By Sanjay Babar
Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you for meeting me in person today to discuss this exciting opportunity to work for your company.
When my program advisor told me that I needed to complete an internship to receive my Marketing certificate, I immediately chose the nearest office building to my residence. And here I am today.
You must have many qualified candidates lined up for this job, and I want to start by saying that I’m not one of them.
I feel it important that we should get this out in the open before we continue any further.
For, you should know, my coursework has not been substantial by any means. I learned English from reading cereal boxes, and I don’t know the first thing about North American business customs. Further, I have barely spent five months in this country and, to be honest, my communication skills are hardly at a level for work that requires verbal or written communication, or even operating a toaster.
My terrible communication skills also make it difficult for me to function in a team environment, interact with clients, and order pizza. I prefer to work independently with plenty of coaching and assistance.
But, rest assured, so long as you overlook my horrible communication skills, I will make a great intern.
As you might have noted, one of my strengths is that I’m not one of those candidates that will exaggerate my other skills, say my technical skills, for example, just to improve my chances of obtaining a job. In fact, since we’ve broached the topic, my technical skills aren’t anything I would bank on either.
If you overlook this, however, there shouldn’t be any problems.
See, I’m honest. Technology is great if you know how to use it, though I really wouldn’t know and I don’t plan on finding out. Computers aren’t really my thing.
If I’m required to do anything more than surf the web, I will require hours of (paid) training from you—hours that would also be part of my internship of course.
An internship is a two-way street, after all, and should benefit both the employer and the intern.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than willing to try new things. Marketing sounds like a really exciting field, and I think that, with proper training, I’d also be horrible at presentations, interviewing, photocopying and stapling reports.
Let me end by saying, I need to fill 40 internship hours. No more. No less. Please plan the way you will use my help accordingly.
Also, I will need to complete those 40 hours by the end of the summer so that I can start looking for a real job as soon as possible.
I would just like to finish by asking, what exactly does your company do, and could I start the job before the end of the week?
Thank you again for your time. I look forward to hearing from you by this Friday.
