Steps 1 and 2: The Resume and The Places

So you've decided you want to work in the publishing industry—or at the very least you've decided you don't want to spend another summer mopping floors at Taco Bell—but you don't know how to get an internship.

Over the next three days, I'll be describing how I went from being an unemployed twenty-year-old bum to a card-carrying intern at Folio Literary Management.  (That's hyperbole.  They didn't give me a card.)  Without further ado, here's step one...

1) Make a resume. 

Outside of networking, your resume represents your best tool for getting an internship.  For most undergraduates, good resources for creating a resume include your college's career center and your parents.  For those readers who are too lazy to access either one of these, well, I'm here for you.

I recommend you keep your resume one page long.  Remember—you're applying to be an intern, not a CEO.  As to formatting and content, check out a portion of my resume:

Look at that formatting! Hired.

The name of the job should be on the left side of the page, where it is the first thing anyone sees.  Include both the position and company, as well as your dates of employment.  Bullet points are generally accepted as the best way to articulate your skills; when using them, make sure to indent and lower your font size.

Note my usage of actions verbs like "Blogged" and "Suggested."  Always avoid weak verbs like "Was" or "Had."  For instance, someone who volunteered at a children's center might write "Was responsible for entertaining up to ten children at a time."  Cut out the fluff by instead writing "Entertained up to ten children at a time."  This demonstrates the same skills in a much cleaner and more concise manner.

2) Figure out where you want to apply.

Because I'm friendless and alone, I applied for a whopping twenty publishing internships.  Publishing internships aren't as easy to find as, say, biology internships, but they are out there.  Columbia University offers a nice hub of internships, as does Bookjobs.  Pub Hub posted an article last year that highlighted a dozen publishing companies and literary agencies looking for interns.

Sites to avoid: internships.com.  Man, that place is awful.  Your cover letter has a character limit which makes it impossible to write more than six sentences, your resume looks clunky because they force you to use their style, and there's no way of knowing whether anyone received your application.  I sent out four applications via internships.com and didn't get a single response.

That said, they did offer to send me ping pong balls...

Everything is forgiven.

As mentioned earlier, your college's career center can be a valuable resource.  It is, after all, staffed by people whose sole job is to get you a job.  (Then again, mine recommended internships.com.)



Once you have a resume and you know where you want to apply, you're ready for step two.  I'll go over that tomorrow.

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