What the letter is for
Your CV lists what you have done. The cover letter says why that makes sense for this role at this company. For an internship this matters more than it does later on: your CV is short, so the letter is where you show that you read the posting and thought about it.
Nobody reading an internship application expects years of experience. They are looking for three things: that you want this role and not just any role, that you can do the first few weeks of it, and that you will turn up when you say you will.
Before you write a word
- Pick two requirements you can back up. Read the posting and underline what it asks for. Choose the two where you have something real to show, even if it comes from a course or a side project. Two with proof beat six with none.
- Find one specific thing about the company. A product you have used, a project on their blog, the team the internship sits in. One sentence about it shows more interest than a paragraph of praise.
- Check the practical details. Dates, hours, location, whether it is paid, and which language the posting is written in. Write the letter in that language unless the posting says otherwise.
- Look for a name. If the posting or the company’s site names the recruiter or the team lead, address the letter to them.
A structure that fits on one page
Europass, the EU’s CV and cover letter service, recommends a letter of no more than one page in three short paragraphs: why you are applying, why you suit the role, and why the company suits you. For an internship, this order works well:
- Opening. Name the internship and say in one or two sentences why this company, using the specific thing you found. Skip “I am writing to apply for”; the reader already knows.
- Proof. Take your two requirements and give one example for each: what you did, how, and what came of it. Name the course, the project or the job, so the reader can find it on your CV.
- Close. Say when you are available (start date, hours a week, how long), where you can work from, and that you would like to talk. Thank them in one line.
Keep the tone polite and plain, and use a normal, readable font. If the application form has a text box rather than an upload, the same three parts work there too.
What to write when your CV is short
Experience does not have to be a job. Each of these can carry a paragraph if you say what you did and what came of it:
- A course project. Say what you built or analysed, the tools you used and your part in the group.
- A side project. Something you made because you wanted to, with a link if it is public.
- A part-time or summer job. Serving customers, handling cash or working shifts shows reliability, which an internship needs as much as skill.
- A student society or volunteering role. Organising an event, running a budget or recruiting members are real work.
Be exact rather than impressive. “Wrote the data cleaning scripts for a four-person course project” is more believable than “passionate about data”, and it gives the interviewer something to ask about.
A worked example
A made-up student, Ana, applies for a data internship at a made-up logistics company, Northwind. The letter is short on purpose:
Dear Ms Ionescu,
Northwind’s post on cutting empty truck kilometres is why I am applying for the data analysis internship. I am in my second year of computer science and I would like to spend the summer on a problem with real routes and real costs behind it.
The posting asks for SQL and for someone who can explain numbers to people who do not work with them. This spring I wrote the queries for a course project that matched delivery records against warehouse stock for a local shop, and found the products it ran out of most often. I presented the result to the shop’s owner, who changed two of her weekly orders because of it.
I can start on 1 July and work full time until mid-September, in the Cluj office or remotely. I would be glad to talk about the role, and thank you for reading.
Ana Pop
It names the post that caught her eye, proves the two things the posting asks for with one project, and answers the practical questions before they are asked.
Mistakes that get a letter skipped
- The wrong company name. A sure sign of a copied letter. Read the names out loud before you send.
- Repeating the CV line by line. Pick two things and explain them; the CV does the listing.
- Talking only about what you will gain. Say what you want to learn, but spend more words on what you can already do for them.
- Praise that fits any company. “An industry leader with a great culture” says nothing. One specific detail says a lot.
- More than a page. If it runs over, cut the opening and the adjectives first.
Drafting with Barista
Barista, Guap’s Chrome extension, can draft a cover letter against the posting you have open, from the profile on your Guap account. Treat the draft as a starting point: check every claim in it is true, add the one specific detail only you know, and cut what does not sound like you. Drafts are paid per use from credit you buy once; the pricing page lists the price.
Whatever you use to write it, do not send a sentence you could not explain in an interview.
