Skip the Internship Fair, Here’s the Best Way to Land an Internship

by Nathan Enos

At the on-campus internship fairs, I felt like just another drop in the bucket. Recruiters hear pitch after pitch for hours on end, and your resume gets lost amongst fifty others in resume bins. I knew there had to be a better way of approaching something as important as my search for a summer internship. Similar to how investors seek insight about stocks before information is leaked to the general public, I wanted to reach people in these companies before the general student body did at these chaotic internship fairs.

Using only LinkedIn and my school’s alumni network, I was able to land a summer internship in a city nearly 2,000 miles from my home in which I know nobody at all.

Arguably the most underutilized resource amongst students at most colleges is its alumni network. Depending on the size of the school, this could be thousands of people, all with varying stories, accomplishments, and advice. It is easy to forget that your future is somebody else’s past, and that thousands of people have gone through the same exact life processes that you are going through right now.

This method works beyond a school’s alumni network. You could really reach out to anyone at all using this method, but I chose to reach out to alumni because we have a common ground. The fact that we both spent four years of our lives at the same place gives me a plethora of talking points before even learning anything about the alumnus I’m reaching out to. Attending and graduating college is a milestone that should fill anyone with pride. Because of this, most alumni will be happy to talk to someone who is in the same spot they were in just a short while ago. Here’s my step-by-step method I used to acquire an internship by reaching out to alumni from my school:

Step 1 - LinkedIn has a tool where you search alumni by city and by profession. You do not need to be a premium member, this is completely free. This tool can be found on the desktop version (not found on mobile version) of LinkedIn through the “see alumni” button on the LinkedIn profile page for your school. Click “see alumni,” then filter it to whatever profession and city you’d like. I knew I wanted to try out sales and Los Angeles, so I used the filter tools to show me salespeople in Los Angeles that graduated from my college.

Step 2 - You should get plenty of results, so explore those and start reaching out to people one by one. Once you see someone in a position or company that is of interest to you, invite them to connect, and include a personalized message to do so. Here is the message template I used:

"Hi ____! My name is ____ - I am a third year marketing student at Ohio State's Fisher College of Business. If I could have just thirty minutes of your time, I would love to talk with you about your experience with sales and with living in California. Let's make a phone call happen!"

Use proper grammar, give a brief introduction, be enthusiastic, and express interest in a phone call.

Step 3 - After they accept the invitation, send them this:

"Hi _____ - thanks for accepting my invitation. If you could spare just twenty minutes of your time, I would love to set up a time to call you this week and ask you some questions regarding your experience with sales at [their company], since this is a field I am highly interested in pursuing after graduating from [your school]. Please let me know what days and times work for you. I look forward to hearing from you!"

Assume they will say "yes," don't ask, "can I call you?" It's harder for someone to reject you this way.

Step 4 - Repeat this process at least five times a day. This is a numbers game, and not everyone will accept your invitation or reply to you. I probably had two out of five people respond to me on average. The more invites you send out, the more responses you will receive.

Step 5 - For each of your scheduled phone calls, be ready 5 minutes before the scheduled call time with a pad of paper, a pen, and at least five questions to ask your contact. After giving a brief introduction about yourself, say, “I’ve prepared some questions to ask to you today,” then lead directly into your first question.

Here are some questions I used:

• Tell me about your current role in _____

• What do you like best about your role/company?

• How is Los Angeles compared to Columbus, what do you like about it?

• What’s your best piece of advice for someone like myself looking to go into _____?

• Final Question: Are you aware of any internship opportunities at [their company]?

If your contact answers "yes" to your final question, say: "Wonderful! Would you mind forwarding my resume to your recruiter? What is a good email to reach you at?"

If your contact answers "no" to your final question, say: "Not a problem at all. Would you mind if I emailed you my resume to forward to your recruiter anyway? Just in case an opportunity were to open up. What is a good email to reach you at?"

End with: “Great, thank you so much for your time today _______, I really appreciate it.”

Ideally, the contact will set you up with the recruiter and will put in a good word for you. If your contact isn't sure of internship opportunities, ask them if you can email them your resume and if they can send it out to the recruiter regardless. Not every conversation will end in an internship - it took me several dozen phone calls before landing my internship. However, every phone call does end with a newly formed relationship. This new contact could be a possible mentor to you or may reach out to you with opportunities down the road.

For the best jobs, you enter through the side door, not the front door. Get a contact at a company, build a relationship with that contact, then see if that contact can utilize his or her network to put in a good word for you and assist you with your mission of landing that internship. Reaching out to accomplished strangers may make you uncomfortable, but that's a good thing. Embrace discomfort - personal and professional growth occurs in areas of discomfort, and you eliminate discomfort by gaining experience. Your first phone call may not go according to plan, but don't get discouraged. You'll gain more confidence on the phone with each and and every call. The worst case scenario with using this method is a stronger network and maybe a couple of "no"s - you have nothing to lose. Follow this guide, be persistent, don’t give up, and you’re guaranteed to land the internship of your dreams.