How to Successfully Secure an Internship at HelloLeads and Other Successful Start-ups

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” – Steve Jobs

If you have applied to many companies or business organisations for an internship and did not get a positive reply, you are not alone. 

Many in the third or final year of their college or those already graduated recently, want to do an internship with an objective of learning and adding an internship as an experience to their CV. But when they apply one after another, there is no reply.

“Why is that I do not get positive responses from organisations? I have already applied to hundred and twenty companies?” – we hear you.

The reason for no response or negative response from organisations is this: while you want an internship to gain experience and knowledge, the organisations want to solve problems. The answer to above question lies in the different goals of interns and organizations.

When companies hire interns, they want to solve problems which were not solved by employees – due to bandwidth or capacity issues. Or such problems are not in the scope of work that employees are already performing.  On many occasions, interns do solve real business problems as they bring fresh perspective to the unsolved problems.

So, at HelloLeads CRM, when we hire interns, we look for experts and problem solvers! Not just freshers looking for an experience. Of course, learning and experience will be an outcome of solving problems but you cannot put the cart before the horse.

So, when you are applying for an internship, study the organisation you are applying to and the industry they are part of. Try and identify few top levels key issues that they face and those appeal to you.  For example if you are applying to HelloLeads CRM, we are part of SaaS or cloud product industry and few key issues we, as an industry, face include product market fit, improving user engagement, removing friction in payments and improving ARR/MRR.

In case the industry or the company, you are applying to, is not very familiar to you, you can be open and you can say “tell me top three business problems and I will try and solve one of them, during internship, using the knowledge I have gained during my college courses”. People will listen to you.

Your cover letter or the email should narrate a story rather saying please find attached my CV. Your covering letter should talk about the key issues businesses face rather than a bulleted list of qualifications and projects done.

Even if you are not proposing any possible solutions or how you will solve some key problems, businesses will hire you as an intern because of your understanding of problems. Interns are hired by businesses not because they are from IITs or MITs, but because companies think they understand the problems of the business. We at HelloLeads hire even high school students as interns as longs as he  or she is able to know, appreciate and articulate what is our problem (solving is secondary!).

When you make your CV or covering letter say you are an ‘expert’ in solving certain problems and go on to elaborate more on that. Do not undersell yourself.

To reiterate, the covering letter or the email should talk more about business problems. It can talk about how you will solve them, but as long as you express the problem clearly it is actually enough. Begin the covering letter with a bang – a high level problem statement which is common for all businesses in that industry – and why they appeal to you or related to you.

Other easy-to-do things! –  Save the CV or covering letter with a file name that includes one word about you (your skill or college name) and the company name you are applying to. This shows that you have taken time to make one specially for them. For example, file name can be ‘John – Design intern – HelloLeads’.  Inside the covering letter or email, it is better to say Dear HelloLeads Hiring Team rather than Dear Hiring team or Dear Sir / madam. Again, this specificity, shows you care about the company you are applying internship to.

Make sure the font color, font size is readable, bright enough and appealing. Make sure line spacing and paragraph spacing are great so that receiver finds it enjoyable to read.  Also make sure you ride on brands you have associated with. If you have done your under graduation from a famous college, do mention it strongly and visibly. Include their logo. If you have done a certification from a well-known organisation, make it very visible.

Overall, the covering letter or your introductory email should give the receiver a feeling that if they do not give you an internship, they are missing a big opportunity to solve their problems!

Write your CV, covering letter or email with a feeling that you soon will be hired and soon you will be the CEO driving the company to greater heights by solving key problems.

Wishing you success with your internships and becoming a CEO.