Cover letter for an internship
By the time you apply for an internship you have done real work — it simply happened at university, and it was graded rather than paid. The mistake is to describe it as a syllabus. A project with a brief, a constraint and an outcome is a piece of work, and it should be written like one. The reader is deciding whether you can be given a task and left alone with it for a fortnight.
The letter, in full
Copy it, then replace the facts with your own. The notes below say what each paragraph is there to do.
Version texte, prête à coller
Priya Raghavan Sheffield · priya.raghavan@email.com · 07700 900 903 Northlight Analytics Re: application for the position of Data analyst intern Dear Ms Kaur, I am in the second year of a BSc in Statistics at the University of Sheffield and I am applying for the summer data analyst internship, available from 1 July for twelve weeks. My most relevant piece of work was a term project for Sheffield City Council's transport team, done in a group of four. We were given three years of bus punctuality data and asked which routes were worth prioritising. I wrote the cleaning pipeline in Python, which meant reconciling two ticketing systems that recorded stop identifiers differently, and I presented the result to the client at the end of term. Two of our three recommendations were taken up. I work in Python and SQL daily and I have used pandas and scikit-learn on real, messy data rather than on a teaching set. I have not used your visualisation stack, and I would expect to spend the first week learning it. I am applying to Northlight specifically because your published work on regional transport is the closest thing I have seen to the project above, done properly and at scale. Yours sincerely,
What each paragraph does
Open with the course, the dates and the length
Year, degree, and the exact window you are free. Internship rotas are planned against fixed periods, and an application that leaves the dates to be asked for goes to the bottom of the pile.
Tell one project as a piece of work
A client, a brief, a difficulty, an outcome. Naming the actual obstacle — two ticketing systems that disagreed — is what turns a coursework title into evidence that you can be handed a mess and return something usable.
Say plainly what you cannot do yet
Admitting one gap makes the rest of the letter credible, and it is what an intern is for. It also tells the reader you can assess your own work, which is the skill they will be relying on most.
Give the reason it is this company
One specific thing they have published or built, and its link to what you have done. Without it the letter could have gone to forty firms, and the reader will assume it did.
The mistakes specific to this case
Listing modules instead of work
A list of course units tells the reader what your university teaches, not what you can do. One project described end to end is worth more than the whole transcript, which they can read anyway.
Claiming every tool on the advert
Copying the requirements back as a list of skills is transparent, and it collapses in the first technical question. Claim what you have used on real data and say where you have not.
Writing about what you hope to gain
“This internship would allow me to develop” describes your benefit, not theirs. The reader has a team to staff for twelve weeks; say what arrives when you do.
Frequently asked questions
How do I write about group work honestly?
Name the group, then say which part was yours. “In a group of four, I wrote the cleaning pipeline” is both truthful and stronger than an implied solo project, which tends to unravel when the reader asks about the rest of it.
Should I attach a portfolio or a repository?
If it is genuinely presentable, yes — one link, in the last paragraph, with a line saying what is in it. A repository with no README does more harm than no link at all.
Do I mention that the internship is paid or unpaid?
Not in the letter. If the advert is silent on it, ask by email separately, before interview, so that the question is settled without becoming the first thing you say about yourself.
How long should an internship letter be?
One page, four or five paragraphs. Longer, and the project paragraph — the only part that distinguishes you — gets read after the reader has already decided.
What changes from country to country
United Kingdom
Summer internships in large firms recruit from autumn for the following year, often through assessment centres rather than letters. Smaller firms still read letters, and are where a specific project paragraph counts most.
United States
Internships are usually applied for by resume and portal, with the letter optional but read when it exists. Quantify wherever you can, and check visa eligibility before you write if you are applying from abroad.