This article is written by Mohona Thakur of team iPleaders.

Today morning my boss asked me to take over my colleagues work till the colleague recovers from his illness and returns to office. Had this been my previous office, it would have meant just another day at court, appearing and possibly arguing before a judge. Here, at iPleaders, it meant writing; writing a well researched article, and that’s something I haven’t done since I graduated from law school.

I consider writing as a gift. Unfortunately, I can only write when I can personally connect to an issue, or if it’s a research proposition for a moot or a real case. Then I can draft. So, I conveniently decided to procrastinate instead and put my effort towards completing my daily target list. I began with the easiest – ‘Review Internship Applications’.

On Saturday, iPleaders sent out a ‘Call for Interns’ on Lawctopus. Since then, we have had a large number of applications pouring in. During the course of the past two days, I’ve been reviewing these applications to find a suitable intern. It’s not been a pleasant experience. Out of about 50 applications that we have received so far, there is just one that makes the cut. This made me think. Is it really that difficult to apply for internships? Is drafting a cover letter really that difficult?

Barring the applications that just had “PFA CV for Internship” written in the body, there were internship applications that addressed us as an ‘esteemed law firm’ or thought we work on Intellectual Property Rights. Majority of the applications were for a different period than what was specified on the post. However, what bothered me the most were the applications that needed serious spell-checks.

Let me give you some perspective: the post published was on behalf of an online legal education platform (this was mentioned in the post), for the period of February-March and for the content-marketing team which means, we require you to be able to communicate.

Imagine if you were at the receiving end of an application that read this way:

“Dear Sir/Ma’am,

I XYZ from ABC Law School wishes to apply for a internship at you’re esteemed law firm for the period of May-June 2018. Please see CV attached.”

OR

“Greetings Sir,

I, XYZ from ABC Law School is writing to apply for an internship under your firm for the month of july 2018. I was acquainted with your organization through web sources. Already mentioned in my CV, I have already intern at three district courts.”

Now, do we recognise a problem here?

I vividly remember how during my initial few attempts at writing a ‘full-proof’ cover letter, I’d send it to my mother for a review. She consistently told me that I couldn’t market myself. Apparently, I was too modest! Her inputs added more value to the letter; it was only an add on that she was an HR manager!

While I was reviewing these applications today, looking at the poor quality, I realised: “But what about the majority of law students who don’t have an HR for a mother?” So I decided to write a post trying to impart everything my mom taught me about applications from an HR’s perspective!

Here is what you can do to ace that internship

Research: Shows Potential & Effort

Know where you are applying to! It is absolutely necessary that you research about the place that you are applying to, whether it is a law firm, a company, an NGO or a blog. You cannot call a company an esteemed law firm. It is unacceptable; shows how uninterested you are in the internship.

Today, thanks to Google and LinkedIn, information about everyone is available on the internet. Go a step further, figure out who is it you are applying to? A letter addressed as ‘Dear Sir’ when it is ideally supposed to be a ‘Dear Ma’am’ won’t help you bridge the gap between an application and an internship!

Be Specific About The Duration Of The Internship: Shows Attention To Detail

If you are applying to an organisation that has specifically asked for interns for the period of May-June, then apply for that period only. If you are occupied, don’t apply.

Do not treat this as a lottery ticket where you think your luck might rule in your favour. Please understand that the requirement of the organisation is for that specific period, if they required interns for September, they would advertise for September.

Customize Your Applications: Shows Effort & That You Are Smart

Let’s say you are applying to a corporate law firm for an internship. Will writing two paragraphs highlighting various internship experiences with TUV and PQR litigation firms help? Think about what the firm is looking for in an intern. Does a corporate law firm require its intern to have attended courts? Which team are you applying to? Does it add any value to your application?

If you are writing specifically to the Telecom, Media and Technology team of a reputed law firm, would highlighting your litigation experience matter? Maybe, if you’ve appeared or assisted in such cases. Will your diploma in media and entertainment law help? Definitely. Domain knowledge is an add on.

Identify what it is that you have that makes you sell, gives you an edge over others for that particular internship!

Proof-Read Your Applications: Spelling Mistakes Are An Immediate Put-Off

Would you like to read an application that says: ‘I would like to apply for this internship for a period of 4 weaks beginning from 1st May, 2018.’ I’m sure the answer to that is a no.

Proof-reading is inherent to law students, whether it’s for research papers, examinations, moot court memos or a cover-letter. You lose marks for spelling mistakes, bad grammar and formatting. Your first impression is the last impression. The ones reading your application may have never met you, this is your chance to make it or break it.

Presentation & Communication: Write Simple Applications, Fancy Language Doesn’t Get You Brownie Points

Simple applications are the most effective applications. This is something I learnt while I was applying to companies for internships. The simple, straight-forward applications got me through to Unilever, Hindustan Times, L&T and Godfrey Phillips India (now that I’ve mentioned this, please avoid asking me for their contact details).

What did I do right? I wrote short and crisp cover letters keeping in mind that the HR Department of these companies would be swamped with such applications. I took care of the finer details – the font and the font size were constant, there were one line gaps between paragraphs. Anything that looks good is attractive, isn’t it?

Why do you need to look at your applications from the HR Manager’s point of view?

Do you remember giving the board exams? I certainly do. I scored a 77% in my tenth board exams. Did I not study enough? Was I dumb? Two years down the line, I scored a 95% in my twelfth boards. How did I manage an eighteen percent jump? I figured that I had to make it easy for the examiner to check my paper. I had to give them the answers that they were looking for instead of writing the answers I thought were right. Now apply the same logic to internship applications!

I come from a background of no lawyers, not even in my distant relations. I had chosen law because I wanted to be different – different from the engineers, doctors and teachers. I started interning from the very first semester of law school and, without default, interned during every semester break.

Having no connections in this industry might have not worked in my favour. However, I’m sure if I had a mentor who guided me on how to go about the application procedure and consequently what to do and not do (HR mom can only help you so far) in order to convert my internship into a job, I would have considered myself lucky! iPleaders now has a course to address this very problem.

Ace Your Internship is not only going to guide you through the process of CV building, drafting an effective cover letter, arrange mock interviews, but also help you perform extraordinarily well at your internships!

How do we do this? We begin with the basics. We help you build a strong LinkedIn profile, apart from your resume. Recruiters google you, it’s true! We also allott tasks and assignments just like you are allotted while interning at firms or companies and continuously review them. What’s better? We have a mentor for each student. The mentor will guide you through the process. If you’re interested, you can access the course module here.

Here’s hoping to review better applications and your chance to rise up to the opportunity and grab it with both hands while it lasts!