Tips On How To Successfully Apply For An Internship

As an internship placement platform, we go through many applications and even though all of you are great individuals with lots of potential for the companies in Beijing, we would like to give you some hints and tips on how to beat your competitors and stand out of the masses.

What makes an application outstanding? How to get the attention of a recruiter? And how to get the job you really want?

Put yourself in the position of a recruiter:

1. You receive many CV’s and applications and need to sort out the best of them.
   (Most recruiters look at a CV not longer than 2 minutes, this is a very short time to convince someone from your skills.)
2. Mostly you don’t have time to read all the application in details, you will just screen them shortly and only the interesting ones will get more attention.
3. With a lot of experience, you don’t need to read a lot to realize if a candidate suits for the position or not.

Keep these points in mind when you write your application. 

The First Impression is the Email, not the CV

The first thing a recruiter will see is your email in his mailbox. In order to avoid a bad first impression, you need to add a subject to your email! A good subject title is the title of the position you are applying for, this is especially essential if you send your resume to a recruitment company, where many different jobs are offered.

Second is your email address: absolutely avoid to have an inappropriate email address such as sexybunny94@..., you are applying for a serious job, this email will not even be opened by the recruiter.

The third thing is your message in the email. Don’t just send your attachments without any greetings or basic info. Find out the recruiters name or at least greet with: “Dear Sir/Madam”. Let them know that you are motivated to work for them, that you attached all the necessary documents and remain with your best regards. This is a very simple text but if you don’t write it, your application might be ignored.

This basic 3 steps will give a good first impression, but don’t forget to attach all required documents! Check the job description again before you send the email and make sure you added all necessary documents. If you happen to forget the attachments, try to recall your email and send it again. It won’t give a good impression if you send 2 emails within 5 minutes explaining that you forgot the attachments.

Make sure all attachments are in PDF instead of Word. There are many different Word versions and sometimes the file cannot be opened in a newer version.

Now that you mastered the email part we take a look at the CV.

Look at your CV as a sales advertisement to sell yourself to the company.

A CV is easy to recognize, which means you don’t need to title it as such, better write your name on top of the page to let the reader remember who you are (Not to confuse with the file name: File name should be CV and your name).

The CV is where the recruiter takes all the information he needs and where you need to leave an outstanding impression.

On top of the CV comes your name with your personal details like your address, phone number, email, and in China you can also add your Wechat ID (avoid it, if your ID doesn’t sound professional: again, no sexybunny94).

Important for recruiters is your experience in the relevant field. You should always adapt your CV to the job you are applying for. Don’t look at your CV as your biography where you always add the newest job experience, look at your CV as a sales advertisement to sell yourself to the company.

Every company, every job has different requirements, in order to sell yourself you need to adapt your CV to them.

1. Put the relevant experience on top, also put the work experience before your education.
2. Don’t just write the company name and the position you had. Show them what you achieved during the time working at this company and always keep it oriented to the requirements of the job you are applying for.
3. Simple words like leadership, team player or problem solver sound good but are useless since recruiters read that in every second CV. You need to add content to these words: how did you proof your leadership? Did you take care of a team of 50 people? If yes, then mention it. How did you solve problems? Write your achievements, tell the recruiter that you “managed to increase the social media followers from 1000 to 10'000 followers in only 1 year.” This is an info the recruiter wants to see and can use. Try to use numbers to impress the recruiter.
4. Make the CV as simple as possible, don’t write a book. Recruiters have to go through many CV’s and like to only read the essentials. Simple and straight to the point.
5. AVOID GRAMMAR AND SPELLING MISTAKES! A CV with typos shows that you don’t care about details and grammar mistakes show that you are not fluent. Typos in your CV are a clear deal breaker.
6. Essential in China: If you passed the HSK exam, mention the HSK level otherwise mention your skill level according to your own estimation.
7. Of course, you should also mention your other language skills and levels.
8. I am sure you had a great time at your primary school, but this doesn't have to be mentioned in your CV. Start your list of education from your university time (exceptions are if you went to high school in other countries).
9. Keep your CV under 3 pages, 2 pages are usually enough.

AVOID GRAMMAR AND SPELLING MISTAKES

Things which we found often in CV’s but are absolutely irrelevant

1. There is no need to mention your Windows Office Skills. Everybody knows how to write on Word or fill in an excel sheet.
2. Don’t mention single words like dynamic, motivated, self-learner without any content proving it.
3. Confidence and good communication skills are essential for most jobs, but you don’t need to mention them. A well written and logically built CV shows it already.
4. Unless your hobbies are really relevant to the job, you should not mention them.

Once you followed all these points you can ask a friend to spell check your CV again. Don’t underestimate this part. Many applications look amazing on the first sight but lose its glance once all typos show up.

Now the only thing missing is to find the right job to apply for. If you want to apply for jobs, most companies will ask for internship experience.

How to get work experience?

Find your internship in Beijing with InternsInBeijing.com, we are Beijing’s leading Platform for Young Professionals with over 10’000 members. See the companies offering internships in Beijing on our website and our Wechat account: InternsInBeijing 

If you are looking for a special internship, we can offer you our premium service. 

Also if you are a company looking for interns, you can send us your internship description to InternsInBeijing(at)gmail.com or fill in our online form.  

As a bonus

15 words hiring managers want to see: (don't use all of them, use it as an inspiration) 

1. Achieved

2. Improved

3. Trained/mentored

4. Managed

5. Created

6. Resolved

7. Volunteered

8. Influenced

9. Increased/decreased

10. Ideas

11. Negotiated

12. Launched

13. Revenue/profits

14. Under budget

15. Won

Good luck for your application