How to act during summer internship?

Ahhh, it was unclear how the subject came up. If she brought it up on her own, that's definitely a red flag. If you brought it up, that should be expected.

 

I think she brought it up. However it came up, we didn't control the pursestrings. Going to the people who did to ask for more coin is not part of the intern hiring process.

 

dirtybird, is there no version anywhere of that story with your byline?

 

Based on the resources available I could not find one. There was a less edited version in Google cached, but that disappeared after a while. Lexis Nexis did not include the paper that ran it. I never got to see the print version since I lived thousands of miles from where it ran. It was an unfortunate conundrum. I suppose I could have thrown a fit to get it, but sports did not seem responsible for that aspect and neither paper listed available help for retrieving archived info. In either case it seemed a massive pain to add only slightly more legitimacy to something I'd written. It wasn't something that could push me over the edge for a job, so if an editor was really interested I could either show enough ancillary work to make it believable, or just replace it if that was too much hassle.

P.S. Oddly you may have read this very article as I applied for your last opening.

 

I was curious if a call to the paper's library, if they have one, could get you a hard copy. That was my first thought.

 

That's possible I suppose, they appear to have some sort of way to buy back issues. I'm not sure that's much worse than just getting the text, putting it in a word document and explaining if an editor has an issue.

Note: Now I'm oddly interested in ordering it just to see how it ran.

 

The other thing, if you have the access / will to do it - The paper's home town library. Unless you're in a place with a lot of competing news outlets, most local libraries have deep archives of the local paper(s). And if you aren't in the area anymore, maybe you have a buddy from that area who would do it if you slung him $10, $15 for his time.

 

I'm also now in Turtle Wexler's position of "hiring" for the first time, excluding my previous time at a college paper, and with the stipulation that it is for regular column / freelance work as opposed to a full-time gig. Nonetheless, I get resumes and writing samples on a regular basis.

- I definitely echo the sentiment for PDFs vs. Word documents, and especially if the PDF shows me where the article ran in the publication / paper. While I wouldn't turn down someone just because they sent a Word document, I do tend to trust PDFs more, since I'm presuming that anyone with half a brain will clean-up any mistakes they might have made in the Word document.

- Don't put a place down on your resume unless you actually worked there. I ran my college newspaper, and I still serve as a writing coach there. Some kid put down that he worked there for five months, oblivious to the fact that I still help out at the paper. In that time span, he had done about three freelance articles. If you're applying for an internship, we realize that you're young and might not have a ton of experience in the field. It's much better to be honest about this than having us call up your references and getting a long "ummmmm who is that?"

- If you do screw up during the internship, and it'll happen, apologize and move on. Everyone has been there, and while everyone wants to be the Best Intern Ever, you do have to accept that you're learning and will make mistakes.

- Something that I'm not sure has been brought up in this thread: Don't let your employer abuse you. You're supposed to be legitimately learning the craft, but unfortunately, with how thin some papers are now, they can be comfortable leaving you out there on your own for 40 hours a week. Referencing the previous point, everyone wants to do well, but don't work yourself so hard that it is affecting the quality of your life. If they want a full-time staffer, then they should pay you like one. Try to get some guidelines or rules for your program going in.

 

The most important thing: Treat it like a real job, like your livelihood depended on it. Show up on time, do what you're told, dress appropriately, don't act like an asshole.

Even if they're paying you $3 an hour and it's a shithole place filled with hacks, act like you're working at the New York Times.

 

See, this is a really long, complicated explanation of why you can't do an essential thing, which is show me a published clip.

I don't care about your really long, complicated explanation. It's your responsibility to figure it out and show me the clip.

 

To answer your questions (because, frankly, Turtle was absolutely correct):

1. Use a zip file to put your entire resume packet into one place.

2. Take a screen grab of the website, then use that image file and turn it into a PDF.

 

And if you don't know how to do #1 or #2, then you should ask your college for your money back