We recently finished our round of intern hiring. In this process we reviewed 875 applications. We were grateful for the attention that our job posting received, and, unfortunately, we were forced to reject many excellent candidates since we could only hire 0.4% of them. Many of those who were rejected asked us for tips for how to improve their application next time. While we don’t have the bandwidth to answer to every one of them individually, here we distill some tips for UX-internship candidates. Some of these are particular to our company and our internal hiring process, but many are applicable everywhere.
Tip 1: Apply Early
Applicants had one month from the time when we posted our internship announcement until the final deadline. Most people applied towards the end of this period. Unfortunately, we could not afford to wait for everybody to apply in order to start reviewing applications. So those people who promptly sent us their applications during the first two weeks after the announcement was posted inherently got a little bit more of our time and of our attention.
Tip 2: Read the Job Posting
Even though our internship announcement mentioned that we were open only to people with student status during the internship, many applicants who were no longer students still applied. Their applications were not considered. It would have been a better use of their time (and ours) to apply elsewhere.
Our posting also had very specific questions about when the student would be available to start working, whether they could work during the school year, and the location where they would work from. Yet many applicants did not include that information in their cover letter.
Tip 3: Make It Easy for Your Hiring Manager
You are applying for a UX position. You have to make your application usable. Many of our applicants wanted their hiring manager to do the legwork in order to learn about them.
You must include all of the following:
- The university where you are studying (not just the name of the school inside the university or, even worse, an acronym for that school). You may be very familiar with, say, The Samueli School of Engineering, but we might not know that it is part of University of California at Los Angeles.
- The location of said university, including the country. We may have no idea that the MIT Art Design and Technology University is in India or that Sheridan College is in Canada. Ideally, include a link to the website or your program.
- The type of program you are enrolled in. Is it in person or online? What kind of degree are you working toward — a M.S., a Ph.D., a certificate, or something else?
- The date of graduation. We want to know that you will be a student while you are interning for us, so the date of graduation is important. Your hiring manager should not have to email you back or search online for the length of that program.
Also, if you are asked for a resume and a cover letter, include those in your application as attachments. Do not create a ZIP file that needs to be decompressed, and do not send your hiring managers to a password-protected website to access those documents. Even if you provide them with your password, any barrier to your information decreases your chances. (Confidential information, such a portfolio from a previous internship with a different company, can be password-protected, but all basic information must be in the actual application without passwords.)
Export your documents in a standard format like PDF or Microsoft Word. Nonstandard file formats may be difficult to open or require your hiring managers to download an application they do not have.
Doublecheck your linked materials. Although many of our applicants were great at providing links that directed us to the correct place, some of them were mistyped, directed to the wrong (or an invalid) page, or were simply not clickable in their resume and email. Make sure that your links work. Clickable URLs save us extra steps when we need to navigate to your LinkedIn profile or portfolio.
Speaking of LinkedIn profiles: We do strongly recommend that all students establish a LinkedIn profile. This is the professional thing to do and will expose you to additional companies besides the ones you apply to directly. Some hiring managers prefer reviewing LinkedIn profiles because of their consistent format, which makes them easier to scan than individual resumes. Do maintain your LinkedIn profile by updating it with information about new internships, revised GPA data, and new projects you’ve done. An outdated LinkedIn profile says that you are not a serious applicant.
However, do not assume that the LinkedIn profile is sufficient and can function as a resume. Some hiring managers prefer reviewing resumes and use the LinkedIn profile as a source of supplemental information — once you’ve attracted enough attention with your resume. Plus, accessing LinkedIn is an extra step that may not be straightforward if your hiring manager operates behind a firewall or their LinkedIn password is stored on their personal smartphone.
All the files attached to your application should be labeled with your name. In other words, if Jane Smith submitted a resume, the resume should be called JaneSmith-Resume. Any other documents that she would submit (whether cover letters or usability analyses) should also include her name, to allow the hiring manager to easily forward or keep track of these documents if downloaded. Make sure your name also shows on each page of your documents (e.g., in the footer), in case your hiring manager needs to print them.
Tip 4: Make Your Documents Scannable
This is related to the previous tip. You want your hiring manager to be able to easily see the value that you bring rather than have them read your documents carefully to extract it.
Resumes are usually scannable — because, luckily, there are so many resume templates out there. But the cover letter, any usability analysis, and any other documents that you submit should also be scannable. Your hiring manager could be reviewing hundreds of applications. They probably do not have the time to read every single one of your words. If they have to find your good ideas in a wall of text, there is a high chance that they may miss them.
A scannable document tells us that you are ready for your job. That you know what UX is about and that you are applying those principles in your life.
A tip about any usability analysis that you may have to submit: Use pictures of the design that you are analyzing. It’s a lot easier for others to see what you mean when you are annotating a picture than when you are talking about a design in a lengthy paragraph.
Tip 5: Tell Us About Your Projects
Our posting happened to be oriented towards research internships (as opposed to design internships). We accepted people who had some UX experience and people who had none. But we needed to know:
- What you’ve done in the past
- Your previous experience with various research methods
- What you are interested in
Both 1 and 2 above are information that should be easily available from your resume. However, your interests should be in your cover letter.
Give enough information so that we understand what your contribution was in any prior positions, internships, or projects. Say what you learned. And clearly specify whether it’s a class project or an actual job. (Don’t worry — we know you probably didn’t have a chance to have a lot of real jobs or internships. We just want to know what you did.)
Unlike for real jobs, for internships we are not so focused on actual results. It doesn’t necessarily help us to know that you improved the conversion rate by 50%. But it is interesting to know how you did that so we can determine what kinds of skills you already have.
A tip that you have probably heard before but that 90% of applicants do not follow: tailor your documents to the job posting. If the post is about research internships, your graphic-design experience and enthusiasm for developing prototypes may not be what we need.
Other Stuff that Is Somewhat Important
Spell the Name Right
How likely are you to notice when someone misspells your name? Very likely. You are so used to your own name, that it’s easier to spot a typo in it than in any other word.
Same with us. We didn’t really take it to heart and we considered all the applicants who misspelled our company’s name in the cover letter (or, even worse, called us Facebook or Sephora), but you can be sure that we noticed. It spoke a little about your attention to detail. You don’t want to start a relationship on the wrong foot and you don’t want to bias your hiring manager against you.
The same goes for other typos. Run your materials through a spell checker. Ask a friend to read your resume — they may spot things that you may not notice.
Specify Your Time Zone
We asked people to tell us when they would like us to send them the prompt for a usability-analysis activity. Some replied “on Tuesday;” others said “Tuesday March 7th at 12 pm” — without including their time zone.
For any kind of time-related communication, clearly indicate your time zone. Even better, if possible, try to figure out where your hiring manager is located and use that time zone in your communications. They will appreciate your attention to detail.
Translate Your Resume to English
At NN/g we speak English. A few of us speak other languages, but we don’t speak all languages and we are based in the US. Make sure that we can understand your resume.
If you speak a language written with a non-Latin alphabet, it’s okay to include the original spelling of your name, but also include a Latin-alphabet rendition of it. Otherwise, we will not know what to call you and how to represent you in our database.
Conclusion
Applying for an internship can be stressful. Follow the instructions in the job posting and make it easy for your hiring managers to extract all the information they need from your application in order to make a decision.
