Writing a Cover Letter for an Internship

Nathan Jesik

Carleton University

A cover letter is your way to speak to a potential employer and let them know who you are, your education and work experience and why you want the job in a way that cannot be expressed by your resume alone. A cover letter is composed of 5 sections of varying lengths:

• Introduction

• Education

• Work Experience

• Why you want the job?

• Conclusion/Follow up

In this blog post, we will go over each element in detail and how to format it to 

SAR Statements: 

For any cover letter, it should be tailored to meet all the requirements and skills that are needed for the position and should be met with examples that demonstrate your abilities. For both the “Education” and “Work Experience” section of the cover letter you will need to use SAR statements to demonstrate your skills and abilities. SARs (Situation, Action and Result) are used to demonstrate your abilities in a scenario and what the end result was. In some scenarios, you may start with the action or the result rather than the situation in the SAR statement to better illustrate your skills

 An example can be seen below if you were to discuss what you did for a school project:

I have been assigned to design a house that is located on a site with differentiating topography across the area and must be oriented towards the south to maximize solar gains. To fulfill these objectives, I had analyzed the site conditions to provide a clear understanding of the limitations and advantages to the site resulting in a house that respects the site and the desired orientation.

In this scenario, the situation would be the location given and the orientation that the building had to be in. For the action portion of the SARs statement, the writer had analyzed the site conditions and the result was that they have a clear understanding of the limitations and advantages to the site resulting in a house that respects the site and the desired orientation.

Here is an example at work:

I had reorganized the store merchandise to improve the navigation within the store resulting in a 10% increase in sales and greater shopping efficiency when comparing how messy and disorganized the merchandise was displayed.

For this example, the action was reorganized the store merchandise, the result was situation was a 10% increase in sales and greater shopping efficiency and the situation was that the merchandise was that the merchandise was not displayed properly. 

Additional resources for creating SAR statements and verbs to used can be found in the link below:

https://carleton.ca/career/wp-content/uploads/ActionVerbs2.pdf

Formatting:

A cover letter should be 1 page in length and have a font size between 11 to 12 in a professional style such as “Times New Roman” or “Arial” (so long as it is legible). In your header, you will place your name, home address, phone number and your main email (use your school email address if you are applying for a job through your school’s co-op). This would give the person who is reviewing your application your contact information that they can use to reach you if they would like to set up an interview with you, and is formatted as shown below:

FIRST AND LAST NAME

Street Address, City, Province/State, Postal Code 

Phone Number, Email Address

Before diving into your introduction, make sure to write the date in which the application is due followed by the name of the company, their address, and the title of the position and the Job ID (this piece of information is available within the job posting). This should be formatted as so:

Company Name

Street Name and number, Suite number, City

Province/State, Postal Code

RE: Title of Position (Job ID: ########)

Writing your Cover Letter

To begin your introduction, address the name of the hiring manager that has sent out the position. If no name has been provided in the job description, writing “hiring manager” would be sufficient.

Introduction: This section is where you tell them who you are, the position that you re interested in and the school that you are studying at and year of study. Make sure to tell them how and where you found this job posting as employers want to know (whether it is from a job board at school, LinkedIn, or their corporate website). In one sentence, mention the key skills that you possess that would make you an ideal candidate. 

Education: Mention where you studied, the type of courses that you had taken and what have you learned from the courses. What software you have used or have experience using and what skills have you acquired. Link these new skills you have acquired to the requirements that are in the job posting 

Work Experience: While some may not have worked within the AEC industry (architecture, engineering, and construction) the skills and experiences from other job positions could be linked to the abilities that are expected. Talk about the most relevant positions that you have worked at, what tasks you’ve completed and what skills you possess that are beneficial for the team’s objectives based on the job description.

Why you want to work for them: Get specific as to what it is about this firm that made you apply for this position (could be the type of work they do [Residential, Commercial, Urban Design, etc.] their studio culture, or design philosophy. Mention any projects of their that stood out to you and talk a bit about what about the project in relation to the firm’s design’s philosophy you like about it. Reaffirm your interest in the firm by stating what work, from the job description, that you would like to do for them. 

Conclusion/Next Steps: After explaining why you want the job, reaffirm your interest in the position and the possibility of working with them mention that you are happy to be interviewed at their convenience. You should include your phone number and email and thank the manager for their consideration for the position.

Other Tips

• Before writing your Cover Letter, research the company to get a better understanding of who you are applying to and to better understand what it is about the firm that makes you want to apply to the company.

• Keep in mind that the objective of the cover letter is not about how you will benefit from this position, be sure to make sure that you discuss what work from the job description you would be happy to perform.