Internships are important for students, new grads, and other entry-level job seekers. Including internships in your resume can be a great way to demonstrate your potential and make a strong case for hiring you.
In general, past internships should be listed in the past tense while current ones can be written in the present tense. However, this is a personal choice. If you are worried about where to find resume examples, Google is the best place for you.
1. Highlight Your Skills
Having internship experience can be especially helpful for recent college graduates or those looking to change careers. In a job market where breaking into a field can be difficult, it’s important to highlight any relevant skills to attract employers.
Start by creating a list of all the skills you’ve honed during your internships. Narrow down the list to those that can be compared to skills required for the specific position you’re applying to and add them to your “Skills” section.
Also, consider adding any hard or soft skills that aren’t specifically related to your internships but that you feel will give you a competitive edge, such as customer service, multitasking, or a strong work ethic. Having impressive skill sets on your resume can catch the recruiter’s eye and make them want to schedule an interview with you.
2. Include Relevant Experience
As a rule, it’s best to only include internship experience that is relevant to the position you’re applying for. For example, if you are applying for a marketing role at a publishing company, it would probably be a good idea to leave your internship in the beauty industry.
When it comes to listing your internships, it’s also a good idea to keep the same formatting that you would use for the rest of your work experience. That means using bolding and italicizing for keywords to highlight important information.
3. Focus on Key Accomplishments
The goal here is to showcase your key accomplishments, not just your responsibilities. Hiring managers are more interested in seeing how you’ve impacted the company than a rundown of what your job duties were at one point or another.
Use metrics whenever possible to illustrate your impact, ideally mentioning them directly after the action verb. This demonstrates your focus on efficiency and can add extra punch to an otherwise dull section of your resume. For example, rather than just saying “Cut office recycling down” you could say something like “Reduced office waste by 10%.”
4. Don’t Overdo It
It’s easy to get caught up in listing every detail of your internships, but it’s important to remember that this section should only include experience that is relevant to the job you are applying for. For example, if you interned in marketing during college but are now applying for a job in engineering, it’s time to leave that internship off your resume.
Generally, the experience should be listed in the work experience section with a title for each position and then a brief description of your responsibilities and accomplishments. It’s a good idea to keep the descriptions short and bullet point-like and to use words that are like those used in the job description you are applying for.
