with a purpose on job listing platforms

Thinking abt ur life choices for your internship be like

Say you’re a computer science student looking for an internship in software development and debugging. Instead of saying “computer science internship” on Indeed.com, you can instead search for “software debug internship”. It narrows down your results to openings that you’re more interested in.

You can also further refine this by specifying a location. You can put in the specific city where you want to work OR put “remote” for the flexibility of not going to an office. 

Searching for a “software development internship in Miami” or “remote software debug internship” is going to give you better results than opening a job posting and finding out it’s on the other side of the country (unless you want that kind of adventure - we fully support being spontaneous and going where the wind blows.)

List all of your results down or make an account to bookmark all of them. You’ll need those searches in the next few days even before you apply! Organization is KEY!

Day 3: Make a strong LinkedIn profile filled with your skills and experiences

Best part of it? Starting a LinkedIn profile can be easily done through their app!

If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile yet, now’s the time to make one. A LinkedIn profile is your whole resume readily available on the Internet for companies to see so they can contact you in case you might be interested. Be prepared to be perceived. 

There are company representatives on LinkedIn who reach out to users there for potential job or summer internship opportunities, so you’ll be hitting two birds with one stone. We even have them here at Fresh Prints!

As soon as you have a LinkedIn account set up, make your profile as strong as you can. Here’s a crash course on everything you need to set up:

Photos

• Pick nice photos of you that you’d want potential bosses to see (so no party photos, please!) as your profile picture and background photo.

About Section

In 3-5 sentences, write:

• What internships you’re looking for and where
• A notable experience you have relevant to the internship you want to apply for
• 3-5 basic traits that would make you stand out as a good candidate

Profile Headline

Indicate a position you’ve held and are proud to display as your profile headline, such as “Fishing Club President” or “Alpha Phi Omega Recruitment Chair”. You can also include 2-3 words about your specialties, like “Writer, video editor”.

Experience

 If you are in an organization or worked part-time jobs before, list all of them, including:

• Positions/roles you’ve held
• Your responsibilities in that role
• Achievements or awards that you may have gotten

Other stuff

• List down the other details as needed in the other fields, depending on which ones apply to you. 
• Click “Show recruiters you’re open to work” and set up the details asked of you. This helps you become more visible to recruiters’ algorithms on LinkedIn. 

Day 4: Prepare an eye-catching resume and compelling cover letter

POV: ur completely unbothered bc Canva just made making your resume super easy!

Drop that Times New Roman multi-page resume template you saw from your parents. That’s old school.

Hop on to Canva, type in “resume”, and they’ll give you so many fully customizable options based on your personality and tastes! Replace the details with your own, download it as a PDF file, and voilà!

Bonus: if you already did Step 3, filling out your resume is going to be easy since you already have the info you need in your LinkedIn profile.

As for cover letters, not all companies require having one, but it’s better if you’re prepared. It’ll also make you stand out. The key to writing a convincing cover letter for your summer internship is to make sure that you detail:

• Your summer internship goals
• The experiences or skills you have that fit the role
• Why you think the company is a good fit for your career goals
• The reasons you’re a good fit for the role

Pro-tip: Use what you learned from the internship postings about what the prospective companies want to hear from you. Study what they’re looking for in interns and highlight the experiences and responsibilities you have that align with their requirements! 

Day 5 (onwards): Apply. Apply. APPLY!

The last step is to apply! Send as many applications as possible within your searches, and then some. Ask your friends from your classes or your major where they applied and try there as well. You can even contact your family if they know companies still accepting applicants for 2024 summer internships. 

You may not get a response from some companies you applied for a college summer internship from, but you’ll definitely hear from a few soon.

This could be you and your fellow interns if you succeed!

It’s time to put the pedal to the metal, bestie. At least you have a game plan now with our tips! Good luck!!