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Internship/Resume advice
Grundlterror
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So today at my school AFLAC is going to be doing a presentation for CSE students and is looking for SWE, CS or IT (I'm a CS junior, about to be a senior after the Summer Semester) students for immediate openings for internships, co-ops and full time positions. They are specifically (according to my Data Structures Professor) looking for summer internships and she believes that in general I am in a perfect position for an internship because I am just finishing Data Structures.
However, I am still worried about the opportunity. What should I do to make sure I have the best possible chance at an internship there? I've dressed up nice. Should I have a resume on hand? Any questions I should be prepared to answer? Any other advice?
Regarding the resume I'm actually pretty lucky because in my Technical Communication class we are having an optional workshop (non-graded) to improve our resumes. What kind of information should I put on my resume to impress AFLAC? My T-Com teacher suggests that we craft individual resumes aimed at each position we are applying for. And finally, does anyone have an example of a well done resume (either found on the net or your own) and wouldn't mind sharing it with me? My T-Com teacher specifically said that if we find a good resume we should steal it for our own.
TL;DR - I have an internship op at AFLAC through my school. Any advice? Can I have your resume?
However, I am still worried about the opportunity. What should I do to make sure I have the best possible chance at an internship there? I've dressed up nice. Should I have a resume on hand? Any questions I should be prepared to answer? Any other advice?
Regarding the resume I'm actually pretty lucky because in my Technical Communication class we are having an optional workshop (non-graded) to improve our resumes. What kind of information should I put on my resume to impress AFLAC? My T-Com teacher suggests that we craft individual resumes aimed at each position we are applying for. And finally, does anyone have an example of a well done resume (either found on the net or your own) and wouldn't mind sharing it with me? My T-Com teacher specifically said that if we find a good resume we should steal it for our own.
TL;DR - I have an internship op at AFLAC through my school. Any advice? Can I have your resume?
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Also, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Look around for other opportunities whether it be internships, part time jobs or contract positions. This should help you increase your chances of finding something to do this summer that you can use as good experience towards a job in the future.
When you make your resume, I'm not entirely sure I make good ones for myself else I would share, but make it no longer than 1 page. I'd suggest putting something like "references available upon request" to save some space near the end as well. Plus, they probably don't care about your references unless they want to interview you.
A tip that may or may not be helpful. Upkeep your resume. While I currently hold a job I enjoy and do not plan to look for other employment opportunities right now, I typically update my resume every 4-6 months. That way, it's much easier to craft my resume when needed since it isn't too old at any given time.
Good luck.
All these. Make sure you customize your resume to appeal to that place in particular. I put down my biology experience for a metallurgy job because it was experience, but that actually hurt me because it wasn't relevant to their business. Mention the most relevant coursework to the company in your "Skills" section. Your objective is particularly important to customize based on who you're applying with. Don't just go for a generic "I want an internship in CS." They want you get something specific out of you as much as you want to get something general out of them.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
123 made up address
somewhere, Georgia 3xxxx
(123)345-2345
myemail@myschool.edu
April 28, 2008
Dear Sir or Madam:
I am writing to apply for the AFLAC internship position recently announced to SPSU students.
I am a Computer Science student in the SPSU Computer Science program and am currently wrapping up my junior year here. I am very involved in my education here at SPSU, including many extra curricular activities involving Computer Science. Please see my attached resume for specific information.
I would appreciate an opportunity to discuss my qualifications with you. AFLAC is a word leader in insurance, and I am excited by the possibility of being a part of your team. Thank you for your consideration; I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely yours,
Grundlterror
If it's anything like my school, there should be a list of companies that will be there that they send out in announcements and the like. That's more important when you're preparing for an interview though, so you can give a reason you're interested in the company.
For your purposes, something along the lines of "Objective: To obtain an intern position where my programming/communications/technical/whatever skills can be applied and challenged" would work and should be placed under your contact information.
Instead of "Education: Computer Science" and sticking your expected graduation date at the bottom, something like "Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Expected date of graduation xxxx" is more descriptive.
Specify what you did as a help desk slave, listing duties and anything notable you did. Two lines would be good for that.
List your coursework and skills/languages in two columns to have less empty space, and then use the extra lines you have to describe some of the projects you've done and what classes you did them in. Admittedly, you may not have much to put here yet with your current coursework, but this is how you make up for a lack of work experience as a CS major. This should go below work experience for a good transition.
For formatting, I'd put contact info up top, object below that, skills/languages under that, coursework below that (it'll transition better and it's more of interest for a college internship), followed by job/project experience, then awards and affiliations at the bottom like you have now with a "references available upon request" blurb at the very bottom. That format worked for me in terms of landing an internship last year.
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I'd go against the suggestion for using objectives. They're pretty useless. Save it for a cover letter. If anything, your cover letter should get just as much work as your resume.
You should also have a resume in txt format, along with your doc/pdf.
edit:
Wait.... you're a junior but you've only just recently taken datastructs? That's like the second class you're suppose to take. What kinda datastructs are these?
This is something that depends on the company/organization. I've had recruiters flat out tell me to make sure I spend time on an objective section if I want to stand out from the rest of the bunch they get swamped with. Mind you that not every place uses a format for applications that lets you send a cover letter. My university has an online system set up with companies that generally just leaves room for a resume, coding sample, and writing sample.
"Data Structures" can mean very different things at different schools apparently. It's the fourth CS course at mine at earliest and regarded as one of the tougher courses in our curriculum in terms of sheer workload.
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That's pretty ridiculous if they're not teaching about a fundamental part of CS as early as possible. I've taken more advanced courses in data structures, but they're usually focused on algorithmic part. I certainly wouldn't be impressed to hear that someone's latest and best CS achievement was learning datastructs, even if in actuality the course was "hard".
No offense, but the objective is probably as important as your experience. It shows what YOU want from the company. As in "So, Grundlterror, why do you want to work for us?" I was denied as position because my objective was too broad and they wanted someone interested in a specific industry. When you're customizing individual resumes, go for depth in the objective.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Why isn't your GPA on the resume? The cover letter is generic, too. Replace "AFLAC" with "Papa John's" and "insurance" with "pizza" and you could keep the entire thing identical. Why are you special? What have you done to distinguish yourself from your peers?
No offense, but anyone who writes a traditional objective is just doing themselves a disservice. Sounds like it burned you, yet you're going back for more fire. Good luck with that.
Objectives lack depth in of themselves. They're just plain pointless. This what a traditional objective looks like: This is something that says nothing. They're outdated.
Nowadays people who think they're writing good "objectives" are really ending up with an executive summary. Seriously, just read up on executive summaries. There's dozens of articles on top job sites that agree with me.
edit:
Well, let me actually show you: It doesn't have to be called an executive summary, and doesn't need to be as long, but you get the idea. Say what you can do for the company, by summarizing your own knowledge, experience, and attitude. Don't be the dude that says "I want job."
Hobbies: Renaissance Faires, Writing Poetry, Working Out
Just made me think of that episode of The Office. I so want to hire this guy for listing funny shit like that on the resume. But, it is a team decision.
The point here is have something on your resume that stands out and draws attention for the interviewee to want to look more deeply at it. Sure not everyone will receive the above example as good, but hopefully you get the idea. My wife has listed in hers Zamboni driver as she did it one season working at an ice rink. That always grabs attention and gets her in the door for interviews. Who knew....people are freaking curious about zambonis even though it in no way applies to the job.
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Well beyond classes and certain extracurricular things I haven't had experience with those languages. The only evidence is that I listed the courses as completed. The job I had was a resource coordinator, basically a dispatch agent. Not very impressive, but other than that I have papa johns and other various pizza places. I did work with Microsoft Access for a very short period of time as an intern in High School, but that was over 5 years ago and was an extremely short period of time.
My GPA.... it's not that great. 5 years ago I just decided to stop going to school, and I'm still paying for it. However, my Major GPA is fine (and thats what Aflac said they were interested in). Should I be putting that on there? I suppose that would be much better than no GPA at all.
The cover letter was courtesy of my tcom teacher who said make them all exactly the same and just make the second paragraph why you would be perfect for the job. Unfortunately, like I said, I had very VERY little to go off on as far as what they were looking for... so I just tried to show that I am an ambitious student looking for challenges and work experience.
edit - Falsedef I like that executive summary because, yeah, I really don't have much to put on a resume except that I want to learn and get experience.
So instead of just saying "Experienced with C#" you could say something like "Experienced with C# from developing a such and such, with such and such features".
My school's data structures class spends a fair amount of time with the algorithmic part. The actual concept of abstract data types and common data structures gets covered in the "intro to CS" courses, they just don't throw things like Red Black trees at you and expect you to analyze them in those. I suspect that the OP's school's "Data Structures" class falls somewhere between the ones we went through.
This is a good example of why the OP wants to try to list off projects he's done and the classes they were done with btw. There's a wide range of depth that schools will go into in its version of a course even if it shares names with a class in another school. Having a project associated with an important class listed clarifies that it was an important class.
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They were covered in my first year course. I haven't seen them since. This was at a community college.
Well, actually, it was theoretical analysis, no actual empirical stuff (which is way more difficult). Datastructs still sounds rather unimpressive. There's gotta be something more to put on a resume.
During some semesters, the professors had the class modify the implementation to improve performance under some situations instead of just having us just analyze them in-depth. Even with that, I still don't think all that much of the class but all the professors in the department heavily disagree, including the ones that teach the really hard classes. I suspect there may be some disconnect between student and faculty perceptions of the subject matter.
Padding it out with descriptions of projects done is going to be critical, even more so when the applicant is roughly finishing what a sophomore that was dedicated CS did from first semester. There's simply not much one can put on the resume before reaching a point in the major where you can have 3 comp sci classes per semester but people at that level still do get taken for internships.
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Even a second year student should be able to fill out half a page with some personal projects.
Listing languages on a resume is a tricky thing. Everybody lies about it, and I assume that most hiring managers know this. Just because you once wrote Hello, World or implemented a stack in a language for a class doesn't mean you have any proficiency in the language. My resume has three categories of languages: extensive experience (that is, multiple years of professional development), occasional use, and passing exposure.
If your major GPA is good, list it.
But not ambitious enough to find out about the job and the company so you can write something insightful?