Tips for landing the perfect summer job with or without co-op

Tip #1: Make Applying to Jobs a Job of Its Own!

A common mistake that students make when applying to many positions at many different companies is sending a “one size fits all” job application for every role.

Take the time to tailor your resume and cover letter for each application. In your cover letter, don’t simply highlight that you are a team player and that you have excellent time management skills.

Talk about how those skills can directly impact their organization! A great way to do this is by looking at the responsibilities for the role and addressing how your skills will enable you to fulfill these responsibilities.

Another important tip is to use the same “lingo” that the application uses. This will benefit you in the screening process as HR softwares will search for matches between the job posting and the application you send in. In the example below, make sure you explicitly say that you are a “born leader”, “strategy guru”, “dot connector” and “storyteller”!

Who You Are and What You'll Do

As a marketing intern you will have the opportunity to create solutions to real business challenges for your assigned brand team. Through their projects and teams, interns are exposed to a wide array of brand marketing activities such as the development of new communication ideas, product development, market analysis, creation of sub-brands, consumer and competitor research, and advertising or creative executions.

• You're a born leader: You individually take on projects and run with them.
• You're a strategy guru: You create data-driven strategies and make plans to execute.
• You're a dot connector: You can learn to navigate a big organization.
• You're a storyteller: You craft compelling stories to obtain senior stakeholder buy-in.

Tip #2: LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn

For those of you who are not enrolled in the co-op program, this tip will come in handy. Landing a summer internship position at a prestigious company without Navigator or a personal connection is difficult due to the sheer number of students going for the same position. This is where LinkedIn comes in:

• If you search for “Company + Intern,” LinkedIn will generate a list of current and past interns of the company you are applying to.
• Send them a message saying that you are interested in working for the company and would love to know how they got started with the organization. Many of them will offer you valuable tips or even email addresses for their managers!

(Hint: Try to connect with people from schools that don’t have co-op such as Ryerson, Western, and McMaster, since these are the people who did not get the positions through a rank-match system and can offer you valuable job search tips!). This method is definitely more effective than messaging recruiters since their LinkedIn inboxes are filled with students searching for employment.

You are now connected with a recruiter or manager. What’s next? Send them an email expressing your interest for the organization and that you are interested in learning more about applying. For specific networking tips, check out The Dos and Don'ts of Networking.

Tip #3: Be a Star Candidate

Following Tip #2, you can also look at the profiles of these interns and study their skills and experience – clearly they did something right to get hired!

From here, do anything and everything you can to differentiate yourself and show that you are an asset for the organization. This can be anything from updating the design of your resume, a side project for technical jobs, or learning a new software relevant to your industry.

The PRISM Advantage

We understand that the job market is tough and that you are one person amongst a large pool of applicants. Our courses cover softwares like Microsoft Excel, Bloomberg, and Nielsen so that you can get a head start at tackling the learning curves of your industry, and stand out amongst others! Check out the list of courses that we offer.