Why you didn’t score the internship and how to get it next time

Recently I put a few ads up and did shouts outs on FB to find a non-technical intern for Simply Wall St. We had an overwhelming response with over 30 applicants and we have made our selection already. I am a big believer in feedback and so instead of going back to everyone individually I thought writing (my first ever actually!) a blog post would not only help those who weren’t successful for next time, and anyone else applying for an internship, or any job at a startup or small business for that manner.

It’s worth saying that before I dive we already have a technical intern at Simply Wall St (Minh) who has been with us over a year, this was after 3–4 attempts at technical interns that were not a good fit for various reasons. Minh does an awesome job and at the same time gets experience you would not be able to get anywhere else working on everything from our mobile app to growth bots. Very different to the internships I did as an engineer where you were just given odd jobs and nothing you did seemed to have any impact on the business whatsoever.

The Role

We wanted to do the same but with a non-technical intern, as we proved up more and more growth ideas from our experiment list many of them did not need to be done by the CEO!

I also wanted to talk about paying interns. Not only is this a legal requirement but also something you should want to do. It surprised me how many people told me they were doing unpaid internships for large corporations (not naming anyone..!). You want to be paying your interns something, no one is going to remain at an unpaid job for a long period of time so if you find someone good paying them is important.

I have a theory that humans don’t particularly increase their intelligence after the age of ~16. One does gain experience however. Also willingness and ability to learn decreases as people age. These are generalisations. If you have a role like ours which is different to pretty much anything else out there, an intern is actually better suited than someone with 5 years’ work experience unless they came from a very comparable startup, of which none exist in Australia.

Amazing chart

For our role we wanted someone:

1. Extremely pro-active, someone who can ‘run with it’ without needing continuous guidance and fill in the gaps
2. Fast learner
3. Can write good English (unlike myself)
4. Genuine interest in startups

Bonus skills:

1. Basic knowledge of finance and shares
2. Basic programming ability (e.g. HTML.. which is more like scripting..)

Everyone at Simply Wall St is a coder, notice whilst this is a non-tech role even having some experience with coding is a bonus, I believe this should be the new norm, the equivalent to knowing how to operate MS Word or Excel. Without this you need someone else to help with even the most basic things like crafting new email templates, quickly creating bottlenecks.

Startups are all extremely short on time, my advert for the role was very brief, instead of specifying the above explicitly I wanted people to try and pitch themselves to see how they thought they could help. This was mostly a test in 1), which from the above is by far the most important.

Further to the above point, it’s also worth thinking about how startups (and most small businesses with no formal HR dept) hire people:

1. Every application is skim read for 30 secs
2. If there are no warning signs (see below) and it looks interesting will then look in more detail
3. Quick read of the CV
4. Brief research online on the applicant, Github, Portfolio, Linkedin, Blogs etc
5. Invite to interview

(FYI the above happens in ~5 mins)

You can see this a staged approach, if you don’t get past 1) that’s it.

So let us have a look at what works, and what doesn’t!

The warning signs aka inexcusable mistakes

Inconsistent fonts or font sizes in cover letter

I find this most hilarious when a candidate also includes something like ‘good attention to detail’ in their CV. There is no excuse for this and differing fonts instantly shows me it’s a name change/ copy and paste job, instant no unless something else really stands out.

No attempt to find the name of recipient

We are an online business, the email address people used to apply to includes my name, and we have a team section on our website. It’s better get the wrong person than to put no name at all. If the applicant hasn’t even managed to discover this then it’s unlikely they have spent much time at all working out what we do.

Overly long cover letter or resume

Even for a CEO with 40 years of work experience you don’t need long to sell yourself, unless what you are writing is really adding value then skip it and just focus on a few key reasons why the reader should keep going.

Extremely generic cover letter

This can be in two forms: 1) if the copy clearly has no relation to the job/ business or 2) simply not attention grabbing enough. You’re selling yourself, so you need to stand out!

Bad grammar or spelling

As mentioned we want people who can write, and good attention to detail.

Next stage

OK sweet so you’re past the initial skim read, lets look in more detail at a few things that were specific to this role.

The first two paragraphs are extremely important

This real estate is very limited, so this is actually where you need to spend the most effort. Don’t tell me you’re the right person, show me you’re the right person. I highly recommend this is tailored to the business itself, show that you really understand it. Listing any previous achievements is only useful if it is relevant. VP of a business society or team captain at school isn’t one of them.

The Asks

We asked everyone to tell us 5 areas they think they could help us, 3 things they like about the app and 3 things they don’t. If you were a proactive application you would be doing these anyway!

How you can help

This was a great way to test people, because the ideas they gave on how they can help quickly show how well they understand what we do, and how they can fit into this. Common mistakes in this area:

• Suggesting ‘new’ things you/ we could do that we are already doing
• Not realising we are a global business, and suggesting localised marketing techniques
• Mentioning extremely generic, non specific ideas
• General lack of imagination, research and understanding of the business

What you like/ Don’t like

This really an extension of the above to try and figure out who had taken the time to understand what we do and who hadn’t. Saying things like ‘Lack of trial period’ when we give a 30 day trial would be a red flag. Don’t just say what you don’t like but suggest how it can be improved, we know there is a lot to improve upon!

The Applications

Now I’m going to show some anonymised examples of the responses that were received. It’s worth noting here that timing is super important, we want someone asap so if you applied after the first 15 it was probably to too late. Whilst this does mean we might miss out on other candidates, it also means we get someone started fast. I am still receiving applications for the role now!

Note I did ask everyone if they were OK with posting this, if you want yours removed just email me. I just included the cover letters as this is really the most important part.

Probably well suited from a skills point of view but it is lost in the text

Invited to interview…

Attached doc below…

Relevant skills pop out straight away despite making other mistakes mentioned above

Who was successful?

It was one of the 3 above, I’ll let you guess.

A note on diversity

Pre-empting comments from the girls in tech crew I think this is a good example of a non-technical role which was open to business/ commerce/ marketing students etc. Two out of the initial twenty applications were from girls. Were any in the top 3 that we interviewed? Unfortunately no. Such special concessions would give them the false signal that their cover letter + CV were of a high standard, which in the long run would be detrimental for the candidate, rather they learn to improve for next time.

I am not sure of the male:female ratio on business type courses but it would be interesting to see if the appetite for startup work is equal even at this early stage. If not then lets work out why? Rather than complaining about the current lack of girls in tech actually try and figure out if there is equal demand to do it in the first place. I believe working towards solving problems like this is a far better use of ones time compared to forcing the numbers by faking 50/50 splits on judging panels &c.

Conclusion

Whilst this has been written specifically to benefit the interns who applied for the recent role, the approach can be used by anyone applying for any job at a small business or startup. It sounds obvious…

1. Spend at least 2–3 hours researching the business and the industry it’s in — do you actually want to work there any why
2. Put yourself into the mindset of whoever you believe will be reading your cover letter, do some research on them
3. Focus on the first two paragraphs of the cover letter, AB test some different options with people, ideally a not too close friend who runs a small business
4. Do a Ctrl-A and select the same font and font size….
5. If you want to work in tech do a short HTML/CSS course online, you’re value will instantly go up, its easy and if you don’t find it interesting then you should seriously question your motives for getting into tech
6. Good luck and don’t give up!