Structuring CV for Internship Roles


Internships play an important role in one’s career and in determining its trajectory. Therefore landing a great internship for your summer break forms an essential part of your career and you need to be well prepared for it. CV shortlisting comes as the first round in all procedures. A good CV takes you miles on your journey. Now the question arises, How do you make a great CV when you are not even a graduate and just a fresher?


Starting with the basics, don’t go for fancy templates for your CV. They might look appealing to you but aren’t well received by the recruiters of top firms. You can easily put into handy the skills that you have acquired in MS-Word and make your CV.  Going for a tabular format makes it look structured and well organized. Moreover, the reviewer can locate the points that concern him the most quite easily. 


Personal Information


Starting with the top, mention your name followed by some personal information such as phone number, address, and email address.

 

Educational Background


Next move on to the educational qualification. Since you are still in college, recruiters expect some information on the same to get an overview of your academic excellence. Provide a structured table consisting of your 10th standard, 12th standard marks, year of passing, marks attained. Moreover, aligning with your priorities in life, it seems to reflect how well you manage your studies as a student along with the other commitments.


 If academics is your forte, don’t shy away from sharing your school ranks, scholarships, or merit certificates that you have received. Since not all scholarships are known to everyone, provide some relevant information regarding the selection rate or criterion that makes it valuable. You can share your achievements in various olympiads here as well that you must have taken part in the school level. You might even want to share information on achievement in some other entrance tests for other elite colleges as well. 


Research Projects


If you have taken over some research projects under a professor or with the help of your friends, you can state that as well under the header Research Projects. These help to showcase that you are eager to make a change and make use of the theoretical concepts over real-time data. 


Work Experience


Work experience comes next in the list and holds importance as this showcases what all work you have done by far. Mention the firm's name as well as a brief description of what they do. Make sure to not exceed three-pointers that should contain your objectives or responsibilities, the activities you engaged in, and the impact that you had in the organization through the work done. Make sure to quantify the data as quantitative data points are appreciated by recruiters.  Make sure not to exceed 3-4 Internship work experiences in all.


Since it may be the first internship you are applying for, no one expects you to have the section titled work experience. Instead, you can showcase what you are passionate about in the sense of which area it is that you have grown yourself in. To do so you can talk about extra-curricular such as music, art, dance, or writing. However, you should state pointers such as what all competitions did you win, or how you have further evolved in the domain you excel in. Mention how you have continued to evolve your skill and got better by consistently working on it or spreading its reach over to a larger section of the society.


Positions of Responsibility


Most firms look forward to candidates with leadership skills and you need to prove why you are the best suited to be the future leader. You can showcase that by mentioning points where you managed a team and the objective. Make sure to mention the team size as well along with the impact the movement created. Positions of Responsibility in the various societies of college are a good way to highlight your leadership skills with the impact that you created. Remember what determines your strength as a leader isn't your position but by the impact, you generated by being at that position. 


Extra-Curricular Activities


All other information such as the various competitions won or other skills that you possess can be showcased in the Extra-Curricular activities. Remember it is an equally important section as it shows how you engage in other activities and competitions while competing against the bright minds across. Make sure to mention your achievement along with the number of participants in the competition.


Always remember to highlight any keyword or achievements that you find appealing and something that proves your worth as the best candidate out there. Be concise and to the point. Avoid writing paragraphs or stories. Most importantly, keep your CV limited to one page. You might have amazing content for the next page as well, but you need to decide which content you want to show the recruiter. Recruiters go through 100s of CVs and hence won’t even look at the second page and it would only work in the negative for you. Having a lot of information is great, but what matters is what is retained by the viewer because at the end of the day, so focus on the quality rather than the length.


Confused about whether to do an internship in a Startup or an MNC? Read this article on Internships in Startups Vs. Multinational Companies to know more.


Read this article to know How to Draft a Perfect CV for Fresher Jobs.


Written By - Bhanu Jain

Edited By - Kashish Chadha