Open letter to marketing intern candidates

by | Aug 15, 2014 | Content

Dear Marketing Intern Job Searchers,

I’ve been reading your resumes (lots of them!) and speaking with many of you over the past few weeks. I’m excited to get to work with you and I’m looking forward to helping you launch and grow your career. LexBlog is a phenomenally great place for that. This hiring process has highlighted for me some nuggets of info I think  you, as a group, need to hear.

Applying

It wastes everyone’s time when you apply for a job for which you have absolutely no background. If you majored in chemical engineering and were president of the science club, that does not say “loves marketing” to me. Either take the time to tailor your resume to include your experience that might be applicable or don’t apply for jobs you wouldn’t want anyway. I call that a win for both of us.

Social Media

Since my intern position contains a heavy focus on social media and my company is really into it, I can’t emphasize the importance of social media enough. LinkedIn is just as important as your resume, maybe more so. Your job history, however brief, should be filled out. Your summary at the top should introduce you and let me know a bit about who you are and what drives you professionally. Make it first person, make it personable and make it interesting. Also make sure it matches your resume. I’ve noticed a few uh, shall we say “inflated” titles on resumes that don’t match public LinkedIn titles.

If you’re using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Google+ (and I really hope you are!), I’m going to look at it. So if you want to continue posting your awesome party pics on Facebook, you better make that page private. I know it sucks that you can’t just be you, but put yourself in my shoes when looking at your social media persona, would you hire you?

Using social media is also a great way to demonstrate your expertise and interest in your field. Use your platforms to share  and discuss marketing, blogging, social media or whatever interests you. If you profess an expertise in social media, use your own platforms to demonstrate it. For example, customize your url to your name on LinkedIn; curate some great Twitter lists; create interesting Pinterest boards and write your own blog posts in Google+, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Interviewing

  1. Do your homework – Know what my company does and what it’s trying to do. Know who I am–it’s easy, just peruse my LinkedIn profile. Know who the leaders of my company are. We are a blogging company so, guess what, we all have blogs. What a great way to get to know us!
  2. “OMG” is not appropriate interview language. Enough said.
  3. Be on time. Be early in fact. And if something happens that prevents you from getting here on time (stuff happens, it’s not the end of the world), call well before you are late, not after.

An internship can be a great way to launch your career and I’m excited to help you do that. Your enthusiasm for marketing, social media and your career path should shine through everything you do. You don’t need to have all the answers yet–you’re still learning, so thats expected, what you do need is to be thoughtful and show how you would find an answer you don’t know. I can’t wait to see what you can do!

Image courtesy of: thedailyenglishshow