Q: If you’re applying for an internship, it’s likely you don’t have much job experience. However, you’ll still need a professional-looking résumé to demonstrate your background and interests. If you don’t have much professional experience, try to think of other experiences that could be relevant.  Include information about volunteer work and extracurricular school activities or teams you participated in. Include the courses you have taken in school, your GPA, and standardized testing schools as well, especially if you feel like your résumé is too short. Be descriptive in including your job functions, not just the names and dates of your employment. Instead of just saying that you served as an office assistant, describe duties like sending company-wide emails, drafting press releases, reordering office supplies, receiving and redirecting phone calls, and handling mail intake.  If you do have a lot experience to fill up your résumé, try to be concise. A résumé should be no longer than two pages long.  Design it so that the information can easily be gleamed by a skim read. Bullet points are a good way to emphasize the most important information.  Ask a teacher or a professional to read your résumé and give advice. Many employers desire references to back up the information they’ll see on your résumé. Contact teachers, previous employers, or professionals that know you well ahead of time and make sure they are okay with being contacted by the employers you apply to.  Have at least 3 recommenders in mind. Provide no more than 5 per job application. Try to give your recommender some guidance as to what qualities you want emphasized in the letter. For certain job fields, a work sample portfolio will go a long way toward landing you an internship. If you’re applying for something related to writing, art, computer programming, research, or a performance field like dancing or acting, your work samples will likely speak louder than your résumé or cover letter.  Provide a short description for each sample that gives the context for its creation. Describe the sample’s purpose and whether you made it for a job, school assignment, or recreation. If you have a large number of samples, be selective about what you include. Choose 3-5 samples of your best work. Consider changing your portfolio around for different jobs if certain samples are more directly applicable than your best. There are numerous free and premium online platforms for developing portfolios. Portfolio Gen,  Carbonmade, eFolio, and Coroloft are some free options. Big Black Bad, Parade, and Pixpa are some premium options. If you have some web design skills, you could use an open source site like WordPress, Blogger, or TypePad. Cover letters are an opportunity to make a personal appeal to potential employers. Discuss your background, your interests, why you would be a valuable to the employer, and why the experience would be valuable for your long-term pursuits.  Avoid repeating the content from your résumé. Instead, express exactly how your experience prepares you for the internship you’re applying for.  Write a unique cover letter for each internship you apply to. Employers can easily tell if you’re using a cookie cutter letter and may reflect negatively on you.  Try to find a specific person to contact and address the letter to them. If you can’t find a specific contact person, address it as “Dear wikiHow hiring manager.”
A: Create a résumé. Gather references. Create a portfolio. Craft your cover letters.

Q: You should only list references if the company or program you are applying to specifically asks for them. References are people that a company you are applying to will contact to find out about your work ethic, personality, etc. You should choose people that you know will give you a positive review, such as professors who taught classes you did well in, or bosses who thought you were an excellent worker. ) Only do this if the company you are applying to specifically asks that you provide references. If you are applying for housing (such as when you wish to rent an apartment), you will most likely have to provide references with your housing application. You should not mention references unless you are asked to do so by the company or program you are applying to. Write your name in a bold, clear font. Beneath your name, write your address, phone number, and primary email (these things should be written in a smaller font than your name.) If you choose, you can format your header so that your contact information is aligned in the opposite corner. To separate the content of your list from your header, you can add a line below your name. The title should be the same size and font as your name. The title should be clear and to the point. For example, your page could be titled, “Professional References” or “References of (Your Name.” There is not a specific order in which you list your references--you could choose to alphabetize their names, or list them in order of how well each person knows you.  Format your list so that the reference’s name is in bold print. Below their names, write their relationship to you (ie. Boss) and the company or program that you both worked for. Below the company name, write the company’s address. If your reference no longer works for that company, do not list the company address. List your reference’s chosen form of contact information below the address. This is where you write their phone numbers, emails, etc. If you are listing many references that fall under specific categories (such as professors vs. people you know from work) you could choose to separate these groups by a line. This is optional.
A:
Know when to list references. List your references on a separate page from any other information you may be turning in with your application (such as a resume, cover letter, etc. Create a heading at the top of your reference list. Add a title under your header. List your references with their information. List the rest of your references by following the format detailed above.