Engineering Internship Ads Informing the Teaching of Writing of Internship Application Letters (IALs)i

Abstract

The job application letter (JAL) or what many label the ‘resume cover/covering letter’ has received much attention in the professional communication literature. Nevertheless, most of these studies, albeit making general references to addressing job ad requirements, have focused on the organization of the document without allotting due consideration to the procedures of how to group and address the requirements listed in the job ad, the details given in the attached resume and how the advertising company’s activities impact the schematic organization of the letter, inform its contents and guide the sequencing of the various speech acts to be included in the JAL. Moreover, the focus in all these studies is on persons applying for full time jobs, and not on university students wanting to apply for internship positions, to meet an educational requirement without which they will not be able to graduate. In response, this study presents practical steps for the writing of engineering internship application letters (IALs). It illustrates the web of relations that exist among the internship ad requirements, the resume and the advertising companies’ activities and how they all, if accurately and carefully analyzed, contribute to writing a strong and compelling engineering IAL that may end up with the applicant being shortlisted, and later on being called for an interview. Normally, an internship ad lists several requirements that potential interns must exhibit. These, based upon an analysis of their contents, are thematically categorized into: academic education, practical experience and the personal attributes requirements. Thus, the IAL, in addition to comprising what the researcher terms the ‘default’ opening and closing paragraphs, as explained in this study, must contain three other paragraphs detailing the academic qualifications, practical experience(s) and personal attributes of the candidate, and how these bond with company requirements. The study concludes with pedagogical suggestions for the teaching of writing of IAL to engineering students, and how these same steps, with little tweaks, could be used in the future for writing an application letter for a full time job.