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How to Write a Cover Letter for an Internship? (+5 Real Internship Cover Letter Examples)

• Júlia Mlčúchova , 
• Updated March 20, 2024 8 min read

Trying to figure out how to write a cover letter for an internship ? Look no further!

POV: After weeks and weeks of searching for the right internship opportunity, you've finally found it. But, at the end of the posting, there's a single short sentence that takes you aback:  “Please, attach a cover letter to your application .”

Although some consider cover letter writing to be a relic of the past, it still holds its rightful place in the professional world. 

Because a well-written and persuasive cover letter can sometimes make up for the lack of work experience on your resume . And if you're trying to apply for an internship , this is probably your case, too. 

So, continue reading this article and learn: 

• What is a cover letter for an internship;
• Whether you need to attach a cover letter to your internship application;
• How to write one in 7 steps;
• 5 real-life internship cover letter examples .

Table of Contents

Click on a section to skip

What is a cover letter for an internship?

Do you need a cover letter for an internship, how to write a cover letter for an internship in 7 steps, 5 real-life internship cover letter examples, key takeaways: how to write a cover letter for an internship.

Generally speaking, an internship cover letter is a formal document that accompanies your resume when applying for an internship. 

When it comes to its content, a cover letter for an internship falls somewhere between a traditional cover letter and a motivational letter . 

• A traditional cover letter , used by job applicants with years of experience, is supposed to underline some of the candidate's most relevant and impressive skills, qualifications, and work achievements . 
• A motivational letter , used mostly in academia, aims to communicate one's passion for the subject, their motivation, and personal goals . 

Hence, a cover letter for an internship combines the purpose of the traditional cover letter (convincing the recruiters that you're the right person for the job) with the tone and strategy of the motivational letter (writing about personal motivations and goals).

A truly successful internship cover letter should answer the following questions:

• Who are you? 
• Why are you interested in this particular internship?
• Why are you the best fit for this internship?
• What do you want to gain from this internship?

Absolutely! 

In fact, you should always attach a cover letter to your internship application , even if it isn't explicitly required from you.  

Why, you ask? 

Well, consider this: Internships are crucial stepping stones towards your dream career. And they're also incredibly competitive. A single internship opening can be answered by tens of applicants at a time. 

But how can you stand out from a crowd of equally inexperienced candidates? Certainly not by your non-existent professional accomplishments, right? 

When companies look for interns, they don't expect you to have a ton of real-life experience. They aren't looking for a “finished product,” but for someone with a genuine desire to learn and enthusiasm for the job. 

And these two are your weapons of choice!

How can a cover letter for an internship help you?

Apart from the reasons mentioned above, your internship cover letter is also responsible for: 

• Conveying first impression. Usually, recruiters will read your cover letter before looking at your resume. So, it's the perfect opportunity to introduce yourself to them in a memorable way. 
• Showing your efforts. Next, taking the time to craft a thoughtful cover letter shows that you're willing to put in that extra effort to stand out from the rest of the candidates. 
• Highlighting your communication skills. Also, a well-written cover letter demonstrates your ability to articulate your thoughts clearly and professionally. 
• Showing your professionalism. When you walk into a room, it's polite to introduce yourself and shake everybody's hand. This is exactly what a cover letter does! To attach one to your application is a common courtesy.

Now that you're familiar with the whats and whys , let's have a look at how to write a good cover letter for an internship step-by-step. 

For example : Application for [name of the internship] internship – Surname.

Then, place your contact information (your name; professional email address; phone number; link to your website / portfolio / social media accounts if relevant) directly into the header .

If you know the recipient's name, address them by “ Dear [full name] ,” or “ Dear Mrs/Mr [last name] ,”. If you don't know who to address the cover letter to , address it more generally to “Dear Hiring Manager,” .

In the first paragraph of your cover letter , start by stating your name and where you studied (including your current degree and year of study). Proceed by explaining how you came to know about the internship and what are your motivations for applying to it.

Since you don't have much work experience, you can talk about your academic achievements; relevant coursework; dissertation project; extracurricular activities; volunteering; membership in relevant societies, etc.

The closing paragraph of your cover letter should reiterate your desire to get the specific internship, express gratitude to the recipient for their time and consideration, and include a final call for action (i.e. "I look forward to discussing the next steps during an interview." )

Finally, based on how you greeted the recipient of your cover letter, you can sign off with either “ Yours sincerely ,” or “ Yours faithfully ,” . If you addressed the recruiter by their name, sign off with the former; if not, use the latter.

Don't feel like writing your internship cover letter by hand?

Let our AI cover letter writer create the first draft of your internship cover letter!

Undoubtedly, the best way to learn something is to look at specific examples . And that's exactly what we're going to do right now! 

Below, we've prepared 5 internship cover letters written by real people with the help of our cover letter templates .

And, each of them is accompanied by our internship cover letter writing tips that you can implement into your own cover letter! 

FYI, you can use each of these examples as the first draft for your very own internship cover letter – simply click on the red button and start personalising the text (or let AI handle it).

#1 Philips Marketing Intern Cover Letter Sample

Internship cover letter example:.

This cover letter sample was provided by a real person who got hired with Kickresume’s help.

What can you take away?

• Eye-catching header.  Firstly, the header is visually clearly separated from the rest of the text. This makes the recruiters notice it immediately. Plus, the contact information of the company is also featured in the left-hand corner - just like it would be on an actual letter.
• Research the company before applying. Notice sentences like: “ I really like and relate to what Philips stands for … ” and “ Furthermore, it is very appealing that Philips operates on an international level… ”.This shows that the candidate’s done a thorough research of the company's philosophy and structure.

#2 Warner Bros. Public Relations Intern Cover Letter Example

• Share a personal story. This can help you establish a sentimental connection between you and the company. Show them that for you, working for their company means more than any old internship.
• Name-drop a referral. Now, this is a little bit of a cheat code. But, if you happen to know about anyone who has worked/currently works for the company, slip their name into your cover letter.

#3 University of Massachusetts Boston Intern Cover Letter Example

What can you take away  .

• Write about what you want to gain from the internship. It shows that you're not there just to have something to put on your resume; but that you’re motivated by the idea of gaining actual industry knowledge and skills.

#4 Audit/Tax Summer Internship at CohnReznick Cover Letter Sample

• Mention any relevant academic activities. If you're wondering how to write a cover letter for an internship with no experience whatsoever, this is your way to go! For example, notice how this candidate noted all of his relevant courses, skills, association membership, and competition participation.
• Focus on transferrable skills. Especially when your study programme doesn't necessarily fit the internship opening to a T. Instead, focus on any transferable skills you've picked up. 

#5 Intern at NBC Cover Letter Sample

• Keep your opening and closing paragraphs short and sweet. As you can see in this example, it helps keep a certain visual harmony of the overall document. And, despite the length, both paragraphs do exactly what they're supposed to. Besides, recruiters might be discouraged to read the rest of your cover letter if your introductory paragraph is too long.

To sum it all up, an internship cover letter is a formal document that you submit together with your resume when applying for an internship. Its content should be something between a traditional cover letter and a motivational letter.

Its purpose is to introduce yourself to the recruiters in a more personal way than the resume allows. 

The main things you want your internship cover letter to communicate are:

• who you are,
• why you're interested in this opportunity,
• what make you the best fit for the internship, 
• your motivation (your long-term professional goals),
• your desire to learn (what you want to gain from the experience).

To write a truly impactful and persuasive cover letter, we recommend following these 7 key steps: 

• Specify which internship you're applying for in the subject line.
• Include your contact information in a header.
• Address the recipient appropriately.
• Introduce yourself & your motivations in the opening paragraph.
• Elaborate on why you're a good fit and what motivated you in body.
• End your cover letter with a confident closing paragraph.
• Finish off with a polite sign off. 

Finally, if you feel that the examples provided in this article aren't enough, you can always find more in our cover letter database . 

Julia has recently joined Kickresume as a career writer. From helping people with their English to get admitted to the uni of their dreams to advising them on how to succeed in the job market. It would seem that her career is on a steadfast trajectory. Julia holds a degree in Anglophone studies from Metropolitan University in Prague, where she also resides. Apart from creative writing and languages, she takes a keen interest in literature and theatre.

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How to Write an Internship Cover Letter [Expert Advice & Examples]

Published: May 31, 2024

It’s been a few years since I applied for my first internship, but I still remember the difficulties I encountered. After I finally crafted an eye-catching resume , I faced the daunting prospect of creating an internship cover letter for every application; I honestly didn’t know what to include or the tone I should strike.

Although I got the internship, in the end, I never found out whether my academic achievements, experience, or well-crafted cover letter got my foot in the door. However, I’ve always been curious.

With the benefit of hindsight — and some guidance from cover letter experts and hiring professionals — I’m here to help you write a winning internship cover letter. Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

How to Write a Cover Letter for an Internship

Writing my own internship cover letter, internship cover letter examples, internship cover letter templates.

• Include your name, date, location, and contact information.
• Include the company name, department, and address.
• Address the hiring manager.
• Set the context for your application.
• Sell your experience and personalize your cover letter.
• Think about your cover letter’s readers (humans and machines).
• Close the letter with grace and a call to action.
• Proofread, proofread, and proofread.

I’ve seen some creatively designed cover letters, but in my opinion, you can’t go wrong with the traditional business letter format, which you’ll find in our free cover letter templates .

Download our cover letter templates …

Business professionals use this format style to apply for full-time roles and other purposes, so it’s something you can reuse in the future.

Remember to use formal terms such as “Dear” and “Sincerely,” and lean towards a professional tone in your body copy. Even if you know the recruiter personally, always use formal salutations instead of “Hey!” or Hi [name]. ”

1. Include your name, date, location, and contact information.

Ensure you provide your contact information, such as your phone number, email, and location, on your internship cover letter.

Since you’ll probably be sending your cover letter online (through an email or web form), you don’t need to provide your full home address — your city and state should be enough for most positions.

Your Address

Your City, State, Zip Code

Cell: 555-555-5555

Email: [email protected]

2. Include the company name, department, and address.

With your personal information out of the way, it’s time to showcase your research skills a little. Do an internet search to find the full name and address of the company you’re applying to. Try to dig deep to find the department name, but leave it out if you’re unsure.

If the internship will be remote, use the company’s general headquarters address if the internship will be remote.

City, State Zip

3. Address the hiring manager.

Tempted to type “To whom it may concern” or “Dear hiring manager” ? In your hunt for an internship position, you’ll stand out from the crowd by being resourceful. So, channel your inner sleuth by tracking down the hiring manager’s name.

You might find their role description on the company website, but if not, your best bet is to look through LinkedIn.

If you can’t find the hiring manager's name, or you’re unsure if you’re addressing the right person, leave the name out. I think it’s safe to say that sacrificing a bit of personalization is much better than addressing the wrong person in your cover letter.

5 Free Cover Letter Templates

Five fill-in-the-blank cover letter templates to help you impress recruiters.

• Standard Cover Letter Template

Entry-Level Cover Letter Template

• Data-Driven Cover Letter Template

Download Free

All fields are required.

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

4. Set the context for your application.

The first paragraph can make or break your internship cover letter and your entire application.

I’ll admit: I’ve always found opening paragraphs tricky, whether they’re for a cover letter, regular email, or a blog post, but they’re essential for creating a strong first impression and engaging the reader.

First, explain how you found out about the company or position. If you know anyone at the company, you can mention them here. Next, express your interest in the company and how it relates to your goals and passions. Also, make sure you get your basic information down, like your name, education level, major, and interests.

Depending on the company and position, you could try a creative approach to get your reader’s attention. Here’s one that worked for me early in my career:

“Can I tell you a secret? I’ve been telling stories since I was five years old. No, not fibbing — real storytelling ...”

A word of warning, though: Be sure to research the company’s culture before taking an approach like this. While this opening statement worked well for startups and more laid-back companies, a big accounting firm might find it culturally off-beat.

Pro tip : Geoffrey Scott , hiring manager and certified professional resume writer at Resume Genius, says, “The cover letters that stand out to me are ones where the candidate’s excitement clearly comes through. Of course, the tone must stay professional, but it shouldn’t be dull. When you’re passionate about what you do, it comes through in your cover letter.”

5. Sell your experience and personalize your cover letter.

Your cover letter isn’t supposed to be a summary of your resume, so go deeper and personalize it for your internship application.

To start, read through the specific position’s description and pick out a few qualities that you think apply to you. I don’t recommend choosing all the descriptors mentioned, as it could appear disingenuous and make your cover letter too long.

For instance, if I see a company looking for someone who’s “outgoing, organized, hardworking, and willing to take criticism,” I would pick the qualities that best describe me and focus on providing examples in the body of my cover letter.

You should cover things like:

• Relevant coursework.
• Soft skills (e.g., teamwork, problem-solving).
• Extracurricular activities (e.g., volunteering).
• Work experience (if any).

That said, make sure you tie them to the internship opportunity. For example, you could say, “I understand that this role requires that I consistently meet deadlines. I held down a part-time job while keeping up with my college assignments, which demonstrates my time management skills.”

Pro tip : If you lack relevant experience, use your research and knowledge to show enthusiasm. Daniel Space , a human resources business partner who has worked with companies like Spotify and WebMD, told me he once hired a French major instead of an HR major for an HR internship.

Why? He explains, " Not only did she clearly articulate how she understood the role … she also spent a few sentences describing the company going through a merger and correctly assuming that her work would be in helping with that.”

6. Think about your cover letter’s readers (humans and machines).

According to Jobscan’s research , 487 out of 500 Fortune 500 companies (97.4%) used an Applicant Tracking System in 2023. If you’re not familiar, this is a tool used to streamline hiring tasks.

Why do they matter for internship cover letters? Well, companies use these systems to filter resumes and cover letters based on keywords.

Ben Lamarche , general manager at recruiting firm Lock Search Group, told me that his company screens internship applications using an application tracking system.

When I asked how applicants could get their cover letters seen by a human, he recommended “ avoiding excessive formatting, sticking to a basic text layout, and including a few important words from the internship description, such as the precise requirements for skills and knowledge.”

Pro tip: Wondering how long your internship cover letter should be? I recommend you limit it to under a page or around 250 to 400 words. Also, use shorter paragraphs to break up the text.

Here’s what Indrė Padegimienė , talent acquisition specialist at Omnisend, has to say on the matter: “Recruiters are pretty busy people with hundreds of applications to review, so clear and concise communication is key. A five-page cover letter won’t get you a job.”

7. Close the letter with grace and a call to action.

If the internship application does not explicitly state “ please do not contact, ” you might choose to conclude by specifying how you will follow up, such as, “I will call next week to see if my qualifications are a match,” or “I am eager to meet with you to discuss this opportunity, and am available for an interview at a mutually convenient time.”

In your closing paragraph, thank the hiring manager for taking the time to consider you, and end on a positive, confident note, such as, “I look forward to speaking with you soon.”

Pro tip : You may even go a step further and give the hiring manager a call to action . I don’t think it hurts to include a link to your online portfolio , website, or even a YouTube channel where you display your work and personality.

To see how often hiring managers follow through on your calls to action, track the number of clicks on your link using a URL tracker like Bitly .

8. Proofread, proofread, and proofread.

When I asked Scott (Resume Genius) about the cover letter pitfalls he encounters the most, applicants’ lack of proofreading stood out.

After describing the cover letter mistake of simply summarizing what’s in your resume, he shared, “Another common error that could end up costing you a position is having spelling and grammar mistakes, especially if the internship is for anything that requires close attention to detail, like data entry. This seems obvious, but you wouldn’t believe how often I see it.”

Even with the availability of spell-checking tools like Grammarly , internship applicants still submit cover letters riddled with typos. Let me put it this way: You’ve done the hard part of actually writing your internship cover letter, so don’t let small mistakes put employers off.

Pro tip : Some companies provide AI cover letter generators. You simply input your resume and the job description, and you should get a decent-looking cover letter in seconds.

Just remember that while AI generators can save you time, you should check over everything they produce to ensure the AI hasn’t told any tall tales about your hands-on experience or skill set or made any mistakes. As you’ll see in these ChatGPT-generated internship email examples , caution and revisions are advised.

If you’re still unsure after your check-up, get a friend or classmate to proofread your cover letter for clarity and spelling before you finally sign off on it and hit send.

Now, I’ll use the tips I gave you above to craft an internship cover letter. In this sample, I will be applying for an event planning position. I start by including my contact information. That includes an address, phone number, and email address.

I also included the recipient’s contact information including the department I’m applying for.

I start with a greeting and the hiring manager’s name. If you can find a direct contact, referring to the person by name is preferred. From there, I mention that I am a referral and mention my contact at the company. I can then introduce myself and discuss relevant school experience relating to the role.

In the next section, I refer to relevant professional experiences. While these may not apply to an event role in corporate, I mention club work that I’ve done that relates to the role. I also reference an orientation job I held at the university that matches the events skillset.

From there, it’s time to wrap up with a conclusion. I also used Preview’s signature function on my Mac to include a handwritten signature followed by a typed version of my name.

Now, let’s explore some other cover letter examples for inspiration.

To inspire you further, I’ve curated additional internship cover letter examples tailored to different industries and positions. I’ll also explain why each example works and what you can do to evoke a similar response.

1. Hospitality Internship Cover Letter

Why This Cover Letter Example Works

I like that this cover letter demonstrates the applicant’s passion, willingness to learn, and previous industry experience. If I were the hiring manager, I’d shortlist them based on their internship cover letter.

How to Incorporate That Into Your Internship Cover Letter

I recommend you start by analyzing your own transferable skills and experience and seeing how they relate to the internship you're applying for.

Do you have any examples, facts, or figures that you can include in your letter? This will help the hiring manager understand your interest in the position and give them more of a reason to hire you over the competition.

I often see applicants use statements like, “I helped increase my group’s scores by [X]%.” If you have any figures like this, use them, but be honest about the role you played.

2. Supply Chain Internship Cover Letter

I could easily tell that, like many internship applicants, this student had yet to gain professional experience in the field. However, the applicant does a great job of showing enthusiasm for taking on real-world experiences.

They also demonstrate their knowledge of three areas of supply chain management: forecasting, inventory management, and logistics.

Go through your course notes and write down a list of topics and terms relevant to the internship you’re applying for. After I’ve completed coursework, I sometimes need to remind myself of what I’ve covered.

3. Fashion Design Internship Cover Letter

The student wrote a great second paragraph discussing their experience participating in design projects with original pieces that show their “artistic vision.” I also like that the student highlights how their design philosophy aligns well with Sleeves and Thread’s commitment to “pushing boundaries.”

Do your research on the company you’re applying to. You can compliment them on awards they have won or mention how you would fit well within their company culture.

4. Finance Internship Cover Letter

Rebecca takes the time to highlight her skillset, but she also balances her cover letter with reasons why Banking Corporation will be a great fit for her career. She gives plenty of reasons why the company appeals to her, which helps balance the cover letter.

Don’t be afraid to explain what an internship will do for you . Yes, companies want to know how an intern can help them, but they know you’re mainly there to advance your career.

5. Marketing Internship Cover Letter

If you work in marketing or another creative industry, you’ll have more freedom when it comes to drafting your cover letter. Here, Robin takes a novel approach by weaving in colorful language that practically jumps off the page. With just enough pizazz, their personality shines through. I think any marketing hiring manager would be eager to learn more.

Let your creative side run free! On a blank page (a creative’s nightmare, I know!), type out plenty of eye-catching phrases and sentences to showcase your writing skills. Next, see if you can find the right places to add them to your internship cover letter.

If, instead of examples, you’d like a jump-off point, don’t worry — I’ve got you covered. Here are some internship cover letter templates to get your creative juices flowing.

Standard Internship Cover Letter Template

This highly customizable internship cover letter is generic but can serve as the foundation for all your applications.

Data-Driven Internship Cover Letter Template

If your major is data-driven, like STEM, marketing, or accounting, I think this is the internship cover letter template for you. With this template, you can include the data highlights of your class projects and assignments to show the hiring manager that you can support your experience with credible facts.

As you approach your senior year of college, you may be looking for entry-level roles rather than internships. Cover letters are just as important for full-time roles as they are for internships, so use this template to make the transition in your job search.

Wrapping Up Your Internship Cover Letter

Worried about not having enough experience or skills to get your preferred internship? Don’t stress over what you haven’t achieved yet — and remember, everyone starts somewhere.

Instead, take stock of your academic and extracurricular achievements and see how you can apply your skills and experience to an internship.

Then, you’re ready to craft a compelling cover letter that shows you’re competent, enthusiastic, and willing to go the extra mile for every position you apply for. Whether you get your preferred internship or not, you’ll be happy that you gave it your best shot.

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How to write an internship cover letter: 7 tips & an example

Learn how to create a cover letter that helps your internship application stand out.

So, you’re ready to find the perfect internship and kickstart your professional career. You’ve researched opportunities, made a list of your dream companies, crafted a great resume, and are about to apply. But what should you upload for the application’s “cover letter” field?

You’re in the right place. In this article, we’ll tell you how to write a great cover letter that will help you stand out from the crowd and get you hired. It’s often the first thing a hiring manager will see when they open your application, so it's important to get it right. After all, first impressions are everything!

Read the internship posting carefully before writing your cover letter. Pay attention to the intern’s primary responsibilities and the desired candidate’s skills and experience. Keep the job posting handy so you can refer to it while writing.

Now that you’re ready to start writing, let’s get into our guide for creating the perfect cover letter for every application on your to-do list.

1. Customize each cover letter

One of the most important intern cover letter tips is to avoid using the same generic letter for all your applications. Recruiters and employers can tell when you didn’t take time to create a unique letter for their specific internship. Instead, open your cover letter by sharing why you’re excited about this particular internship and employer and why you’re a good fit. Include information about the company and the role you’re applying for (pro tip: Use language from the application!).

2. Structure the cover letter’s flow effectively

A well-crafted cover letter should grab the attention of the recruiter or hiring manager and effectively convey key information. Achieve this by structuring your cover letter with an engaging introduction sentence and impactful first paragraph, an informative body paragraph or two, and a strong closing paragraph. It's also important to strike a balance between conveying key information and maintaining a concise and engaging tone throughout your cover letter.

Cover letters shouldn’t be very long — three or four paragraphs are plenty. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point. Now is not the time to be chatty! Save the chit-chat to showcase how friendly and personable you are during the interview.

Hiring managers are busy, and you want to ensure they read your cover letter from start to finish. That’s why it’s key to emphasize only the most important points relevant to the internship you’re applying for while keeping the cover letter as short as possible so it’s easy to read.

3. Include keywords and supporting details

It is common for employers to scan resumes and cover letters for keywords related to the internship. First and foremost, use the company name. Next, incorporate any skills or experiences listed in the job description.

While your resume lists your technical skills and experience, a cover letter should include details about desirable soft skills like time management and communication skills. If you’re mentioning soft skills, provide support. For example, if you want to highlight your leadership skills, detail a time when you led a group project or served as a student group officer.

As you consider which skills and experience to mention in a cover letter, take a look at the ones listed in the application or job posting. Pointing to those shows the hiring manager why you’re the best candidate for that role and demonstrates that you’ve read the job description carefully. Taking the time to review the role strengthens your case as a sincerely engaged and interested applicant.

4. Highlight coursework and extracurriculars

Don’t worry if you don’t have much work experience. Describe relevant coursework and major projects you’ve worked on as a college student that demonstrate your knowledge and skills. You can also add any student group involvement or volunteer opportunities.

These combined experiences show your initiative and help you stand out as a candidate (even if you’ve never been paid to do those things). Just because you didn’t make any money doesn’t mean you didn’t do a great job! You’ll have the chance to demonstrate how well you performed in those roles during the interview, so get ready to discuss the experiences you mention in the cover letter in greater detail.

5. Share what you’d like to accomplish

Cover letters aren’t just for telling employers why they should hire you. They’re also an opportunity to share what you believe you’ll get from the specific position. Whether it’s gaining a new skill or learning more about an industry, share why the role is important to you. This tells the employer that you’re not just trying to satisfy course credits with your internship — you’re also looking for valuable work experience that will kickstart your career. Who knows, maybe they’ll want to hire you as a full-time employee later.

6. Professionally format the cover letter

Your cover letter format is just as important as what’s in it. Aim to keep your cover letter concise and limited to one page. Use a clean and readable font, like Arial or Calibri, with a font size of 10 to 12 points and proper spacing and margins for a professional appearance.

Include a header with your contact information, including your full name, phone number, professional email address, and optionally, your LinkedIn profile or relevant online portfolio. Also, try to find the hiring manager’s name to address the letter. Rather than starting with a salutation like “To Whom It May Concern” or “Dear hiring manager,” try to find the actual name of the person you’re addressing. Lastly, don’t forget to close with a professional sign-off, such as “Sincerely” or “Best.”

Get help with formatting your internship cover letter by downloading our free template . Again, remember to tailor it to the company and internship role you’re applying for!

7. Proofread and ask for feedback

Once your cover letter is ready, carefully read through it and check for spelling, punctuation, grammar mistakes, and typos. Have a friend or family member review it and give feedback. If you have a classmate majoring in English or communications who wouldn’t mind taking a look, even better!

Another option is to reach out to your school’s career center . Schedule an appointment to review your cover letter and resume and ask any other application- or interview-related questions. Your school wants you to succeed in your career, so take advantage of all the tools they have to offer while you’re attending.

Example cover letter

Here’s an internship cover letter example to use as a starting point. Remember to tailor yours to the specific job you’re applying for rather than just copying and pasting this one:

[Your Full Name]

[Your Contact Info (include relevant social media accounts, if applicable)]

[Hiring Manager’s Name]

[Hiring Manager’s Job Title]

[Hiring Manager’s Contact Info]

Dear [hiring manager’s full name],

As a passionate [college/university] student majoring in [relevant field], I am eager to immerse myself in [Company’s Name]’s groundbreaking work in the [relevant industry] through your internship position. I firmly believe my [specific skills or coursework] will allow me to serve as a valuable asset on the [Company Name] team while expanding my knowledge to real-world challenges and harnessing invaluable hands-on experience within the industry.

With a passion for [specific aspect of the industry or role], I am confident in my ability to [relevant job responsibilities or tasks]. During my studies, I have developed a solid foundation in [mention relevant coursework or projects], which has equipped me with the [skills or knowledge] necessary for success in this role. Additionally, my experience as a [relevant internship or extracurricular activity] has allowed me to further refine my [specific skills or abilities].

I am particularly drawn to [Company Name]'s commitment to [mention a value, mission, or specific project]. The opportunity to work alongside a talented and innovative team while contributing to [Company Name]'s growth is truly inspiring. My strong [communication/analytical/technical, etc.] skills, coupled with my dedication and adaptability, make me an ideal fit for the [job title] role.

I welcome the chance to discuss my qualifications and learn more about [Company Name] in an interview. Thank you for considering my application. I have attached my resume for your review. Should you require additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me at [Your Phone Number] or [Your Email Address].

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[Your Name]

Do you need a cover letter for an internship?

While a cover letter isn’t mandatory for all internship applications, we recommend submitting one. A cover letter provides an opportunity to showcase your qualifications, skills, and enthusiasm for the internship position. It allows you to personalize your job application, demonstrate professionalism, and communicate your interest in the role and organization.

A well-written cover letter can significantly enhance your chances of standing out among other candidates and securing the internship. Hiring managers know that job and internship seekers are likely applying to many other opportunities at the same time, so ensure they know their company is one you would especially like to work for.

How do you write an internship cover letter if you have no experience?

If you lack professional experience, you can still present yourself with confidence, highlight your relevant skills and achievements, and convey your eagerness to learn and contribute. Here are some tips for accomplishing this:

• Focus on transferable skills. Highlight relevant transferable skills acquired through coursework, extracurricular activities, part-time jobs, or volunteer work. These skills can include communication, teamwork, problem-solving, organization, research, or leadership skills.
• Emphasize academic achievements. Showcase your academic achievements, such as high grades, honors, or specific coursework relevant to the internship. Discuss how your academic knowledge and skills can apply to the internship role and contribute to the organization.
• Showcase relevant projects or coursework . If you have completed any projects or coursework that align with the internship position, describe them in detail. Highlight the tasks, methodologies, and outcomes to demonstrate your ability to apply your knowledge in a practical setting.
• Leverage extracurricular involvement. Discuss any relevant extracurricular activities or leadership roles you have held. For example, if you were part of a club or organization related to the internship’s field, explain your involvement and how it has developed your skills or provided you with relevant experiences.
• Express eagerness to learn. Emphasize your willingness and enthusiasm to learn and grow in the internship. Highlight your passion for the field and commitment to acquiring new skills and knowledge. Demonstrating a positive attitude and eagerness to learn can compensate for a lack of direct experience.
• Connect with the company's culture , mission, and values. Research the organization and align your cover letter with its mission, values, and projects. Show that you are genuinely interested in their work and how your background and aspirations align with their goals.
• Network and seek recommendations. If possible, reach out to network contacts who may have connections or insights into the internship opportunity. Requesting recommendations or endorsements from professors, advisers, or professionals in the field can bolster your application.

Land your dream internship

The ultimate goal: landing your dream internship (and, later, your dream job!). An effective cover letter can help make that happen. It's your chance to shine, showcasing why you're the perfect fit for the position. A personalized and compelling letter grabs employers’ attention and helps you stand out from the crowd. Remember to be authentic, highlight relevant experiences, and let your passion shine through.

Don't underestimate the impact of a well-crafted cover letter and the opportunities that lie ahead. This is your opportunity to show potential employers your skills and abilities and share some of your background with them before the interview.

Head over to Handshake today to open doors to exciting internship possibilities. Not only can we connect you with the best companies looking for talent just like you, but you can also set up job alerts so you won’t miss that golden opportunity. Happy job searching!

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How to Write the Perfect Cover Letter for an Internship (Plus, an Example!)

As a student, you don’t have a lot of time in the day that isn’t already eaten up by classes, problem sets, essays, extracurriculars, sports, hackathons, research, dance performances…the list goes on. Applying for any kind of job is time consuming (not to mention nerve-racking), so when you see a job posting where the cover letter is optional, you might be tempted to skip it. Not so fast!

If you’re looking at internships , it probably means you don’t have a ton of work experience to set you apart from other candidates. Or perhaps you do have some experience, but it’s not the most relevant or as obviously related. The cover letter is exactly the place for you to make a case for yourself. This is where you can connect the dots for the recruiter and tell the story that your resume can’t on its own. (How does competitive ballroom dancing connect with being a management consultant?) And, if nothing else, it’s a chance to get across your excitement.

While it can certainly help to check out some general cover letter tips and read through some examples , here are some specific pointers on how to make the most of a cover letter for an internship.

1. Make It All About the Company

Step one is to introduce yourself and why you’re interested in this particular internship. As a student, you’ll probably instinctively want to write about all the things you’re excited to learn on the job. Including some of that is fine, but remember that applying for an internship at a company isn’t the same as applying for college. Companies are more invested in what you have to offer them than what they have to offer you . Or, put more bluntly, they have no reason to care about you yet. You have to give them one.

A better way to show your enthusiasm is to be specific about why you’re interested in this company. What makes it special? Is their product one of a kind or solving an important problem in a unique way? Are they working toward a particular mission that resonates with you?

Avoid being impressed in a generic way. If you can say the same thing about another company then you’re not being specific enough. In other words, don’t say: “I’m impressed that Company X is a market leader in clean-tech.” Instead, say: “Company X’s unique approach to removing plastic pollution from the ocean by using currents and robotic traps is fascinating.”

It can feel a little weird to be too fawning, but it’s fine in small doses. After all, companies have internships because they are trying to create a recruiting pipeline, so letting them know you’re a fan of their work or at least very interested in the industry is a good idea. You want them to know that you’re worth training and investing in—that you’re going to stick around.

2. Mention Relevant Projects, Extracurriculars, and Classes

In a typical cover letter, the next step would be to write about all your relevant experience. But perhaps this internship you’re applying for is the relevant experience you’re hoping you can write about one day. So what do you write about today?

It’s okay to have no directly relevant work experience . The next best thing is to choose two examples of things you’ve done that are as closely related to the role as possible and then to go into detail about the parts of the work that are most relevant. You’re trying to tell a story and you want the reader to understand that the next logical step in it is the exact internship you’re applying for. You want to give the reader an “It all makes sense!” moment.

Ideally, you’re choosing things that aren’t too far off from professional experience, like an independent project where you can show off some technical skills, or leadership experience in a student organization to get across those all-important soft skills. Experiences with a competitive element to them are great, too—think hackathons and case competitions.

If you must, you can mention coursework as well. In general, though, recruiters and hiring managers are less excited about projects where a clear solution already exists. There are always exceptions, of course. Class projects that are more creative and don’t involve a clean, preset answer might also be a good option.

3. Stitch Together Your Skills

Of course, there’s always the possibility that nothing you’ve done feels relevant. That’s fine, too. Everyone has to start somewhere! If you really can’t find any related work to write about, choose three experiences you feel comfortable talking about and then pick and choose the parts that illustrate the skills you bring to the table.

For example, if you worked a part-time job in high school as a lifeguard, you can write about how you were known for being reliable, how you’d always pick up other people’s shifts when they were out, and how great you were at being vigilant when you were on duty. You can write about the courses you’ve taken to showcase your interest in a particular subject area. Maybe they were quite advanced for a sophomore. That’d be worth mentioning to show not only your subject-matter interest, but also your ambition and ability to learn quickly. And if you served as an executive board member of a cultural group, you could write about your communication skills and how detail-oriented you needed to be to pull off a big show.

You might not have any professional work experience, but anyone recruiting interns will be interested in someone who is reliable, enthusiastic, detail-oriented, and a good communicator. Throw in that you’re a fast learner who has taken a few relevant classes and you’ll have a fair shot.

4. Don’t Apologize

So that’s all the stuff you should do. Here’s something you shouldn’t. Don’t apologize for your lack of experience. Don’t write, “Even though I’m only a freshman…” or “Despite my limited experience in fundraising…” This is one of the most common mistakes students make in their cover letters.

Instead, write something like, “I’m excited to bring my coursework alive by doing hands-on work in…” or “I’m looking forward to parlaying my campus event planning experience to fundraising for…” Basically, instead of homing in on your weaknesses, you want to highlight your strengths. You get to pick what to focus on, so choose wisely.

It can be tough to write from the perspective of what you have to offer a company when you don’t feel like you have very much work experience to lean on, especially when many of the applications you’ve worked on in the past (read: college applications) have been so focused on what you might have to gain from a particular experience. One way to increase your chances of getting a great internship is to think about the application process as more of a pitch. You’re not just applying, you’re pitching yourself, so submit a nice and tidy letter (make sure you edit it and catch any typos!) and keep it positive.

5. Read This Example to Help You Craft Your Own Cover Letter

All of this sounds nice in theory, but what does it look like all put together? Here’s a sample cover letter from a student with limited relevant experience who is applying for a product management internship. (Quick tip: Remember never to start off with “ To Whom It May Concern ”!)

Dear Hiring Manager,

I am excited to submit my application for the product management internship at BPM Tech. As a student at Big State University majoring in electrical engineering with a keen interest in environmental studies, I believe I would be a good fit for the role. BPM’s mission to design and manufacture the world’s most energy dense batteries while protecting our planet and not taking any shortcuts is inspiring, and I would be thrilled to be able to contribute to this mission.

In a recent hackathon, I demonstrated my ability to think on my feet and lead a team through designing and prototyping stages of a project. Competing as a team of three students with different academic backgrounds and working under a tight deadline, we were ultimately able to get a working prototype together and presented our work to a panel of industry experts who awarded us second place. I was particularly proud of how close we got to winning the audience favorite award. For me, the most exciting part of working on products comes from users and their reactions.

I’ve also been an active volunteer at my local animal shelter for over five years. As a more seasoned volunteer, I’ve taken the initiative to lead trainings, organize donation drives, and serve as a dog walker. This experience has strengthened my communication skills and confirmed my belief that my motivation skyrockets when my work supports a good cause. I would be delighted to bring my focus and dedication to another organization whose mission I believe in.

Through these experiences, along with my coursework in electrical engineering, I am confident that I would be able to successfully navigate the challenges of the PM internship program at BPM. I welcome the opportunity to speak with you about my qualifications and look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely, Sarah Gunnarson

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How to write an internship cover letter (with examples)

A cover letter is a really important part of most internship applications. Spending the time and effort to produce a great cover letter can be the difference between getting that all-important interview and being ghosted.

In our ultimate guide to internships, we cover all elements of cover letters and have even created 12 template cover letters for you to download and use.

Need to skip to the most relevant part of this guide? You can do so here:

What to include in an internship cover letter?

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Your cover letter should include your contact information, the contact information of the organization you are applying to, the reason you’re applying, and why you’re perfect for this internship position.

Your contact information: Make it easy for the person reading your letter to get in touch with you. In the modern world, your cell number and your email are really important. You can be less specific about your address if you’d like. Either of the below examples work.

You don’t need to include other identifying information such as your age, gender, or race, but some people may choose to include their pronouns.

The company you’re applying to: A lot of organizations that offer internships will be big companies with loads of employees. Therefore you need to be specific.

Finding the name of the person to address your cover letter to, their department, and their location will show that you’ve done your homework, and you’re not just sending out loads of generic letters.

If you’re really struggling to find the right address, and you can’t find it via email or giving the company a call, just use the address where the internship would be located.

Address your letter to the hiring manager: Try to avoid using phrases such as “dear sir/madam” or “to whom it may concern”. Take time to find out who the hiring manager is and address them.

If for any reason you cannot find the name of the hiring manager, then address the company’s hiring committee.

If there is more than one hiring manager, address them all.

Contextualize your application: This should cover how you heard about the company and the position and why this relates to your skills and experience. It’s important to also include why you are a good match for the position, so include your level of education and your major.

You might decide to inject a bit more personality into this statement, but be careful. If you’re applying to a large accounting or law firm, they’ll expect the language you use in your cover letter to be formal. The best thing to do is explore the company’s website and social media and mirror the language and personality that comes across in their tone of voice. Something fun might look like this:

Body of the letter: The body of the cover letter should have sections explaining why you are qualified for this internship and the work or extracurricular experience that you have that is relevant.

For an internship right at the beginning of your career, keep your cover letter to one side of A4 and include between two and three examples. You might find that adding a few bullet points that either focus on your attributes (if you have less experience) or achievements (if you’ve done an internship before) can make this section really clear.

[Experience 2] As a senior majoring in marketing at [College], I have acquired skills in SEO, paid advertising, organic, PR, and social media and hold a 3.7 GPA.

Closing the letter: Make a final point and include a call to action such as “I look forward to discussing how I can contribute to your organization at the interview”. If this is an internship in design or similar, you could also include a link to your online portfolio.

Sign off: This should be professional. If you know the name of the person you are addressing then “yours sincerely” if you don’t and are addressing “sir” or “madam” it should be “yours faithfully”.

Top tip: If you’re struggling to remember, it’s “friends aren’t faithful”, so someone whose name you know, a “friend”, is not someone you address faithfully.

If you’d like to use something less formal, you might choose “with best wishes” or “respectfully”.

Signature: If you’re sending the letter in the post, add a handwritten signature. If you’re attaching it to an email, simply sign off with your full name.

A cover letter is your way of telling the story of your resume. It’s often one of the key deciders when a hiring manager is shortlisting applicants for an interview.

It’s important to spend some time and effort on your cover letter so that you can really showcase your skills, experience, and personality.

Format your cover letter professionally: Your cover letter should use a formal business format (unless otherwise stated in the job advert). If you are sending the cover letter via email, you might slightly tweak the format to have your contact details at the bottom of the email’s signature, rather than at the top of the email.

Every cover letter you do should be different: Internship applications are a lot of work. The most successful applications though are those that have clearly read the job advert and customized their application.

Do your research, find out about the company’s mission, vision, and values, speak to previous interns, read reviews, and take a deep dive into their social media.

The more time and effort you spend on your cover letter, the more successful it will be.

Use keywords: If an organization is using an application scanning software then they’ll be searching for keywords and phrases from the job description in your application. Use language that they use when you’re writing your cover letter.

As an example, a company might be looking for a “hard-working intern with excellent timekeeping skills”, you might respond with:

Address any specific points detailed in the job pack: Some job descriptions will ask you to address certain key points in your cover letter. Make sure you address all of them clearly and concisely.

If it’s easier, and to make it clearer for the person reading your application, use subheadings.

Make it specific: Use specific examples and explain why they are relevant. If you don’t have a lot of work experience, detail the modules you’ve taken as part of your college career or the names of relevant papers you have submitted.

You don’t have to talk about every detail of your career and education so far, just choose the ones that are most relevant to your application.

Talk about your academic achievements: Detail information such as your major and minor, classes you’re taking, and relevant projects you have worked on. If leadership is an attribute they are looking for, you could talk about the time you successfully lead a team project.

Extracurricular activities, sports, and voluntary work might all be relevant: No work experience? No problem! Draw on other things that you do alongside your studies such as being in a society, playing a sport, or volunteering at your local dog shelter.

Proof your letter, and then proof it again: Make sure that your application is perfect and that there are no errors such as spelling or grammar mistakes. As well as running your cover letter through a system such as Grammarly, ask friends and family to read through your application.

If you can, ask someone who is a hiring manager and looks at internship applications as part of their job to give you some feedback.

Don’t give up: It can feel like writing cover letters for internships takes over your life.

If you’re unsuccessful, where possible, ask for feedback. Some good feedback could help you to successfully get an internship elsewhere. Know that internship programs tend to be really competitive, but you will get there!

If this is your first internship, you might find it easier to successfully apply to internships at less well-known companies. It could be the foot in the door you need for a more prestigious internship next year.

Internship cover letter examples

These sample cover letters are here for guidance. We’ve covered some of the main industries that offer internships as well as providing some generic examples. These can be downloaded and used as a template for your own applications.

Make sure you follow our tips above so that they’re relevant to your specific experience and the specific internship you’re applying to!

This provides a basic template that you can apply to lots of different internships in different industries.

Read the cover letter below or download it here .

[Email] [Cell number]

[Hiring manager name] [Department] [Company name] [City, state, zip code]

Dear [hiring manager],

I am writing to apply for the [specific internship] that was listed [on your website / at the [school name] career services office]. I am a [insert adjective], [insert adjective 2], and [insert adjective 3] student who would be ideal for this role, and my skills and experience make me a great fit for your organization.

[Experience 1] As editor of my university’s college paper, The Buzz, I am in charge of a team of 50 volunteer writers, photographers, and designers. In the last year, I have grown the paper’s readership by 20% and secured 3 sponsorship deals from local businesses, valued at over £20,000.

[Key statistics] I currently work as a freelance marketeer for [Company Name], a building contractor with over 300 employees. For over 18 months I have grown their social media accounts and developed content for their website. During this time I have: Grown their LinkedIn by over 250% Increased engagement on their Facebook by 70% Boosted website visits by 96%

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss how I can add value to [company name].

Yours sincerely,

[Your name]

If you’ve never worked before, this cover letter gives you some examples of how you might draw on your academic and extracurricular activities to successfully get your first internship.

I am delighted to apply for your [subject/role] internship at [company name]. Currently, in my junior year at [college name], I am majoring in [subject] and have maintained a 3.98 GPA.

I recently completed a module on [relevant subject] where I wrote a paper on [relevant title], featuring [company you’re applying to] as a case study. This showcased [what you learned about the company].

As a student, I have been extensively involved in my school community. I am currently the social chair for the 300+ strong gaming society. I am responsible for arranging weekly meetings and twice-termly larger events such as hackathons, tournaments, and our annual cross-college games convention which is attended by over 2,000 students.

Personal attributes that I believe make me suitable for this position include:

• Communication: I am a very social person who has traveled globally as a chess player. I am also a friendly face at the Games Society and have been part of the committee since my freshman year.
• Organized: Year after year I have grown attendance at our cross-college games convention by at least 10%. This year I am also adding an additional day of activities.
• Motivated: I am the first person in my family to go to college so academic achievement is very important to me.

With my academic achievements and extra-curricular activities, I feel that I can bring a lot of skills to your organization. I am looking forward to expanding my knowledge of [example] and [example] while bringing my hard work and dedication to your team.

Your mission [insert company mission extract] resonates with me so much [because].

Need to show off your current skills and experience? Here’s an example data science cover letter.

As a recent Bachelor of Computer Science graduate, I have spent the last four years exploring machine learning, big data, and AI. I’m excited to bring my experience to [Company Name] as your next data science intern.

Each summer during college, I successfully completed a summer internship program in data science. Most recently, in the summer of 2022, I joined GH Computing for 12 weeks. During this time, I worked on a model to forecast sales across North America, working cross-functionally with a broad variety of departments.

I completed a one-year industry placement between my second and third years of studies at AHB Industries and spent this time splitting my time between the data analytics and data sciences teams. Within this year I: mentored two summer placement students in data science, drove the optimization of their operational processes, and worked as part of the team who improved their telecommunications network efficiency by 20% in just 3 months.

I am fluent in Java, Python, R, Tableau, and PowerBI, and achieved a 4.0 GPA whilst studying at [College Name].

I have the experience and passion to help [Company Name] grow over the next 12 months. I am dedicated to continual learning and would be thrilled to join the team. You can find my online portfolio at www.myportfolio.com.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss how I can add value at interview.

Love numbers and looking for a career in accounting? Here’s an example accounting cover letter.

I recently found your job posting for your summer accounting internship at [company name] via my college’s jobs board and am delighted to submit an application. I am currently a junior at [college name] majoring in accounting and finance. I have a strong academic record, achieving a 3.8 GPA year after year and completing numerous projects focused on accounts payable, month-end closings, and year-end accounts.

Last fall, I spent a month working in industry at ABC Incorporated where I was able to join their payroll team. During this month I saw the end-to-end preparation of payroll for over 2,000 employees and also gained experience in accounts payable and invoice creation.

I was excited to see that this summer program would allow me to learn from several functional areas including revenue, tax compliance, and financial management. [Company name]’s values align with my own. As a young black female with aspirations in the finance industry, I am delighted that your organization is passionate about increasing representation in this field.

I am hard-working and eager to learn and believe I could make an impact on your team this summer.

My resume is attached and I am looking forward to discussing this opportunity further!

Want to pursue a career in architecture, and already pursuing relevant academic qualifications? Here’s an example architecture cover letter.

I am delighted to submit my application for the one-year architecture internship at [company name]. I am a current Master of Architecture student at [college name], having graduated from my undergraduate studies in 20[xx] from [college name] in the top 3% of students.

During my undergraduate program, I completed 15 projects which helped me to develop excellent software skills in SketchUp, Lumion, and ArchiCad. I am also highly proficient in Rhino3D and Revit.

My Master of Architecture is focused on sustainable commercial design. As an organization that has a sustainable approach to design, your award-winning Mystery Box Theatre design formed part of a paper I recently completed on Net Zero In Public Space Design.

Last summer I worked as the Intern Architect at EcoLoGIC Ltd for three months. I joined professional site visits, produced detailed drawings, and assisted with the design of the new Mercury Inc headquarters which broke ground just a few weeks ago.

For the past two years, I have worked as an office assistant for 12 hours a week at JA Design, a boutique architectural firm with a team of 20 employees. My responsibilities have included managing reception, writing correspondence, updating their website, proofing documents, and general office management and clerical responsibilities. This role has given me first-hand experience in an organization whilst also developing my people, time management, and communication skills.

It would be a delight to discuss my experience further with [company name]’s team as I feel I could aid the studio in its mission of sustainable style.

A whiz with computers? Here’s an example IT cover letter.

Please accept my application to your IT summer internship program from summer 20[xx]. I’ve been following the [company name] journey for some time, so was excited to come across this opportunity on LinkedIn.

As stated in my enclosed resume, I am in my senior year at [college name] with a 3.88 GPA majoring in Computer Science. I’m among the top 5% of high-achieving students and on the Dean’s list.

Besides my academic endeavors, I am also on the chess club, the swim team, and part of the computer science society. I’ve found that balancing a range of responsibilities has meant that I am highly organized.

Last fall, I spent a term working in the industry as an IT intern at Sandy Corp’s head office in Minnesota. During my three-month placement, I was responsible for resolving technical support requests, updating the intranet, and developing new web pages. During this time I:

• Responded to over 1,000 IT support requests.
• Installed computer systems.
• Managed the end-to-end IT onboard of over 50 new starters.

I am a native speaker of English and Spanish and confident in coding languages such as C++, Javascript, SQL, Java, and Python.

Over the 8 weeks of this summer program, I hope that I will be able to learn more about IT in an international setting whilst also making an impact on your operations.

Thank you for your time and consideration, I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Is engineering the career for you? Here’s an example engineering cover letter.

I am writing to apply for [company name]’s undergraduate summer internship program in chemical engineering. I am currently a sophomore majoring in chemical engineering with a minor in physics at [college name] and have a strong interest in process engineering in the pharmaceutical industry.

Entering college during the Covid-19 pandemic has shown more than ever the vital importance of our pharmaceutical industry.

I recently met a number of your previous interns and recent graduate employees at my university’s careers fair and was excited to learn about their hands-on experience developing Covid-19 vaccines in the last few years. The [company name] mission to “be more to succeed” also resonated with me, as I am someone who is always striving to learn and improve.

This past summer, I had the opportunity to intern with Grant Turton, a small organization specializing in capsule-based animal health. During my 12-week placement, I worked on the commissioning and validation of a clean room.

I am aware that this program has the opportunity to complete an additional 4 weeks at your Swiss office. I speak fluent French as my mom is from France so would be able to communicate with French-speaking colleagues with ease.

Please find attached my resume which accompanies this application.

Excited by big data? Here’s an example data analyst cover letter.

I am writing to apply for the data analyst internship at [company name] that I saw advertised on the [college name] jobs board. I am confident that my experience, knowledge, and previous work experience make me the ideal candidate for this role, and see this as a great opportunity to grow professionally.

I am a freshman majoring in Information Science at [college name]. In my first two semesters, I achieved a 3.8 GPA and placed among the top 3% of students.

Prior to beginning my college career, I spent 3 months working with Sandara Inc as a junior data analyst. I was given a lot of responsibility very early on, managing and maintaining their employee database. Each week I compiled and interpreted this data into a weekly report for their senior management team.

I am a team player, who has competed at a national level in the junior league softball team and I am now part of the [college name] swim team. Sports have taught me how to work with others through victories and defeats. I am as disciplined with my training in the pool as I am in the classroom and the workplace.

My academic record, sporting achievements, and work experience all make me ideal for your summer program. I hope to discuss my experience with you further at interview.

Know your Python from your Java? Here’s an example software engineer cover letter.

I am writing to apply for the software engineering internship for summer 2025 that is listed on your website (ID: 500-500). I am a senior student at [College] majoring in computer science and hold a 4.0 GPA. Particularly interested in front-end application development, I was excited to see that this was a core part of your summer program.

I’ve been building things since I was 12 when I taught myself Python online. Since then I’ve built a number of apps, including a lecture booking program that is now used across my school by over 20,000 users.

Now confident in AngularJS, React Native, and Node.js my recent coursework was awarded the Dean’s Prize.

Last year, I spent a year studying abroad in Japan. During this time I spent 4 weeks interning at Funky Games Studio, learning from some of the most successful games developers in the world. While interning I was able to program the background scene for their recently released Catchy Racers. This proved to be a fantastic opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and develop new skills while also experiencing a completely different culture (and learning some Japanese!)

During your 12-week program, I want to push myself as an engineer, step out of my comfort zone, and build my experience whilst also making a valid contribution to your team.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I have attached my resume to this application, and my portfolio can be accessed via www.myportfolio.com.

Can you create amazing things on InDesign? Here’s an example graphic design cover letter.

I was excited to learn via LinkedIn that [company name] is looking for graphic design interns to join their summer program this year. I have just graduated from [school], majoring in graphic design and branding, which has allowed me to develop my creativity, professionalism, and aptitude for graphic design. I am due to begin my master’s program at [school] in graphic design this fall and hope to develop my professional skills by joining your program.

Throughout my undergraduate studies, I completed a variety of freelance projects which allowed me to build my professional skills in both print and digital design. Last year, I had the opportunity to participate in an international design contest creating a new logo for Brand Magazine. Out of over 10,000 participants, I made the final three. This success led to three magazines approaching me to create new logos for them. The money earnt from these three logos has funded my postgraduate studies in full. This work and my freelance work are all available to view on my portfolio www.myportfolio.com.

I hope to discuss the contributions I could make to your team at the interview. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best regards,

Want to pursue a career in banking or finance? Here’s an example finance internship cover letter.

I am a senior at [school], majoring in finance, with a minor in mathematics and a 3.8 GPA. I am writing to express my interest in the investment banking summer program at [name organization] as I believe I am an ideal candidate for the position.

I have completed modules in financial modeling, investment banking, and advanced investment banking with grades in the top 5%. I am hoping that this placement could form the basis of my undergraduate dissertation, Risk Analysis in the US Banking Sector.

As captain of the football team, I have completed my studies on a full scholarship. I have developed my skills as a leader, ambitiously pushing towards our highest national placement at college nationals year after year. I also act as the team’s treasurer, managing over $200,000 of scholarship funding and a further $100,000 of sports funding each year.

During my time as treasurer, I have:

• Reduced annual spending by 5%
• Increased our fundraising efforts to bring in an additional 10% of funding year-on-year
• Raised enough funds to generate one additional full football scholarship.

I hope that this internship can grow my experience in finance, shaping me for a career in investment banking in an international setting. I am particularly interested in the 4-week global placement that follows the successful completion of this program in the US. I find the international opportunities that come with this career trajectory incredibly exciting.

Thank you for considering my application. I look forward to discussing my application further at the interview.

Got your finger on the pulse of TikTok? Here’s an example marketing cover letter.

I am excited to apply for the summer marketing program that I saw advertised via the [School]’s job board. Reading the job specification I am delighted that my academic accomplishments and previous work experience meet all the necessary requirements. I am a creative, design-led, and ambitious marketing junior at [School] who is seeking a rewarding internship.

At school, I have acquired skills in advertising, PR, content writing, SEO, and paid media while focusing my coursework on print and digital design.

I currently work as a content marketing manager for the online clothing brand Glossy. In the past 12 months, I have:

• Developed their content strategy
• Grown their TikTok and Instagram audiences by 200% and 220% respectively
• Yielded a 50% ROI from paid advertising

Last year, I completed a 12-week summer internship program with the design agency Raw, where I worked on the entire rebrand for one of their clients.

A keen photographer in my spare time, I love creating a visual identity. You can find my photography and design work on my portfolio website www.myportfolio.com.

I would be delighted to have the opportunity to interview with you, I appreciate your time and consideration.

Writing cover letters for internships is tough for everyone. Here are some frequently asked cover letter questions.

How can I send a cover letter?

More and more, cover letters are sent via email. However, some companies still expect to receive a cover letter and resume via the mail. Check the job description.

If the letter is being sent via email, you can either copy and paste the cover letter into the body of the email (note: you may want to play around with formatting) or you can attach the cover letter to the email.

If you’re opting for the latter, write a simple cover email. It might go something like that.

Dear [hiring manager’s name],

I am delighted to apply for the [internship name] at [organization name].

As requested I have provided my cover letter and resume which are both attached to this email.

I look forward to hearing from you!

In some instances, an organization might have an online application form that you attach your cover letter to. Again, this should be made clear in the job description.

Do I have to write a cover letter for an internship?

A cover letter is a key element of the internship application process. However, some organizations ask for candidates to fill in an application form, or submit an online application.

In some cases, they won’t ask for a cover letter but a personal statement instead. This will have much of the same content but will not be formatted as a letter.

If a company says that a cover letter is not compulsory, it’s best to still work on and submit a cover letter.

What can I include in a cover letter when I don’t have work experience?

No work experience? No problem! Everyone has to start somewhere and for a lot of people, an internship is their first experience of the workplace.

Find examples of your skills from:

• Your academic achievements
• Any voluntary work you have done
• Your hobbies
• Community work
• Unskilled jobs you have had in the past

What is an “uninvited” cover letter, and should I send one?

An uninvited cover letter is sometimes referred to as a cold cover letter. This is when you submit a cover letter for an internship that is not currently advertised.

This can be a good strategy for smaller organizations that might not have considered hiring an intern previously. They might create a role or keep you in mind when a position becomes available.

Although you won’t be able to tailor your application based on a job specification you should still tailor your cover letter based on a role you would like and why this is an organization you want to work for.

Choose companies you particularly admire, rather than sending lots of these cold applications out.

Make sure that there aren’t already internships advertised, as if you cold apply when there are open positions this can reflect very poorly.

Did you know that we’ve produced the ultimate guide to internships? We cover everything from the different kinds of internships to application deadlines to look out for. Check out the ultimate guide to internships here .

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Meet our 2024 Summer Intern Class

FPRI offers internships for students during the Summer, Fall, and Spring terms. Our interns have the opportunity to connect with members of the foreign relations community and gain experience working for a prestigious think tank. Each intern is paired with a scholar or professional in the field who will work with them to develop industry-specific skills as well as sharpen general skills that come from working in a professional environment such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and time management. Summer interns have the opportunity to attend weekly foreign policy and career-focused seminars with guest speakers. Interns gain access to all of FPRI’s in-person, virtual, and hybrid events, enriching their experience. Additionally, interns have the opportunity to work on a research paper to be considered for publication on FPRI’s Intern Corner . We value and strive to maintain relationships with former interns years after their internship term with us.

FPRI offers in-person and remote internships. Please carefully read the directions below before submitting an application. Due to the volume of inquiries and applications, you will only be contacted if you have been selected for an interview.

Internship Schedule and Application Dates:

Fall  Duration: September – December  Fall Application Deadline: (Application Closed) Fall Decision: August 18th

(Application Opens October 1st ) Duration: February – May  Spring Application Deadline: November 1st Spring Decision: December 15th

Summer  Duration: June – August 

Summer Application Deadline: (Application Closed) Summer Decision: April 15th – May 1st

Application Notice

            You will be asked to submit one single PDF file that includes a cover letter stating which internship you are applying for – Operations, Development, Communications, Editorial, Eurasia, Middle East, Africa, or Asia, a resume, and a writing sample of 3-5 pages of work most relevant to the internship you are applying for (Research and editorial applicants only).

Please Note

• Due to the volume of inquiries and applications, you will only be contacted if you have been selected for an interview.
• There are a limited number of paid part-time internships available. We have ten (10) paid internship stipends available for the Summer 2024 term. Stipend awards are determined by financial need after interns are selected for their program.
• We also offer part-time unpaid internships. Many interns have been successful in securing work-study grants through their university’s financial aid office. 
• Please read all directions carefully before submitting an application. Your application will not be reviewed if you do not submit all the materials required in one single PDF file, or do not select the type of internship you are applying for (Research, Operations, etc.).
• Internships will be offered in-office or remotely. 
• Applications are not reviewed on a rolling basis. Please see the submission dates above.
• There are no restrictions on nationality, and one need not be a U.S. citizen to apply. However, FPRI does not sponsor VISA applications.

Types of Internships at FPRI

Please apply to the position below that best describes the experience you would like to gain at FPRI. 

Research Interns work under the direct supervision of an FPRI staffer and alongside scholars in one of the following research areas: Middle East, Eurasia, Africa, or Asia. Duties and availability vary between programs, so applicants should specify which research program they are interested in and will be matched with a scholar in that program upon acceptance. This position currently allows for remote interns who can communicate with their supervisor via Zoom, email, and/or phone. Research internships often require advanced foreign language skills, data analysis skills, and study abroad or field research experience.

Special Events/Development Interns work with the Development Director and Event Manager on all event-related tasks.  Special Events and Development Interns are required to work the majority of events that FPRI hosts or co-hosts. Interns must have flexible school and work schedules and may be asked occasionally to work weekday evenings. This position is intended for individuals local to the Philadelphia, PA area.

Communications Interns assist the Assistant Director of Communications on content development for social media platforms cognizant of content trends. This position requires familiarity with International Relations/Global Affairs/US Foreign Policy, particularly with Eurasia studies, content creation on varied platforms, Adobe Express, Hootsuite, and content management systems. Attention to detail is also required.

Operations Interns will assist FPRI’s management staff with a variety of projects related to our internship program, and other operations-related tasks. 

How to Write a Cover Letter for Internship (Examples & Template)

You’ve found the perfect internship and it’s now time to apply and land the position!

But, in addition to your resume, you also have to write an internship cover letter.

You might end up staring at the blank Word document for hours and nothing comes out.

We don’t blame you; cover letters are hard to write even if you have a decade’s worth of work experience, let alone if you’re a recent graduate or a student.

Worry not, though; in this article, we’re going to teach you all you need to know to write a compelling cover letter for your internship.

• Do you need a cover letter for an internship?
• How to write a compelling cover letter for an internship
• Plug and play internship cover letter template

Do I Need a Cover Letter for an Internship?

First things first—if you’re wondering whether you actually need a cover letter for your internship application, the answer is yes . 

An internship application is just like any other hiring process, meaning that a recruiter will go over your resume , cover letter (and maybe even references), and decide whether you’re qualified for the position. 

And yes, recruiters contrary to what you might think, recruiters do read your cover letter. 56% of recruiters prefer a cover letter with an applicant’s application.

This is reasonable - a cover letter allows you to add essential information you didn’t have space for in a resume, as well as explain (in words) how your experiences are tied to the role you’re applying for.

As such, a cover letter for an internship is essential and complementary to your application package.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s go over all the best ways to write a cover letter for an internship. 

How to Write a Cover Letter for Internship

#1. respect the format.

Before you can focus on your cover letter’s contents, you should first make sure you’re sticking to the right format. 

Otherwise, your cover letter will be disorganized and the recruiter will have a hard time following your train of thought.

So, here’s the format that your cover letter for an internship should follow: 

• Header with contact information. This includes your full name, professional email, phone number, and LinkedIn profile (if you have one). Underneath your contact info, you should add the date and the receiver’s information (the recruiter’s name and title, the company/organization name, and their physical address). 
• Addressing the recruiter. Greeting the recruiter with “Dear Sir/Madam” or “To Whom It May Concern” is common, but not the best approach. Want to show the hiring manager that you did your research? We recommend you address the hiring manager by name directly. Our guide on how to address a cover letter covers everything you need to know on this topic!      
• Opening statement. Your opening statement should be brief, but at the same time professional and attention-grabbing. Here, you introduce yourself, mention the position you’re applying for, and potentially a key achievement or two.   
• Body. The body of your cover letter consists of 2-3 paragraphs where you highlight your education, provide background for your skills, and explain how you (and the company) would benefit from each other professionally. 
• Closing paragraph. Your closing paragraph is your chance to include a call to action, to thank the recruiters for their time, or mention anything important you left out. 
• Formal salutation. End your cover letter with a formal salutation such as “kind regards,” “sincerely,” or “best regards.” Our guide on how to end a cover letter can teach you all you need to know on the topic. 

Having trouble getting started with your cover letter? Read our guide on how to start a cover letter and get inspired!

#2. State the Position You’re Applying For in the Opening

Recruiters hate one-size-fits-all cover letters and resumes.

Around 48% of recruiters and hiring managers aren’t even going to read your cover letter if it’s not customized to the role you’re applying for.

And one of the easiest ways to do this is by mentioning the role you’re applying for right in the cover letter opening.

This allows you to:

• Show that you will be tailoring the rest of your cover letter for that position alone.
• Prove that your cover letter is customized for this specific internship, and you’re not just randomly applying for the job,

Here’s a practical example of how you can mention the role you’re applying for in the cover letter opening:

Dear Mr. Jacobs, 

It is my pleasure to apply for the Communications Assistant internship position at the United Nations Development Programme. I can confidently say based on my 2-year experience working as a journalist and my excellent academic results in the Mass Communications Major that I’d be a good fit for the position. 

#3. Mention the Right Keywords

When reviewing your application, hiring managers tend to scan your cover letter or resume and look for the right keywords that would make you qualified for the internship you’re applying for.

E.g. If you're applying for a job in graphic design, the recruiter is probably looking for keywords like “Photoshop,” “Illustrator,” or “InDesign.”

As such, it’s very important to include the right keywords in your cover letter.

How can you find these keywords, you might ask?

It’s actually pretty simple - just look at the internship job description and go through the required skills & responsibilities and identify the keywords that you’d think the recruiter would be looking for.

Then, do the following:

• Sprinkle some of those keywords throughout your cover letter. When relevant, back them up with an experience. E.g. don’t just say “I’m good at Photoshop,” say how you’ve taken 3 different Photoshop classes and used Photoshop for 2 different projects.
• Don’t include keywords that don’t apply to you, they’ll just make it seem like you’re copy-pasting from the job description.
• Research and add other popular soft skills that recruiters look for in applicants for the role you’re applying for. E.g. If you’re applying for an internship as a communications assistant, chances are, you’ll need strong communication skills (even if this is not something listed in the job description.

Now, let’s look at a practical example. Let’s say that the internship you’re applying for requires the following skills:

• Communication
• Ability to meet strict deadlines

Here’s how you’d mention this in your cover letter:

During my time as Editor in Chief at my University’s newspaper, I got to develop my communication and leadership skills significantly. For over two years, I was in charge of a 7 people team, which also helped my teamwork skills and my ability to meet deadlines. 

Keep in mind, though, that it IS possible to overdo it with the keywords.

44% of hiring managers say they will dismiss a resume or cover letter that looks as if it has copied the job posting. 

Using each and every keyword mentioned in the job description (without backing the skills up with experiences) might cause the hiring manager to think that you’re just copying the job ad & don’t actually have these skills.

So, don’t just copy-paste all the keywords from the job description, and if you DO mention a lot of those keywords, make sure to back them up with practical experiences.

#4. Highlight Your Education

If you don’t have a lot of work experience, your education and relevant coursework is your best chance to show that you’re a good fit for the internship. 

Letting the recruiter know what kind of courses you’ve completed that are relevant to the internship you’re applying for will be a big plus for your application. 

Say, for example, that you’re applying for an internship as a graphic designer. To make your internship cover letter impactful, make sure to mention all the relevant courses and related accomplishments. 

Here’s an example of how you could do that:

As a Visual Design major, I have completed several courses that have helped me build my professional portfolio. A few of the most beneficial ones have been Design & Layout and Visual Communication: Theory and Practice. I have also gained valuable experience doing the layout of the university’s newspaper for 4 years and of several books as independent projects. 

#5. Provide Background For Your Skills

It’s one thing to just claim that you have a set of skills and another to prove it. 

Anyone can say that they’re great at doing something, but what makes all the difference is when you can actually put your money where your mouth is. 

For example, in your internship cover letter, instead of just mentioning that you have “good time-management skills,” actually back it up with a past experience that proves it.

During the summers I assisted my family’s wedding planning business, I learned a lot about time management. In that kind of business, it’s important that things run like clockwork so in addition to time management skills, it also significantly improved my attention to detail. 

#6. Explain Why You’re a Good Fit For The Position

In addition to just listing out the skills that are relevant and beneficial for the internship, you should also explain why you are a good fit for the position. 

This means that you should connect the dots between what the company/organization is looking to gain from its interns and what you can do to provide those services. 

So, after you research and create an understanding of what is required of you, you should use your cover letter to explain why you’re a good fit for that position. 

For the sake of the example, let’s assume you’re applying for an internship at a Human Rights organization. A big chunk of what the role requires is categorizing virtual files of the cases the organization has worked on in the past.

What you want to do, in this case, is show how you can help with that particular job as an intern. Here’s how:  

I have spent 3 summers working at the National Library, where I was tasked to sort and categorize books based on their topic, author, and year of publication, and also memorize where each section fits in the library. I believe this skill, which I have perfected over the years, can really be of use for the internship position at Organization X.

#7. Describe What You Would Gain Professionally

In addition to showing (and proving) your skills and how you can benefit the company, you should also explain how getting the position will benefit YOU . 

When it comes to internships, oftentimes they serve the purpose of helping students and young professionals acquire in-depth knowledge about the industry, create a network, and develop skills that will benefit them throughout their careers. 

So, it will surely help you make an even better impression if you show that you are self-aware about what you’ll get out of the internship and how it will help you grow professionally. 

Here’s how you can do that: 

I am excited for this internship to provide me with the necessary customer service skills and network that will help me grow professionally in my future career as a customer service manager. 

#8. Proofread Your Cover Letter

After all, is written and done, there’s one final thing to do and that is make sure your cover letter doesn’t have mistakes. 

A spelling or grammar mistake probably won’t disqualify you, but at the same time, it will probably be a red flag for recruiters that you’re not too attentive.

For this reason, ask a friend to proofread your cover letter or use spell-checking software such as Grammarly and Hemingway . 

Want to know what other cover letter mistakes you should avoid? Our guide on cover letter mistakes has all you need to know on the topic! 

#9. Match Your Cover Letter & Resume Designs

Want your internship application to truly shine?

Match your cover letter design with your resume!

Sure, you could go with a generic Word cover letter template, but why fit in when you can stand out?

At Novorésumé, all our resume templates come with a matching cover letter template , guaranteed to make your application truly special.

Cover Letter for Internship Template

Struggling to create a cover letter for your internship?

Simply follow our tried-and-tested internship cover letter template!

Key Takeaways 

And that’s a wrap! You should now have all the necessary information about how to create a cover letter for an internship.

Now, let’s do a small recap of the key learning points we just covered:

• Cover letters are a must when you’re applying for an internship.
• When you start writing your cover letter, make sure you respect the format: the header with contact information, the greeting to the recruiter, an opening paragraph, the body with 2-3 paragraphs, and a closing paragraph followed by an official salutation and your name.
• Some of our main tips on how to write a cover letter for an internship include: state the position you’re applying for, make use of the right keywords, and back up your skills with experiences.
• Use a cover letter builder and match it with your resume to make sure your cover letter truly stands out from the rest.

Related Readings: 

• Entry-level Cover Letter
• Do I Need a Cover Letter in 2024?
• Top 21 Cover Letter Tips

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Internship Cover Letter Examples and Templates for 2024

• Cover Letter Examples
• Cover Letter Text Examples

How To Write an Internship Cover Letter

When writing your cover letter for an internship, focus on how you can quickly apply course concepts at the company that posted the position. Also, emphasize the related skills you’ve gained through your school, work, or other life experiences so far. This guide offers cover letter examples and tips for landing an internship.

Internship Cover Letter Templates and Examples

• Entry-Level
• Senior-Level

Internship Text-Only Cover Letter Templates and Examples

Mackenzie Martin Business Administration Student | [email protected] | (123) 456-7890 | St. Louis, MO 63101 | LinkedIn

January 1, 2024

Andrea Tarentino Recruiting Manager Creative Communications, Inc. (314) 987-6543 [email protected]

Dear Ms. Tarentino:

At Prairie Landing Business College, I have maintained a 4.0 GPA for seven consecutive semesters. I’ve also worked as an administrative assistant in the bursar’s office for two years, processing financial aid and tuition payments.

I’m passionate about the business world, so I’m completing my bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in digital marketing. The skills I’ve gained through my degree program will help me excel as a marketing intern at Creative Communications, Inc.

Here are three of my achievements to date:

• Participated in more than 30 events for DECA’s Competitive Events Program and received several recognition awards
• Won first place in the St. Louis Regional Library’s annual junior business leaders competition
• Maintained perfect attendance for six out of seven semesters at Prairie Landing Business College

I look forward to possibly speaking with you more about how I can support your organization. Please let me know a date and time that works well for you to discuss the opportunity. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Mackenzie Martin

Gertrude McDaniel Marketing Supervisor | [email protected] | (434) 395-9244 | Atlantic City, NJ 54321 | LinkedIn

January 11, 2024

Sidney Brockley Senior Hiring Manager BigAds Agency (323) 386-3948 [email protected]

Dear Mr. Brockley:

After a successful career in traditional marketing, I recently earned a master’s degree in digital marketing. I’d love the chance to add value to your organization while gaining experience in this fast-growing sector.

For the past six years, I’ve served as a marketing supervisor for the global brand Molson Coors. My team played a key role in recent changes that modernized the company and led to 5% growth within a year.

I would be delighted to bring the knowledge I’ve gained about digital marketing to BigAds as an intern. Below are three more of my achievements to date:

• Trained and motivated team members, helping the department set a new staff retention record of 96%
• Pinpointed areas of overspending and helped make significant Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) improvements
• Raised my company’s marketing return on investment (ROI) by 2% in 2019 and 4% in 2020

After reading your company’s values and mission statement, I’m certain my skills and attitude align with the culture at BigAds. Please let me know the best time for an interview. I appreciate your time and look forward to possibly hearing from you soon.

Gertrude McDaniel

Maria Esperanza Data Scientist | [email protected] | (123) 878-0990 | Los Alamos, NM 50557 | LinkedIn

Jenny Medina Senior Hiring Manager Viome, Inc. (373) 232-7224 [email protected]

Dear Ms. Medina:

My advanced work experience in applied statistics, SQL, and Python makes me an ideal candidate for the internship position at Viome. In my current role, I implemented big data analysis techniques and learning algorithms that optimized classifiers across the company.

Mathematics and wellness are my two main passions, as shown by my bachelor’s degree in applied statistics, master’s degree in nutrition, and pursuit of a Ph.D. in data science. Recently, I started working toward the Data Science Council of America (DASCA) Senior Data Scientist (SDS) award.

I would love the chance to work at your high-tech startup. The skills I’ve acquired can transfer perfectly from a business-driven data science role to a dynamic smaller company with a humanitarian mission. My achievements include:

• Using data mining techniques and machine learning to forecast product sales with 96% accuracy
• Performing ad-hoc social media analyses to help the sales and marketing department streamline the acquisitions process

I’d be delighted to set up an interview so we can discuss your company’s internship program further. Please let me know a date and time that suits you. Thank you very much for your consideration.

Maria Esperanza

A great internship cover letter usually has five sections, outlined below. When possible, connect each section back to your relevant entry-level skills and the employer’s internship program. The following advice and examples show what to include in your cover letter so it’s optimized for each intern opportunity.

At the top of the page, include your resume contact header, the date, and any contact details you have for your recipient. To set a clear focus, add a professional title to your contact header. In the internship cover letter example below, see how the title “Business Administration Student” quickly reveals the applicant’s career direction and knowledge base.

(Note: Feel free to omit this section if you send your letter as an email message and your contact information is part of your email signature.)

2. Salutation

Whenever you can, address your recipient by name – it’s the fastest way to signal you’re sending a custom letter and not a boilerplate. If you can’t find the recipient’s name, use “Dear Internship Coordinator” or a variation of “Dear Hiring Manager” so your greeting is still tailored somewhat to each opportunity.

Dear BigAds Agency Hiring Manager:

3. “Hook” or introduction

To catch the reader’s attention, start your letter with a specific achievement or key qualification the company is looking for. Choose a highlight that shows you can quickly build knowledge and apply new skills. This highlight will likely come from your degree program but could also be any related work or volunteer experience you have. (Consult your resume bullet points for ideas.)

4. Body paragraph(s)

Use the main section of your letter to tell why you’re drawn to this internship or employer. For instance, maybe the work overlaps with one of your recent school papers or projects. Or the company’s product set or mission statement appeals to you and the direction you’d like to take your career.

Following this explanation, cite two or three more of your main skills or achievements , possibly as bullet points.

5. Call to action

Finally, request an interview and thank the hiring manager for their time. Consider briefly restating why the position interests you and how you’d like to apply your education. To end your cover letter, use a simple closing like “Sincerely” or “Best regards” and then your name.

Internship Cover Letter Tips

1. show you can quickly apply new knowledge.

Whether or not a company pays its interns, it must spend time and resources training and supervising them. That investment, and the short-term nature of these roles, means you need to show you can apply your skills and knowledge quickly. By demonstrating you’re a quick study, you can assure hiring managers you’ll add value even if your role is limited or temporary.

2. Highlight your relevant skills and traits

Great interns are usually open-minded, collaborative, reliable, and resourceful. View your own experience through that lens. Have certain courses or part-time jobs allowed you to develop any or all of those qualities? Mention them on your cover letter, possibly as bullet points, so they stand out from your other information.

3. When in doubt, brainstorm

Any time you’re stuck on a section of your cover letter, take 10 minutes to jot down your thoughts on a separate document or sheet of paper. By pausing to think more creatively, you can jog your memory and find new details to include about your experience. Brainstorming also helps you figure out the best and most original way to describe that experience, giving your letter the confident tone it needs to catch a hiring manager’s attention.

Internship Cover Letter Frequently Asked Questions

Should i tailor my cover letter for each internship -.

Yes. The main advantage of a cover letter over a resume is it lets you speak directly to the hiring manager about why you fit the role. By tailoring your letter to each internship, you can make the most of this advantage and boost your chances of an interview.

How do I write a cover letter with no work experience? -

Focus on your relevant academic, extracurricular, or volunteer experiences. No part of your letter needs to be about work. But every component should be about the knowledge, curiosity, and dedication you’ll bring to your internship. Even if you've never held a job, you can probably cite various ways you’ve developed these important qualities.

What should my cover letter’s design look like? -

Your resume’s. Carry over all of that document’s basic format settings , like font style, line spacing, and page margins. By styling your cover letter like your resume, you can make your intern application more cohesive and memorable.

Craft a new cover letter in minutes

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Apply to an internship

Getting on to the think tank job ladder can be difficult for young policy entrepreneurs. Universities do not prepare their graduates to work in policy research institutions and certainly do not endow them with the range of competencies and skills they would need to thrive in a think tank.

Internships are an excellent way to both learn about think tanks (and thinktanking) and to get a foot in the door.

The following list provides a brief summary (taken from the institutions themselves) and links to established internships of leading think tanks. These are formal internship programmes that offer support to the interns during their tenure. Some are, in fact, fellowships offering young thinktankers an opportunity to deepen their knowledge on a specific policy issue.

Other think tanks offer internships through informal arrangements and on ad-hoc basis. If you want to find a think tank near you or working on an issue of interest why not visit the Open Think Tank Directory ?

If your organisation has a formal internship or fellowship programme for early career thinktankers please get in touch .

The Brookings Institution

Brookings offers three types of internships – paid, academic for credit, and external sponsorship.  Internships are offered during the Summer, Fall and Spring semesters. Internships are usually 10-12 weeks and located in Washington DC.

Specifically for unpaid Internships, Brookings has partnered with several colleges, universities and external sponsors to provide students’ academic credit or funding to ensure there is a purposeful learning program structured into the experience.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Each year, through the James C. Gaither Junior Fellows program, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace offers approximately 12-14 one-year fellowships to uniquely qualified graduating seniors and individuals who have graduated during the past academic year.

They are selected from a pool of nominees nominated by several hundred participating universities and colleges. James C. Gaither Junior Fellows work as research assistants to Carnegie’s senior scholars.

Chatham House

A Chatham House internship is your chance to work with our community of world-leading policy experts and make lifelong connections. If you are passionate about international affairs and looking for a career in the sector, we want to hear from you.

Former interns have gone on to play instrumental roles in governments, NGOs, academic institutions, international organizations and think tanks.

Foreign Policy Research Institute

FPRI’s Internship Program is designed to give interns first-hand experience working at a non-profit think tank.

FPRI seeks to provide a mutually beneficial experience, by giving the intern the opportunity to work alongside a supervisor in their chosen field. Interns function as team members in the FPRI office, assisting with administrative and event related tasks. Interns are encouraged to take advantage of free admission to FPRI events throughout the course of their internship.

Internships are not paid. All applicants must be enrolled as students for the duration of the internship.  

Royal Society of Arts

The RSA’s paid interns have the chance to explore its distinctive interdisciplinary approach to social change in one of its research teams and the wider organisation.

The role is a varied one, encompassing policy creation, pioneering social projects combined with engaging our Fellowship and global audiences on the latest and most challenging ideas.

Internships generally last six months, and are usually advertised in the spring and autumn each year. The start and anticipated duration of internships will be advertised with each opportunity, along with details of how to apply. The majority of the RSA’s interns will be based at its head office on John Adam Street, London, although this might differ on a project-by-project basis.

World Resources Institute

WRI’s Internship Program offers learning experiences designed for current students, recent graduates, or other candidates who wish to gain knowledge about a specific area of work. WRI offers a variety of paid and unpaid internship opportunities throughout the year in offices around the world.

WRI’s internships provide a learning experience for interns who are able to contribute to projects; many have received recognition in WRI’s published work. And while interns are at WRI, they will have also have opportunities to learn more about its work culture and to network.

Institute of Politics

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AEI Economic Policy Studies Internship

• Location Washington, DC Modality Leaning In-Person Classification Both Organization American Enterprise Institute

Please note: this is a hybrid IOP/external internship. You will apply via an external application to this organization. You will also fill out a quick IOP application form once you've applied externally, signaling to us that you would like to qualify for an IOP-funded spot, if selected. Please note that the IOP has partnered to fund only one Economic Policy Studies Internship with AEI. Pay close attention to offer(s), as some may be unpaid and external to the IOP. The IOP-related offer will be clearly labeled, and [email protected] will be copied. Please note, too, that the AEI internship program runs for 12 weeks, while standard IOP internships run for 8 weeks (320 hours). The stipend for this internship would remain at the IOP's standard $5,500 amount. Please review the job description and apply through AEI here. Summer Intern: Economic Policy Studies Job Locations US-DC-Washington Overview The American Enterprise Institute’s Economic Policy Studies department seeks a driven research intern for summer 2024. The intern will work with scholars and research staff in the Economic Policy Studies department on quantitative, empirically driven research in public finance and international macroeconomics. Topics will include tax and regulatory policy, fiscal sustenance, social welfare programs, and the effects of US monetary policy on emerging and developing market economies. The intern will assist with multiple projects in these fields that directly affect policy. The ideal intern is: Motivated to pursue academic and policy-oriented research in economics, Intellectually curious about public finance and macroeconomics, Detail oriented, Comfortable working independently and developing new skills, and Effective at communication. The intern will be expected to: Retrieve data from multiple sources; Clean and analyze data; Help create charts, tables, and graphs for reports, blog posts, and academic papers; Produce literature reviews, briefs, and memos, showing an understanding of the content; Complete administrative and logistical tasks; and Edit and fact-check drafts of reports, blogs, and academic papers. Successful applicants should have: Good economic intuition and an understanding of public-sector economics; Completed and done well in economics and statistics coursework; and Fluency in coding languages such as R, Stata, and Python that are applicable in economics and public policy research. AEI’s summer 2024 internship program will have three start dates: May 14, 21, and 28, 2024. While the AEI internship program and all related programming will take place in person in Washington, DC, this spring, virtual interns may be accepted on a case-by-case basis. Please include your in-person or virtual preference in your cover letter. About AEI Internships AEI internships offer a unique opportunity for undergraduates, graduate students, and recent graduates to gain experience in research, writing, business, and communications at one of the nation’s leading think tanks. Competitive candidates will generally have a 3.4 GPA or higher from a top-ranking college or university. The AEI internship program runs 12 weeks. Please see the internship program home page for updates about the program. If you are interested in an AEI internship, you might also be interested in applying for AEI’s Summer Honors Program! AEI’s Summer Honors Program is an intensive, fully-funded educational and professional development opportunity for top undergraduate students. Situated in the heart of Washington, DC, this program provides participants the opportunity to connect with the ideas, research, and network of AEI–one of America’s preeminent policy think tanks. This will occur during an intensive one-week seminar led by an AEI scholar or partner instructor. All undergraduates, including Winter 2023 and Spring 2024 graduates are eligible to apply for this terrific paid one-week program. The Early Decision deadline is February 1 and the Regular Decision deadline is March 1. AEI internships can be done in conjunction with Summer Honors Program. Please visit https://www.aei.org/shp/ to learn more.

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We're here to help you, whether you are in the discover, focus or action phase of your career journey., working in think tanks – where should i start.

With a wide range of roles available, working in a think tank can mean different things. For this exact reason there are also different ways to get into the think tank ‘sector’ and it might be difficult to say what life in a think tank is really like – it will vary from think tank to think tank and from role to role.

But how can you get to work for a think tank? And what might that work entail? We’ve tried to put some of our thoughts on Working in think tanks into a blog post, so read on if you’re interested in learning more about what a think tank is, as well as about the skills you might need if you are keen to work in one.

What is a think tank?

Think tanks are research institutes who engage in research, analysis and advocacy, using their resources and expertise to think about big policy issues. They seek to play a role in making and influencing policy – on a regional, national and global level.

While think tanks will vary in structure, size, the policy areas they focus on and their political leaning, they all share a common vision: to carry out research and analysis to improve and come up with policy recommendations for their respective sectors. Some of the main areas of research are social policy, political risk, the economy, the environment, science, technology, industrial or business policies, security and defence and the military.

In order to influence policy, thinks tanks will use media contacts, contacts with politicians, civil servants and other organisations in the policy community to disseminate their work.

What’s it like to work for a think tank?

If you’re interested in shaping policy in a particular sector, working in a think tank can be exciting and fulfilling. As most think tanks aim to be sources of new ideas and research, you will get to engage with the cutting-edge research and analysis they produce. Their main output is the publication of their research and policy work.

The UK boasts more than 120 think tanks with a variety of political leanings and research focuses, so beyond some of the general notions it is difficult to say what working for a think tank will be like. Often it will depend on their size, structure and type of work you will doing for the think tank. Most of our resources assume you will be working in a type of research position, but like any organisation, there will be other types of roles as well such as in communication and marketing, administration, human resources etc.

The best way to find out what working in a think tank is like, is to ask someone currently working for one (in the type of role you would be interested in). Many think tanks will include the biographies of those working for them on their website, so it’s worth having a proper browse to see if you can find anything useful to you. Make sure to reach out to someone (via LinkedIn for example) and ask if they are willing to meet you over a coffee to discuss their experiences and career journeys. In addition to this, King’s Careers & Employability often host industry professionals from various think tanks at our events and every year we organise a Discover Careers in: Think Tank panel event, where you will get first-hand accounts of what working for a think tank is like. You can check out upcoming events on King’s CareerConnect and watch our event recordings of previous events on KEATS .

What skills do I need?

A variety of skills will be needed if you want to work for a think tank and before you apply to work in one, you need to learn how to demonstrate that you have these skills by using examples from your academic work or other relevant experience.

Some skills you will need are:

• Communication
• Team working
• Research (quantitative/qualitative)

Make sure you read all the information about the skills you will need in the job advert or person specification and then read up on the think tank’s values and competency frameworks (if they have this) before applying!

Top 6 tips for working in a think tank

• Be political: If you’re at all considering a future career in party politics, make sure you think about the fit between the think tank you are working for and the views of the relevant party! Alternatively, make sure you have a good explanation for why you worked for a think tank with views that might clash with those of the political party you want to work with.
• Have integrity: You are likely to be more engaged and therefore more successful if you agree with the philosophy and values of the think tank, so it’s worth considering this when preparing to apply.
• Do your homework: We’ve said it before – a good first step is to get familiar with the think tank’s website. Make sure to always tailor your CV and cover letter to the individual think tank, whether you are applying for a job listed in their vacancies or sending out a speculative application.
• Think laterally: Getting a job in a think tank is not always easy and competition for the research positions can be fierce. It could be worth going for an administrative job within a think tank to “get your foot in the door”. Any job within the think tank will give you better opportunities for networking! (Take it from me – I started out as an administrative intern in a think tank and I just got “promoted” to research assistant in the same think tank!)
• Network: True story – a King’s students once got an interview at a think tank by chatting to the person who sat next to them on the train! Obviously this was very lucky and there are no guarantees the same thing will happen to you, but remember to take opportunities and make contacts through networking. You never know when those contacts will become handy!
• Get some experience: Not just experience in a think tank, but any experience which can help you develop the skills a think tank is looking for. Try to get an internship, get involved with a student society (e.g. the King’s Think Tank !) or think about how you integrate a wide range of research methods into your dissertation/thesis!

Smart Thinking list the latest job and internship opportunities from over 30 think tanks, as well as offering guidance for those looking for a career in think tanks and students interested in seeking a think tank placement.

Think Tanks

Would you like to shape policy in a particular sector working in a think tank can be exciting, influential and very fulfilling.

Think tanks are research institutes that seek to play a key role in making and influencing global, regional and national policy. Whilst each think tank serves a specific purpose, they all share a common vision to improve their respective sectors, as well as being sources of new ideas and research.

Think tanks engage in research and advocacy in a range of areas such as social policy, politics, economics, security, the environment, science and technology (AI being very topical at the moment), agriculture and many more. Think tank researchers influence public opinion and public policy, which is a different focus from most traditional academic research at a university. Think tanks also differ from other research organisations such as risk consultancies (see note below), pressure groups or voluntary organisations, in a number of ways:

• They are usually identified with particular positions on the political spectrum, such as left, centrist, right, green, liberal etc.
• They are not usually overtly ‘campaigning’ organisations.
• They often use the media and direct contacts with senior leaders in their sector to disseminate their work in an attempt to influence government as well as wider public debate.
• They can initiate their own work and seek funding for it or can conduct research at the behest of a third party.
• They are generally funded from charitable and/or corporate sources.

The main output of think tanks is the publication of their research and policy work. At the same time, many organise conferences and seminars, both as part of the research process before publication and after publication, to disseminate their work. They may also seek to hold private meetings with government ministers, business people and voluntary organisations involved in the policy making process. Think tank directors and other senior staff members are often considered leading experts in their field and sometimes write pieces for newspapers, political magazines and appear on news and current affairs programmes.

As well as direct engagement with organisations and individuals, think tanks use the internet and media to disseminate their findings and as a way of encouraging debate on the issues in which they have an interest. Many have websites containing downloadable reports, information on seminars, virtual debating forums and further links to useful sites. Some of the larger internationally themed think tanks have a number of offices across the world.

The possible range of areas of focus for a job in a think tank is virtually endless because think tanks carry out research that concerns the specific region, community, or issue area(s) for which they operate, be that a continent, country, state, societal group, political party, industry, or theme.

List of Think Tanks

Some examples of think tanks and their focus are listed below:

International Affairs, Defence and Security

• International Institute for Strategic Studies
• Royal United Services Institute
• Chatham House

Democratic Government

• The Constitution Unit
• New Local Government Network  (NLGN)
• Institute for Public Policy Research

Development

• Institute of Development Studies
• International Institute for Environment and Development
• Overseas Development Institute
• Centre for Economic and Policy Research
• Equality and Human Rights Commission

European Integration

• The European Policy Centre
• Centre for European Policy Studies
• Centre for Economic Policy Research
• Centre for European Reform

Work and Employee Relations

• The Work Foundation
• The Institute for Employment Rights

Other Think Tanks

An additional (non-exhaustive) list of Think Tanks can be found in the “Further Resources” section, below.

The think tank section in the  Guardian  website has a brief summary of, and further links to,  think tanks in the UK . 

Skills and Experience

Skills needed.

Excellent communication (written and verbal), research skills, a keen interest in public policy, current affairs or a specific strand of the think tank’s work, as well as team working and networking are essential. At the level of junior researcher, desk-based research and getting out to meetings and talking to people will be central, but you will probably also have to do a lot of your own administration.

For many think tanks you will need a postgraduate degree that's relevant to their area of expertise, and/or some training in research methodologies. Developing a niche is becoming more important in this sector and so it is advisable to start following current political / societal / technological trends to identify and search for think tanks across the globe. In-depth knowledge of an area,region or theme central to the think tank's work can be crucial.

The work of think tanks and professional bodies utilises a wide range of research methods and involves extensive dissemination activities. Rigorous and sophisticated quantitative and qualitative techniques such as surveys, mapping exercises, interviews and focus groups are often used. Postgraduate research, experience of collecting and analysing statistics, specialist knowledge of a specific subject area and language, or some combination of these factors, are commonly asked for. In-depth knowledge of an area, region or theme central to the organisation’s work can be crucial.  Many think tank websites include staff profiles and it's useful to take a look at these to see how current think tank employees have reached their particular positions.

Getting experience

If you don't have much research experience or a postgraduate degree, short internships are a good way to gain experience and start building your network, and are an invaluable addition to your CV.  They usually consist of a mixture of research and administrative work. Many think tanks only recruit graduates with a masters or DPhil/PhD. Some larger think tanks offer internship programmes, and the specifics of the experience will vary greatly among the opportunities. However, in general, students should look for a few key attributes in researching internship opportunities with think tanks:

• Do the think tank’s philosophy and its core research themes match your own interests?
• Will the internship provide a range of experiences and contacts?
• Will there be an opportunity to be involved in the research or publication of the organisation’s scholarship?
• Will the experience provide a tangible project to talk about in your CV and later interviews?

Alternatively, ‘to get your foot in the door’, it could be worth considering administrative and related jobs within a think tank – although without building up the necessary research skills and experience these roles will not automatically lead to more research-based positions. You could also see if any of the think tanks could offer you some work experience – even if this is not advertised, it can be worth volunteering your services for short periods of time to gain a deeper insight into the sector and to start building contacts. As a starting point, a list of websites is given at the end of this briefing.

Every year there are a number of international and UK-based internships offered through the Internship Programme at the Careers Service. Find out what previous students have said about them and any upcoming opportunities on the  Internship Office’s webpages .

As well as advertised opportunities, if you are proactive and network effectively, it is also possible to create an opportunity through alumni contacts, or through tutors or colleagues who have contacts within organisations.

Will I get paid? Internships and summer jobs are governed in the UK by National Minimum Wage law, which means that if you are carrying out activities that class you as a “worker” by the employer, then you should be paid. Full details of Employment Rights and Pay for Interns are published by the government. If you are undertaking a learning and development opportunity such as a micro-internship, or volunteering for a charity or statutory body, or shadowing or observing, then you may not be eligible for the National Minimum Wage. The organisation may reimburse you for your travel and/or lunch expenses, but they aren’t obliged to do so.

Entry Points

The majority of think tanks are quite small,  therefore, there aren't many researcher vacancies at any one time. Some organisations only employ experienced researchers on contract work. There are several tiers of research positions in think tanks. Most employers expect prospective entrants to have a detailed knowledge of research techniques, which may be acquired by taking a taught or research Masters degree course or a PhD/DPhil in a particular area.

The most common entry point is at a research associate level, or junior researcher, often beginning directly or shortly after completing a PhD/DPhil. Some research associates are hired with a Masters degree and relevant research experience. Senior associates are typically PhD/DPhil level researchers with several years experience. Some are also affiliated with a university, often in an adjunct teaching capacity. About half of these researchers come from academia, while the other half are promoted from within the think tank. These researchers can progress to become senior fellows or research fellows and are appointed because they hold outstanding credentials as nationally or internationally recognised experts in their field.

Policy centre directors have sometimes worked their way up within the think tank sector to the top management of their organisations while other candidates are found primarily through informal networks, prestigious academic programs, and government-related organisations.

Getting a Job

Securing a job in a think tank involves a careful mix of postgraduate training, experience, skills and networking. Research the area in which you want to work, consider what kind of work you want to do and work backwards to plan milestones and your immediate next steps. You may well also re-define and re-focus along the way.

• Talk to people (contacts, alumni, colleagues, tutors, supervisors) who are already working in a field within which you might want to specialise, or who may know people who are in that field. If you are planning a thesis, already writing one, or undertaking research, think about how this may relate to your future aspirations.
• Search for opportunities in publications like the  Guardian ,  The New Statesman ,  The Times Education Supplement , and  The Economist . Individual think tank websites are the most common sources for vacancies and consultancy opportunities.
• Contact think tanks you would like to work for; even if they are not advertising it is worth contacting them and asking about any opportunities, particularly if your research interests correspond strongly with their concerns.

Whether you are looking to start building experience in this sector or already have some directly relevant experience to market, tailoring your CV is crucial. Potential employers need to see that you have an understanding of, demonstrable interest in and ability to thrive in their organisation and the role advertised or that for which you are speculatively applying.

Highlight the skills outlined above that you have already gained in your degree – what are the most relevant courses you have taken or transferable skills you have built to develop your knowledge and research skills? How have these skills been further developed outside of your degree, through roles in societies, student editorial work, freelance consultancy, travel, previous work experience and internships, etc? Are you doing all you can in the way you phrase the bullet points in your CV to convey the research, communication, team-work, numerical, regional, thematic or other interests you know that organisation values?

A note about Risk Consultancy

Risk Consultancy is sometimes also considered by people who want to use their research and communication skills beyond their degree. Political, intelligence and security risk analysts examine the respective climate and social conditions of a country, region, or market to determine the level of risk for a particular client. They may provide information relating to government stability, crime or conflict levels, currency convertibility, land rights, as well as other factors that would affect return on investment or other decisions. Typically, analysts gather information pertaining to the area of interest, determine the causes, sources, and level of risk and forward their findings to decision-makers. They also may offer recommendations for overcoming these risks. For companies operating in multiple countries, local political and economic conditions can determine whether their investment is a success or a failure. Events such as regime change or the sudden collapse of a currency can be devastating if unexpected.

Risk analysts come from a broad range of academic backgrounds and are people who can apply their knowledge to understand new and complex situations. Potential employers are looking for ‘intelligent risk takers’ who are well-informed and keep abreast of current events. They also seek individuals who can write concise and coherent reports. Language skills are an asset but not always a requirement in the field. Some positions may expect you to know a particular region thoroughly so you are able to decipher a balance sheet, understand a country’s economic workings, or provide insight into its politics. However, other positions will focus on several areas of the world and therefore do not expect you to be a specialist.

Therefore, in terms of experience required, a combination of an understanding of the political process in a region (and if relevant a second or third language), economic, accounting and financial skills, are useful and sometimes essential. Building evidence and a narrative of these skills and insights through academic, extra-curricular activities and internships is key to finding an entry level position. Concentrating on a particular angle of the sector can help you build a more targeted strategy. If you are interested in a banking context, you might take courses in Economics. If you would like to specialise in a particular region, build your knowledge on its politics, culture, and economy. If you know that your languages are rusty then think about experience that will help you improve them.

Employers generally recruit on a rolling basis and not all positions are advertised. Researching to identify which employers are aligned with the themes, areas and style of consulting that you are most interested in, and then networking and approaching contacts speculatively, are useful strategies to adopt, even when you are seeking internships and freelance part-time experience.

Some examples of political risk organisations include: Oxford Analytica, iHS, Control Risks, Eurasia Group and the Economist Intelligence Unit, as well as specialist units of accountancy, banking and management consultancy firms. Freelance and other opportunities also exist in this area across a range of employers and sectors, from international organisations to financial and oil companies and consumer businesses. For more information about these opportunities please refer to the website links towards the end of this briefing.

Further Resources

General vacancies & occupation information.

• The Economist
• Guardian: Jobs
• Telegraph: Jobs
• The Times: Appointments
• LinkedIn Jobs

Think Tanks 

• Fabian Society
• Foreign Policy Centre
• Adam Smith Institute
• The Bow Group
• Centre for Policy Studies
• The Centre for Social Justice
• Counterpoint
• European Policy Forum
• Green Alliance
• Green Economics Institute
• Hansard Society
• Institute of Economic Affairs
• Institute for Fiscal Studies
• National Centre for Social Research
• National Economic Foundation
• New Local Government Network
• New Policy Institute
• Social Market Foundation
• The Young Foundation
• Brussels European and Global Economic Laboratory (BRUEGEL)
• Centre for Social and Economic Research
• Centre for Applied Policy Research (CAP)
• Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
• European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM)
• European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE)
• European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
• European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA)
• European Policy Centre (EPC)
• European Trade Union Institute (ETUI)
• European Union Institute for Security Studies
• Friends of Europe
• German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP)
• Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)
• French Institute of International Relations (IFRI)
• International Crisis Group
• International Security Information Service Europe (ISIS)
• Lisbon Council for Economic Competitiveness (ASBL)
• Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung (MZES)
• Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB)
• Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’
• American Institute for Economic Research
• Atlantic Council of the United States
• Aspen Institute
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Brookings Institution
• Cato Institute
• Center for Advanced Defense Studies
• Center for Economic and Policy Research
• Center for Immigration Studies
• Center for Global Development
• Center for International Policy
• Center for Security Policy
• Center for Strategic and International Studies
• CFED (formerly Corporation for Enterprise Development)
• Council on Foreign Relations
• Economic Policy Institute
• EastWest Institute
• Employment Policies Institute
• Foreign Policy Research Institute
• German Marshall Fund for the United States
• Henry L. Stimson Center
• Heritage Foundation
• Hoover Institution
• Institute for Policy Studies
• International Center for Research on Women
• Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Political Risk Consultancies 

• Aon Corporation
• The Cohen Group
• Control Risks Group
• Deloitte Risk Advisory
• Eurasia Group
• FTI Consulting
• Kreller Group
• Medley Global Advisors
• Oxford Analytica
• Salama Fikira
• Smith Brandon International Inc.

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

Recruiters are keen to have a diverse workforce, and many will have policies and processes that are proactive in recruiting students and graduates from diverse backgrounds. An increasing number of recruiters are offering traineeships, internships and insight events that are aimed at specific groups and many are being recognised for their approach to being inclusive employers. 

Try the following to discover more about the policies and attitudes of the recruiters that you are interested in: •    Read their equality, diversity and inclusion policy •    Search their website to see if they have any specific staff networks •    Look for external accreditation such as whether they are a Disability Confident employer , a Stonewall Diversity Champion or part of the Mindful Employer charter promoting mental health at work •    Check to see if they are partnering with organisations such as Rare Recruitment , SEO London , MyPlus Students' Club , EmployAbility or one of the many other organisations that are working for specific communities •    Explore what they do to celebrate diversity on their Facebook and Twitter pages

The UK Equality Act 2010 has a number of protected characteristics to prevent discrimination due to your age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or beliefs, sex or sexual orientation. For further information, visit the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s webpage on the Equality Act and the Government’s webpages on discrimination.  

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CCE On the Road in D.C.: Employment Opportunities in the Nation's Capital

Washington, D.C. is a major hub for Columbians both for summer internships and post-graduation plans. Students and alumni work for various organizations in the nation’s capital, especially in industries like politics, government, research, and international affairs. 

To explore these industries a bit more, Andrew Knutson, Executive Director of Employer & Alumni Relations, and Lalaine Mercado, Senior Associate Director of Undergraduate Career Development, traveled to the D.C. Area to connect with local organizations including:

• U.S. Senate
• The Wilson Center
• Human Rights Campaign
• Smithsonian
• U.S. Patent & Trademark Office
• New Lines Institute

With such a rich variety of employers, we were able to gain fantastic insights into the working landscape of D.C., but to focus our findings, we’ve broken down the information into three industry areas: think tanks, research & advocacy, and government. Within each of these, we’ll share a quick overview of the area as well as employment opportunities and tips for applying. 

Think Tanks

We visited two Washington, D.C.-based think tanks: The Wilson Center and New Lines Institute . As think tanks, both organizations research and analyze global affairs, producing insightful scholarship and providing counsel to policymakers. 

Both The Wilson Center and New Lines Institute focus on international affairs. Both organizations tackle a variety of topics that impact the globe — ranging from climate change to geopolitics.

Congress chartered the Wilson Center and emphasizes its nonpartisan role. It also hosts events that showcase dialogue and scholarship on international topics. 

New Lines Institute is a more start-up-like think tank. Its goal is to shape foreign policy based on a deep understanding of regional geopolitics and the value systems of those regions.

Opportunities in Think Tanks 

Roles at think tanks can vary depending on the organization’s size, internal structure, and the need for research at any given moment. Most have several entry pathways for students and alumni, including internships, research positions, or other full-time roles.  

The Wilson Center , in particular, employs visiting scholars, permanent staff, and interns. The organization offers two types of internships for college students. Research assistants are assigned to work with a particular visiting scholar, assisting on their specific research project. Staff assistants support a particular program or office, which can be regional or topical. 

Examples of programs and offices at The Wilson Center include the Canada Institute, the Development Office, the Indo-Pacific Program, the Africa Program, and the Science and Technology Innovation Program. Each program or office has dedicated permanent staff conducting research and organizing programs. 

Students can apply for summer, fall, and spring internships. The applications usually open a few months before the internship. (The summer internship application opens in March, the fall application opens in July, and the spring application opens in November.)

As part of the program, all interns are invited to the Center’s events and programs. In addition to gaining experience in international affairs, interns also build a network they can carry to their next step. Alumni of the Wilson Center’s internship program have continued on to careers in international relations, as well as law, consulting, entrepreneurship, foreign service, and intelligence.

New Lines Institute has a team of scholars focused on different topical areas and invites scholarly contributions from outside experts. The think tank offers a paid summer internship for college students. Recent graduates can begin as senior interns, a full-time position that allows the intern and New Lines to test the position before making a permanent offer. New Lines also offers a new MA Fellowship for recent graduates, which is a 12-month professional master’s program, plus a Research Fellowship. Fellows take 12 courses over 12 months and rotate through different departments at New Lines.

Application & Industry Tips 

Research:  Research skills go beyond the ability to conduct research and write, although of course they are very important. They also include a deep interest in the work of the program, the ability to work with other people, language skills for some programs, and being a self-starter.

Networking: In this field where it can be difficult to distinguish yourself from other candidates, networking is important. CCE’s contacts in this industry recommended that interested applicants reach out to them. Connecting is a way to share your interest in the work and your intellectual ability, giving candidates a way to stand out among others. 

Persistence: Candidates can and should apply even if they were previously rejected. Think tanks’ hiring choices often depend on what topics they’re working on at that time. Candidates can take a look at social media to see what their current priority topics are and align their applications accordingly.

Research & Advocacy

Think tanks only represent one aspect of research being done in D.C. Organizations like the Smithsonian and Human Rights Campaign use research on the arts, sciences, politics, campaigns, and other subjects to further and expand knowledge. 

Perhaps best known for its 21 museums, ranging from Natural History to Air and Space, the Smithsonian is also a vast education and research complex. Its mission is to preserve heritage, discover new knowledge, and share resources.

The Human Rights Campaign is the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization. Their primary work deals with advocacy for equality, equity, and liberation for LGBTQ+ people. They work on political campaigns, advocate for inclusive policies, and create educational programming.

Opportunities in Research & Advocacy

The Smithsonian highlighted how it provides opportunities for almost all majors and all kinds of career paths, from the sciences to finance. Both internships and jobs are available in the central Smithsonian office, as well as the individual units/museums. 

Summer internship applications are posted during the spring semester, and each unit sets its own hiring timeline. Interns enjoy a robust internship program; each unit has programs for its interns and the Smithsonian also provides center-wide programming for all interns. The programming includes fun events in the D.C. area, opportunities to build relationships with other offices, and professional development training. 

The Smithsonian also offers fellowships for graduate students who need to come to the Smithsonian to work with its collection or to connect with staff expertise.

The Human Rights Campaign advertises both internships and jobs on its careers website . There are many opportunities to get involved—fundraising, working on an election campaign, conducting policy research, advocating for healthcare or workplace reform, and more.

Internships are available in multiple areas: (1) policy and government affairs, (2) communications and digital media, (3) fundraising, (4) research and community programs, and (5) operations. Candidates can apply to multiple internships. Summer internship applications open in February, fall internship applications open in June, and spring internship applications open in October.

For recent graduates, early career roles with the titles “assistant,” “coordinator,” or “manager” allow employees to become heavily involved in the program work. Most entry-level employees move up quickly because of the level of responsibility they earn. The staff of HRC is mostly unionized.

For students interested in research and advocacy, it is essential to convey your interest in the work! Both the Smithsonian and the HRC recommended that applicants share what makes them interested in this field and what they hope to learn in the application materials. The Smithsonian internship application requests a statement of interest which candidates should use to show how they envision the internship as a learning experience, rather than as a typical cover letter. The HRC requires a series of short essays where applicants should make a special effort to convey the details of their interest in the work that position will do. 

Once interns have secured the role, skills that will be helpful include research, writing, presenting, and working with data . Recent graduates in early career roles in advocacy also will need skills in adapting quickly to changing situations, dealing with ambiguity, and working with clients. 

Government 

When most of us think of Washington, D.C., we think of the city as the heart of the United States Federal Government. The city presents countless opportunities and organizations to explore across the judicial, legislative, and executive branches. For this visit, we connected with two organizations: the United States Senate and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Opportunities in the U.S. Government

Roles in the Senate are about as wide-ranging as you can imagine including everything from policymaking to graphic design. When considering opportunities within this legislative body, it’s important to keep in mind that roles can be either partisan or nonpartisan. 

Internships are available in three broad categories: Senator Offices, Committees, and Sergeant at Arms Offices. Each of these offices has its nuances when it comes to the work. All position types are listed on the Senate Vacancies website with the instructions to apply and are collected by a centralized office and then passed to the appropriate office/committee. 

Senator Offices: Each Senator’s Office leads the hiring of interns in their office. The pay and scope of the role can vary from senator to senator, but most commonly, interns take on administrative, legislative/policy, communications, and constituent services roles. Most of these internships will take place in the D.C. Area; however, some senators may have positions in their local state offices. 

Committee Internships : Individual Senate Committees (like Environment and Public Works) recruit interns to help with similar functions to the senator offices, but these positions often seek those who have previous experience in a senate office and/or upperclassmen. 

Sergeant at Arms: Roles with the Sergeant at Arms are the backbone of the Senate and represent the nonpartisan support roles. They often hire for the functional roles that make the Senate run like administrative services, cybersecurity, graphic design, information technology, photography and videography, and more! 

The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) is a division of the larger Department of Commerce. As suggested by the name, the office is responsible for issuing patents and trademarks to protect the intellectual property of citizens and businesses. The protection of these new ideas is central to innovation and helps drive economic growth in the country. 

The USPTO is almost always seeking to hire full-time Patent Examiners . These entry-level roles are great for students and alumni who have engineering and tech backgrounds because examiners often review a lot of research, schematics, and other technical documentation. These are great positions for anyone who likes to work independently, enjoys an almost entirely remote work environment, and is looking for employers who emphasize stability and work/life balance. 

Since the USPTO is funded through patent fees, it’s an organization that operates regardless of government freezes and is continuously looking for talent. They recruit throughout the year in different cycles, so be sure to set up alerts at USAJobs to stay up to date with the latest information. Internships can also be found through that site for juniors! 

Application & Industry Tips

Roles in the government sector can vary greatly depending on an agency or branch’s focus. For those applying to organizations like the Senate or others working within a particular geographic area or constituency, consider your ties to the state or location. For the Senate, a senator’s office will want to know why you’re interested in working for that particular area. This doesn’t mean you have to be a resident, but if you have a regional interest, knowledge of their priorities, or a shared value, that can go a long way. 

Research is a huge skill to emphasize in your materials for more technical roles like those at the USPTO. This can be research that you’ve done in internships, in the classroom, or in the lab. In addition to research, be sure to highlight hard, technical skills as well as soft skills (such as self-motivation and curiosity). Employers are looking for well-rounded candidates with a mix of these. 

We were only able to scratch the surface of opportunities and employers in Washington, D.C. As the center of the national government, the city attracts organizations and people eager to be at the forefront of policy, research, and advocacy. The U.S. Senate, The Wilson Center, Human Rights Campaign, the Smithsonian, U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, and New Lines Institute gave us some great insights into the possibilities students and alumni can pursue. 

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Inside the Trump Plan for 2025

One evening in April of 2022, a hundred people milled around a patio at Mar-a-Lago, sipping champagne and waiting for Donald Trump to arrive. Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, stood in front of an archway fringed with palm trees and warmed up the crowd with jokes about the deep state. The purpose of the gathering was to raise money for the Center for Renewing America, a conservative policy shop whose most recent annual report emphasized a “commitment to end woke and weaponized government.” Its founder, Russell Vought, a former head of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump, and a leading candidate to be the White House chief of staff in a second term, was in attendance, chatting amiably with the guests. He is trim and bald, with glasses and a professorial beard. His group is a kind of ivory tower for far-right Republicans, issuing white papers with titles such as “The Great Replacement in Theory and Practice.” In 2021, he wrote an op-ed for Newsweek that asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong with ‘Christian Nationalism’?”

The Center for Renewing America is one of roughly two dozen right-wing groups that have emerged in Washington since Trump left office. What unites them is a wealthy network based on Capitol Hill called the Conservative Partnership Institute, which many in Washington regard as the next Trump Administration in waiting. C.P.I.’s list of personnel and affiliates includes some of Trump’s most fervent backers: Meadows is a senior partner; Stephen Miller, Trump’s top adviser on immigration, runs an associated group called America First Legal, which styles itself as the A.C.L.U. of the MAGA movement; Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer facing disbarment for trying to overturn the 2020 election, is a fellow at the Center for Renewing America. All of them are expected to have high-ranking roles in the government if Trump is elected again. “C.P.I. has gathered the most talented people in the conservative movement by far,” someone close to the organization told me. “They have thought deeply about what’s needed to create the infrastructure and the resources for a more anti-establishment conservative movement.”

C.P.I. was founded in 2017 by Jim DeMint, a former adman from South Carolina who spent eight years in the Senate before resigning to lead the Heritage Foundation. During that time, he was one of Washington’s most notorious partisan combatants. As a senator, he attacked his Republican colleagues for being insufficiently conservative, tanking their bills and raising money to unseat them in primaries. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, called him “an innovator in Republican-on-Republican violence.” With C.P.I., DeMint wanted to create a base of operations for insurgents like himself. “If you’re not getting criticized in Washington,” he once said, “you’re probably part of the problem.”

Other conservative groups have defined Republican Presidencies: the Heritage Foundation staffed the Administration of Ronald Reagan, the American Enterprise Institute that of George W. Bush. But C.P.I. is categorically different from its peers. It’s not a think tank—it’s an incubator and an activist hub that funds other organizations, coördinates with conservative members of the House and Senate, and works as a counterweight to G.O.P. leadership. The effort to contest the 2020 election results and the protests of January 6, 2021, were both plotted at C.P.I.’s headquarters, at 300 Independence Avenue. “Until seven years ago, it didn’t exist, and no entity like it existed,” Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, told me. “It’s grown by leaps and bounds.”

C.P.I. and its constellation of groups, most of which are nonprofits, raised nearly two hundred million dollars in 2022. The organization has bought up some fifty million dollars’ worth of real estate in and around Washington, including multiple properties on the Hill. A mansion on twenty-two hundred acres in eastern Maryland hosts trainings for congressional staff and conservative activists. Four political-action committees have rented space in C.P.I.’s offices, and many more belonging to members of Congress pay to use C.P.I.’s facilities, such as studios for podcast recordings and TV hits. The House Freedom Caucus, a group of three dozen hard-line anti-institutionalist Republican lawmakers, and the Steering Committee, a similar group in the Senate, headed by Lee, hold weekly meetings at C.P.I.’s headquarters. Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, called the organization a “gathering site” that offered “regular contact” with the power brokers of the conservative movement. He told me, “You walk into the building and you can talk to Mark Meadows or Jim DeMint if they’re there, or Russ Vought.”

At the time of the event at Mar-a-Lago, in the spring of 2022, right-wing political circles were in a state of charged anticipation. Trump had not yet announced his reëlection bid, but inflation was high, Joe Biden was unpopular, and pollsters were anticipating a Republican rout in the upcoming midterms. “The left tried to drag America further into a dark future of totalitarianism, chaotic elections, and cultural decay,” C.P.I.’s leaders wrote. Those in attendance knew that Trump would soon enter the race. The question was what, exactly, they might get out of it.

Shortly after 6 P.M. , Trump strode onto the patio, wearing his customary dark suit and a blue tie, and launched into a stem-winder. “It was so fucking funny,” the person close to C.P.I. told me. “Almost nothing was related to the Center for Renewing America other than a reference to how good Russ was. He was riffing on whatever was on his mind.” Trump recounted a trip that he’d taken to Iraq as President, but he kept digressing to complain about a thirteen-billion-dollar aircraft carrier that he’d commissioned. At one point, he turned to the culture wars but couldn’t remember the phrase “critical race theory.” Vought, standing nearby, had to prompt him. “He was burning down the house,” the person told me. “Everyone was loving it.”

Still, one aspect of the speech caught the attention of C.P.I.’s executives. Ever since Trump was acquitted in his first impeachment trial, in 2020, he has threatened to purge the government of anyone he considered disloyal. His defenders are united in the belief that career bureaucrats foiled his first-term plans from inside the government. C.P.I., which has spent years placing conservative job seekers in congressional offices, is now vetting potential staffers for a second Trump term. One of its groups, the American Accountability Foundation, has been investigating the personal profiles and social-media posts of federal employees to determine who might lack fealty to Trump. “The key throughout the speech was that Trump complained about his personnel,” the attendee said. “He said he had these bad generals, bad Cabinet secretaries. That was a big signal to the people there.”

Six years earlier, on a Monday in late March, cars ferrying some of the country’s most influential conservatives, including the Republican senators Jeff Sessions and Tom Cotton, began arriving at the Washington offices of the law firm Jones Day. DeMint, then the head of the Heritage Foundation, and Leonard Leo, the vice-president of the Federalist Society, entered discreetly through a parking garage, as they’d been instructed. Newt Gingrich, who wanted the press to see him, insisted on using the firm’s front door. They were attending a private meeting with Trump, who was rapidly gaining in the Republican primary but remained anathema to much of the G.O.P. establishment. “People in the conservative movement suddenly realized that Trump could be the horse that they could ride to victory,” a former senior Heritage staffer told me. “He was being shepherded around the conservative policy world. DeMint was a part of that.”

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As early as January, 2016, DeMint predicted that Trump would win the Republican nomination. It was an unpopular position among conservatives, many of whom felt more ideologically aligned with Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas. In a conference room at Jones Day, Trump gave a brief speech and opened the floor to questions. Leo asked him whom he’d nominate for federal judgeships. Antonin Scalia, the conservative stalwart on the Supreme Court, had died the previous month. Trump replied, “Why don’t I put out a list publicly of people who could be the sort of people I would put on the Supreme Court?” DeMint immediately volunteered Heritage for the job of drafting it.

The Heritage Foundation was founded in the nineteen-seventies by Edwin Feulner, a Republican operative with a doctorate in political science. Under his direction, the think tank became the country’s leading bastion of conservative policy, with an annual budget exceeding eighty million dollars. When DeMint took over, in 2013, traditionalists on the organization’s board were concerned that his rebellious style would diminish the group’s reputation for serious research. He confirmed their suspicions by hiring several of his Senate aides. The former Heritage staffer said, “There were cultural differences between existing leadership and the DeMint team.”

But DeMint’s arrival reflected changes already under way at the organization. In 2010, as the Tea Party emerged as a force in conservative politics, the think tank launched an advocacy arm called Heritage Action, which issued scorecards evaluating legislators’ conservatism and deputized a network of local activists as “sentinels” to enforce a populist agenda. Vought, who’d previously worked as a staffer in House leadership, helped lead the operation. Under DeMint, the group became merciless in its attacks on rank-and-file Republican lawmakers. “Heritage Action was created to lobby the Hill, but they took it one step further,” James Wallner, a lecturer in political science at Clemson University, who worked with DeMint in the Senate and at Heritage, told me. “They had a grassroots army. They used tens of thousands of activists to target people.”

After the meeting with Trump, in 2016, some of DeMint’s staff objected to the task of drawing up a list of potential judges, arguing that Heritage was overcommitting itself. This was typically the domain of the Federalist Society, which was putting forth its own list of judicial nominees. But DeMint, sensing an opportunity to maximize his clout with Trump, dismissed the concerns. That August, after Trump became the Party’s nominee, Heritage was enlisted to participate in the Presidential transition in the event of a Trump victory. Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey at the time, was overseeing the effort and put Feulner, who was then the chair of Heritage’s board of trustees, in charge of domestic policy. Feulner later told the Times that Heritage saw a greater opportunity to influence policy under Trump than it had under Reagan. “No. 1, he did clearly want to make very significant changes,” Feulner said of Trump. “No. 2, his views on so many things were not particularly well formed.” He added, “If he somehow pulled the election off, we thought, wow, we could really make a difference.”

Heritage was already primed. The year after DeMint took over, he had begun an initiative called the Project to Restore America, which worked to build up a reserve of reliably conservative personnel. The morning after Trump won, DeMint called a meeting in an auditorium at Heritage headquarters. Many staffers had been there all night watching the returns in a state of elation. “We were criticized by a lot of our friends in the movement for even going to meetings with Trump,” DeMint said, according to the Times . Then, quoting a line from the eighties TV show “The A-Team,” he added, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

The following day, Steve Bannon, Trump’s senior adviser, summoned Christie to his office on the fourteenth floor of Trump Tower, in New York. “We’ve decided to make a change,” Bannon told him. Mike Pence, the incoming Vice-President, and Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law, were replacing him. Christie wrote in his 2019 memoir that thirty volumes of policy and staff plans collected in large binders over several months “were tossed in a Trump Tower dumpster, never to be seen again.” Christie’s firing set off a scramble to finish the job of staffing the new Administration and preparing a slate of agenda-setting policies before Trump was sworn in. Heritage now had an even more direct role to play. Pence was friendly with DeMint, and a former Sessions aide, who was appointed to lead the transition’s daily operations, was close with Ed Corrigan, a former executive director of the Senate Steering Committee who was then a vice-president at the Heritage Foundation.

Heritage went on to fill hundreds of jobs throughout virtually every federal agency, and some of the President’s most prominent Cabinet officials—including Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education; Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Rick Perry, the Secretary of Energy—had appeared on the foundation’s lists of recommendations. “DeMint told friends and colleagues that he was proudest of his work at Heritage in placing Heritage employees into the Administration,” a DeMint associate told me. “That was a big deal.”

Still, Heritage’s board remained fiercely divided over DeMint. Mickey Edwards, a founding Heritage trustee, said at the time that DeMint had turned “a highly respected think tank” into “a partisan tool” for the Tea Party. Wallner, who joined Heritage as its research director in the summer of 2016, told me, “I walked into a civil war.” He recalled meeting a board member at a hotel bar near the White House who asked outright, “Are you on team DeMint?” Such critics had expected Trump to lose spectacularly in November, discrediting DeMint in the process.

Before Trump’s Inauguration, DeMint requested a new contract, but the board refused. The following spring, DeMint and his closest advisers went to San Diego for the annual Heritage donor retreat. The night before their flight home, they learned that DeMint was being fired. Corrigan was there, along with Wallner; Wesley Denton, a former DeMint staffer; and Bret Bernhardt, DeMint’s ex-chief of staff. “We had put our heart and soul into this,” Wallner told me. “It was shocking.”

According to a study by the Brookings Institution, there was more staff turnover in the first thirty-two months of Trump’s Presidency than there had been in the entire first terms of each of his five predecessors. Inside the White House, a former senior official told me, Trump was constantly enraged that his Cabinet wouldn’t break the law for him. He wanted the Department of Homeland Security to shoot migrants crossing the Rio Grande, the Defense Department to draw up plans to invade Mexico, and the Internal Revenue Service to audit his critics. Trump didn’t understand why the government couldn’t revoke the security clearances of former intelligence officials who criticized him on CNN. The official said that Trump “talked about firing large numbers of the federal workers,” to eliminate any further checks on his agenda.

The tumult presented an opportunity for outsiders like DeMint. He and his associates had started brainstorming their next moves before their flight from San Diego touched down in Washington. “You don’t need a think tank,” Wallner recalled telling DeMint. Their collective expertise was in Congress, where Party leadership always seemed to have the advantage of better and more extensive staffing. What if they levelled the playing field by helping to recruit conservative personnel, and schooling them in how to be more effective activists? DeMint and his group could train a new class of staffers and place them within the system.

Conservatives in Washington also needed somewhere to gather, share ideas, and strategize. From 2011 to 2015, a group of Republican House members, who would eventually form the Freedom Caucus, had regularly met in the kitchen of a Heritage executive. One night, his wife was hosting a work dinner, so the group relocated to a restaurant called Tortilla Coast, which became their new meeting spot. On occasion, when they tried to book space at the Capitol Hill Club, an exclusive Republican hangout in Washington, Party leadership made sure that their request was declined. “The thing that made Heritage so powerful were the coalitions they could build,” Wallner told me. “That was the stuff DeMint loved.” The sentiment on the plane, he went on, was “Let’s do this thing that DeMint loves to do, that’s so vital. It would be like a WeWork for conservatives.”

On May 10, 2017, DeMint and the others filed incorporation papers for the Conservative Partnership Institute. Their lawyer, who was also representing them in severance negotiations with Heritage, was Cleta Mitchell, a movement mainstay in her sixties who was, as the person close to C.P.I. told me, “the attorney for pretty much any new conservative group that was starting in Washington.” She became C.P.I.’s secretary. The institute’s accountant was a close associate of Leonard Leo’s. It was a lean operation at first: seven employees and a rented office on Pennsylvania Avenue above a liquor store and an Asian-fusion restaurant. At the end of its first year, the group’s total assets and liabilities were less than a million dollars.

Then the White House called. The President had been accusing his personnel of deliberately undercutting him, but his top aides were, in fact, struggling to fill an increasing number of vacancies within the executive agencies. “It was an ‘Aha!’ moment for C.P.I.,” the person close to the organization told me. “The White House needed staffing help. People who joined the Administration were either R.N.C. hacks who didn’t like Trump or they were Trump-campaign supporters who could barely get their pants on in the morning.”

One day in June, 2018, Hill staffers working for conservative members of Congress received an e-mail: “Interested in a job at the White House?” C.P.I. was hosting a job fair, at the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The director of the White House’s personnel office would be in attendance, along with other senior officials. C.P.I. had been conceived to help staff congressional offices, but it was scaling up. “They needed a national figure,” another former DeMint staffer told me. “Their brand is bigger with Trump.”

A year later, Trump was impeached for what he called a “perfect phone call” with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump suggested that U.S. military aid to Ukraine might depend on Zelensky agreeing to investigate the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son Hunter. At the impeachment trial, two members of the Trump Administration, Alexander Vindman, of the National Security Council, and Marie Yovanovitch, the recently fired Ambassador to Ukraine, testified against the President. Senator Cruz, who was coördinating with the President’s legal team, ran an impeachment “war room” out of the basement of C.P.I.’s headquarters. Using C.P.I. equipment, he also recorded a podcast, called “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” which he taped after each day’s testimony, attacking the proceedings as a partisan sham. “Verdict” was downloaded more than a million times, making it one of the most popular political podcasts in the country.

A few weeks after Trump was acquitted, on a party-line vote in the Senate, a C.P.I. executive named Rachel Bovard addressed an audience at the Council for National Policy, a secretive network of conservative activists. They’d assembled for a board-of-governors luncheon at a Ritz-Carlton in California. “We work very closely . . . with the Office of Presidential Personnel at the White House,” Bovard said, in footage obtained by Documented, a Washington-based watchdog group. “Because we see what happens when we don’t vet these people. That’s how we got Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, O.K.? That’s how we got Marie Yovanovitch. All these people that led the impeachment against President Trump shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

By then, conservative activists, including Ginni Thomas, the wife of the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, were assembling lists of “bad people” in the government for Trump to fire or demote. Government officials on the lists were often identified as either pro-Trump or anti-Trump. But behavior that counted as anti-Trump could be little more than an instance of someone obeying the law or observing ordinary bureaucratic procedure. In one memo, in which a Trump loyalist argued against appointing a former U.S. Attorney who was up for a job at the Treasury Department, a list of infractions included an unwillingness to criminally investigate multiple women who had accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, according to Axios. In October, 2020, Trump issued an executive order that was largely overlooked in the midst of the pandemic and that fall’s election. Known as Schedule F, it stripped career civil servants of their job protections, making it much easier for the President to replace them with handpicked appointees.

The following month, when Trump refused to accept his election loss, “there were people in the White House who operated under the assumption that they were not leaving,” a former aide said. One of them was John McEntee, a caustic thirty-year-old who’d once been Trump’s personal assistant and was now in charge of the Presidential Personnel Office. (In 2018, John Kelly, who was then Trump’s chief of staff, had fired McEntee for failing a security clearance owing to a gambling habit, but Trump rehired him two years later.) Young staffers were scared that McEntee might find out if they started interviewing for other positions. “There was fear of retribution if it got back to him,” the former aide said. Other White House officials, such as Meadows, were clear-eyed about the election results but vowed to fight them anyway. Meadows discreetly told a few staffers that, when Trump’s term was over, they should join him at the Conservative Partnership Institute. “C.P.I. was his ticket to be that pressure point on Capitol Hill,” one of the staffers told me. “He wanted to be the guy who held Congress to the MAGA agenda.”

From the start, C.P.I. was involved in efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 election results. One Freedom Caucus member recalled, “Election Day was Tuesday, and we got back to the Capitol the following Monday. Tuesday, they’re meeting at C.P.I. and talking about how to get Trump sworn in on January 20th.” On November 9th, during the Senate Steering Committee’s regular meeting at C.P.I., Sidney Powell, a conservative lawyer, gave a talk about challenging the election results. “My purpose in having the meeting was to socialize with Republican senators the fact that POTUS needs to pursue his legal remedies,” Senator Lee, of Utah, told Meadows in a text. “You have in us a group of ready and loyal advocates who will go to bat for him.”

By the end of December, many Republicans, including Lee, had given up on Powell. She was citing rigged elections in Venezuela as evidence that the voting-machine company Dominion had tampered with ballots cast for Trump, but, despite frequent requests from Trump loyalists, she could never substantiate the claims. Hard-core partisans came up with a new plan: they wanted to disrupt the process by which the government would certify the election results, on January 6, 2021. Cleta Mitchell, the secretary of C.P.I. and a lawyer for Trump, was central in advancing this idea. She had gone into the 2020 race believing that Democrats would attempt to steal votes. “I was absolutely persuaded and believed very strongly that President Trump would be reëlected and that the left and the Democrats would do everything they could to unwind it,” she later said.

Two days after the election, Mitchell wrote an e-mail to the legal academic John Eastman, encouraging him to craft a case that the Vice-President had the unilateral authority to throw out the election results in seven states, where the legislatures could then choose new slates of pro-Trump electors. Pence, who consulted his own legal experts, was unconvinced. But Eastman hardly needed to persuade Trump, who urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to pressure Pence into blocking the certification process. Eventually, Eastman would be indicted in Arizona and Georgia on conspiracy, fraud, and racketeering charges for his role in trying to overturn the election. (He pleaded not guilty.)

Much of the effort to turn people out for the January 6th protest took place at C.P.I. “There were a series of conference calls,” the Freedom Caucus member told me. “Mark Meadows was on a lot of them. Trump was on more than one. The rally was a big thing that C.P.I. and Freedom Caucus members were involved in. The idea was that they were going to get everybody together on the Mall. That was all discussed at C.P.I.” (A C.P.I. spokesperson told me, “No idea what they’re talking about. C.P.I. had absolutely no involvement in these events.”)

On the afternoon of January 2nd, Mitchell joined the President on an hour-long phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state, in which Trump told him to “find 11,780 votes,” the number he needed to win the state. Later that evening, members of the Freedom Caucus, including Jim Jordan and Scott Perry, the caucus’s chairman, were scheduled to meet at C.P.I. to strategize about how to get their constituents to show up on January 6th. “Meadows was originally going to participate in person, but they moved it to conference call just to cover a wider breadth of people that weren’t in town,” Cassidy Hutchinson, Meadows’s aide, said in an interview with lawyers from the January 6th Committee. The President also dialled in.

Even after the riot at the Capitol, Mitchell continued to contest the 2020 returns from her perch at C.P.I. For some of the more elaborate electoral challenges, such as audits of the results in Arizona and Georgia, which persisted after Biden had taken office, it was important to the organizers that the process seem legitimate and serious—and therefore independent of Trump. According to an investigation by Documented, C.P.I. used an accounting mechanism to hide the fact that the former President was funding part of the organization’s recount efforts. On July 26, 2021, Trump’s political-action committee, Save America, donated a million dollars to C.P.I. Two days later, a new nonprofit called the American Voting Rights Foundation, or A.V.R.F., was registered in Delaware; its direct controlling entity was another group tied to C.P.I. The same day, Mitchell sent an e-mail to Cyber Ninjas, a private company that a group of far-right state legislators in Arizona had recruited to conduct an audit of the Presidential results in Maricopa County. C.P.I. then paid a million dollars to A.V.R.F. According to the Guardian , it was the “only known donation that the group has ever received.” On July 29th, in an e-mail on which a C.P.I. executive was copied, Mitchell explained that A.V.R.F. was contributing a million dollars to the Arizona audit.

This spring, I received some friendly but unencouraging advice from a person close to DeMint: I shouldn’t count on speaking with him or his advisers. They were highly suspicious of mainstream attention. DeMint is now more of a figurehead at C.P.I. than an active leader of the organization. Meadows, who joined C.P.I. a week after leaving the Trump White House, and now receives an annual salary of eight hundred thousand dollars from the organization, is primarily a fund-raiser. He was indicted last year for election interference. (He pleaded not guilty.) Being in legal trouble is often a badge of honor in Trump’s circles, but Meadows has fallen under suspicion from some of his old allies. ABC News reported last year that he had secretly spoken with federal prosecutors who were investigating the former President, a story that Meadows has since disputed. A recent Times Magazine article called him “the least trusted man in Washington.”

The daily operations of C.P.I. are run by Corrigan, its president, and Denton, the group’s chief operating officer. Corrigan declined to speak with me, but Denton was eventually willing to chat. One morning in May, we met in a coffee shop in the basement of a Senate office building. He is genial and plainspoken, with a youthful air and a beard that hangs thickly off his chin. During DeMint’s eight years in the Senate, Denton served as his director of communications, and they moved to Heritage together, in 2013. With the exception of a brief stint in the Trump Administration, where Denton worked at the Office of Management and Budget with Vought, he has been at C.P.I. since its creation.

“There’s nothing complicated about what we do,” he told me. “We train staff and place staff. That’s it. There are some outgrowths of that, in terms of supporting new groups. But, basically, we’re here to support those who are in the fight.”

In 2021, C.P.I.’s board made a fateful and, in retrospect, wise decision. High-ranking figures from the Trump Administration were leaving the government and needed a place to land during the Biden years. “It’s not hard to be a liberal in D.C.,” Denton told me. “It’s not the same for our side.” But C.P.I.’s founders were wary of creating just another version of the Heritage Foundation. “We had the opportunity to build a vast, huge bureaucratic organization when all our friends were coming out of the Trump Administration,” Denton said. “Instead, we helped them set up their own organizations.”

The structure of these groups could seem both byzantine and incestuous to an outsider, but the idea, Denton told me, was “to insure mission alignment.” Stephen Miller formed America First Legal, a public-interest law group that has primarily targeted “woke corporations,” school districts, and the Biden Administration. Vought started the Center for Renewing America, which generated policy proposals as though the Trump Administration had never ended. Corrigan and Denton were on the board of Vought’s group; Vought, Corrigan, and Denton sat on the board of Miller’s group. As more organizations joined the fold, their boards increasingly overlapped, and the roster of ideologues and Trump loyalists grew. Gene Hamilton and Matthew Whitaker, key figures from the Trump D.O.J., worked at America First Legal. Ken Cuccinelli, from the Department of Homeland Security; Mark Paoletta, from the Office of Management and Budget; and Kash Patel, from the Department of Defense, became fellows at Vought’s group.

By the end of 2021, C.P.I. had helped form eight new groups, each with a different yet complementary mission. The American Accountability Foundation focussed on attacking Biden’s nominees. The State Freedom Caucus Network helped state legislators create their own versions of the House Freedom Caucus in order to challenge their local Republican establishments. The Election Integrity Network, run by Mitchell, trained volunteers to monitor polling places and investigate state and local election officials. American Moment concentrated on cultivating the next generation of conservative staffers in Washington.

C.P.I. connected the founders of these groups with its network of donors and, in some instances, helped support the organizations until they could raise money for themselves. As American Moment waited for the I.R.S. to formalize its nonprofit tax status, for example, C.P.I. served as a fiscal sponsor, allowing donors to earmark money for the new group by giving it to C.P.I. The organization also offered its partners access to an array of shared resources: discounted real estate, accounting services, legal representation. “This all had an in-kind value of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars,” the person close to C.P.I. told me. C.P.I.’s accounting firm, called Compass Professional, was run by Corrigan’s brother; its law firm, Compass Legal, was headed by Scott Gast, a lawyer in the Trump White House.

Aside from C.P.I., Compass Legal’s most lucrative client to date, according to F.E.C. filings, has been Trump himself, whose campaign and political-action committees have paid the firm four hundred thousand dollars in the past two years. Another major client was the National Rifle Association, which paid the firm more than three hundred thousand dollars in 2022. Compass Legal was established in March, 2021, two months after C.P.I.’s lead lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, was forced to resign from her job as a partner at the law firm Foley & Lardner. Her participation in Trump’s phone call to the Georgia secretary of state had caused too much controversy. She blamed her departure on a “massive pressure campaign” orchestrated by “leftist groups.” In a subsequent C.P.I. annual report, the group said that a large part of its mission was helping conservatives “survive the Leftist purge and ‘cancel-proof’ conservative organizations.”

This was not simply the rhetoric of conservative victimhood. Andrew Kloster, a former employee of Compass Legal who is now Representative Matt Gaetz’s general counsel, described one of C.P.I.’s goals as “de-risking public service on the right.” For anyone who might run afoul of mainstream opinion, C.P.I. had created an alternative, fully self-sufficient ecosystem. One part of it was material: recording studios, direct-mail services, accounting and legal resources, salaried jobs and fellowships. The other element was cultural. C.P.I. was demonstrating to Trump allies that, if they took bold and possibly illegal action in service of the cause, they wouldn’t face financial ruin or pariah status in Washington.

Over coffee at the Capitol, in May, Kloster, who is bald with a bushy beard, explained the story behind a legal-defense fund that he’d helped create, called Courage Under Fire. It supported people who’d been “targeted for their civil service in conservative Administrations, including those indicted for fighting the 2020 election,” he said. The fund has spent more than three million dollars to date, according to the Washington Post , with the money going toward legal costs incurred by John Eastman; Mike Roman, a former Trump-campaign operative; and Peter Navarro, a former economic adviser to Trump who has since been convicted of contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena related to the January 6th investigation. “We started with a lot of Trump advisers,” Kloster said. “It’s a large class.” Eastman, he added, was a prime example: “He has been targeted for legal advice he gave in the course of his duties consulting with former President Trump. He’s being charged with criminal fraud. That’s for the mob lawyer in ‘The Godfather’ trying to knowingly facilitate crimes, not for someone saying, ‘Here’s what I think the law is.’ ”

Courage Under Fire was created by Personnel Policy Operations, a nonprofit in the C.P.I. network which, in 2022, spent more than a million dollars on lawyers for Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark, according to NOTUS , an online news site. C.P.I. maintains that the groups it has launched are independent. “We don’t control them,” the C.P.I. spokesperson said. But Brendan Fischer, the deputy executive director of Documented, pointed out that in 2022 nearly all the money spent by Personnel Policy Operations came from C.P.I., and that virtually all such spending went toward legal defense. He told me, “The most reasonable inference is that they were routing money from C.P.I. to Personnel Policy Operations to pay for Meadows’s and Clark’s legal fees.” (The C.P.I. spokesperson said, “Liberal groups like these have made wild claims against the right for years that go nowhere. C.P.I. is in compliance with all laws for nonprofits.”)

Tim Dunn, a billionaire Texas oilman and a major donor to C.P.I., has been tapped specifically to fund the group’s legal-defense efforts. When Scott Perry, of Pennsylvania, the former chairman of the Freedom Caucus, faced legal scrutiny for his involvement in January 6th—he had organized an attempt to contest the results in his state and, after ignoring a congressional subpoena, was ordered by a judge to turn over his cell phone to prosecutors—Meadows arranged to pay his legal fees by asking Dunn for the money, someone with knowledge of the arrangement told me. (Perry’s campaign and C.P.I. both denied this account. “This is completely false,” the C.P.I. spokesperson said. Dunn could not be reached for comment.)

C.P.I.’s headquarters is a three-story town house with a blue door, on a leafy block near the Capitol. Inside, a warren of offices gives way to a series of parlorlike spaces with high ceilings. There are luminous conference rooms upstairs, each named for a prominent donor.

Last summer, I visited 300 Independence Avenue to interview Vought. At the time, we were discussing his role in creating a congressional subcommittee to advance a dominant Republican narrative in the House: that Democrats had weaponized the federal government against conservatives. It was a kind of unified theory of the deep state, which held that the Justice Department and the U.S. intelligence community had colluded to silence right-wing voices. It had the added utility of casting Trump as the ultimate martyr of the conservative movement. Each of his legal travails, Vought said, proved that Democrats were shamelessly engaged in “lawfare.”

These days, Vought has appeared in the news as a key architect of a second-Trump-term agenda, alongside some of the other usual suspects: Stephen Miller, Gene Hamilton, Jeffrey Clark, and Kash Patel. Trump has been explicit about his intention to exact revenge on political enemies. “I am your warrior, I am your justice,” he told a crowd of supporters in March of last year. “And, for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” Three months later, after his arraignment in Miami for allegedly mishandling classified documents and obstructing a federal investigation, he added, “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt President in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family.”

Vought and Clark, meanwhile, have been advancing a formal rationale to break the long-standing expectation that the D.O.J. should operate independently of the President. The norm has been in place since Watergate, but they have argued that Trump could run the department like any other executive agency. Clark published his case on the Center for Renewing America’s Web site under the title “The U.S. Justice Department Is Not Independent.” In early 2021, while Trump was fighting the results of the election, he wanted to make Clark the Attorney General, but the entire senior leadership of the department threatened to resign en masse. Now, if Clark gets a top job at the D.O.J., he is expected to use the position to try to remake the department as an instrument of the White House.

Stephen Miller, at America First Legal, has been devising plans to enact a nationwide crackdown on immigration, just as he had hoped to carry out on a vast scale in the first Trump term. The impediment then was operational: a lack of personnel to make arrests, a shortage of space to detain people, resistance from Democratic officials at the state and local levels. Miller has since vowed to increase deportations by a factor of ten, to a million people a year, according to the Times . The President would have to deputize federal troops to carry out the job, because there wouldn’t be enough agents at the Department of Homeland Security to do it. The government would need to build large internment camps, and, in the event that Congress refused to appropriate the money required, the President would have to divert funds from the military.

Many of the other agenda items related to immigration that were delayed, blocked, or never fully realized during the chaos of the first term would be reinstated to more extreme effect in a second: an expanded ban on refugees from Muslim-majority countries, a revocation of visas for students engaged in certain forms of campus protests, an end to birthright citizenship. “Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error,” Miller told the Times last November. “Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.”

The overarching scheme for the second Trump term, called Project 2025, follows an established Washington tradition. It is being organized by the Heritage Foundation and has taken the form of a nine-hundred-page policy tract. But the scale of this undertaking, which is costing more than twenty million dollars, is bigger than anything Heritage has previously attempted. The organization has hired the technology company Oracle to build a secure database to house the personnel files of some twenty thousand potential Administration staffers. Kevin Roberts, the current president of Heritage, has also enlisted the participation of more than a hundred conservative groups, as well as top figures from C.P.I.: Vought, Corrigan, Miller, and Saurabh Sharma, the president of American Moment. “These were the key nodes,” the person close to C.P.I. told me. “Roberts was paying Center for Renewing America, American Moment, and America First Legal to do parts of the project.” (Heritage did not respond to requests for comment.)

The fact that Heritage was helping to staff a full-fledged MAGA operation, the person went on, was a reflection of C.P.I.’s mounting influence. Two years ago, Roberts addressed the National Conservatism Conference, an annual gathering of far-right activists, which was hosted by an organization that is now associated with C.P.I. “I come not to invite national conservatives to join our movement but to acknowledge the plain truth that Heritage is already part of yours,” he said. Last year, Corrigan, who is on the steering committee of Project 2025, was invited to speak at Heritage’s fiftieth-anniversary conference. “The leadership at Heritage has brought back the C.P.I. folks even though they got pushed out six years before,” the person close to C.P.I. told me. “Kevin is being realistic. He needs to make peace with these guys.”

My source, who has been involved in Project 2025, outlined a few immediate actions that Trump would take if he won. Christopher Wray, the director of the F.B.I., would be fired “right away,” he told me. Even though Trump nominated Wray to the position, the far right has blamed Wray for the agency’s role in arresting people involved in the insurrection. (As Vought told me, “Look at the F.B.I., look at the deep state. We have political prisoners in this country, regardless of what you think about January 6th.”) The other hope in getting rid of Wray is that, without him, the Administration could use the agency to target its political opponents.

The person close to C.P.I. considered himself a denizen of the far-right wing of the Republican Party, yet some of the ideas under discussion among those working on Project 2025 genuinely scared him. One of them was what he described to me as “all this talk, still, about bombing Mexico and taking military action in Mexico.” This had apparently come up before, during the first Trump term, in conversations about curbing the country’s drug cartels. The President had been mollified but never dissuaded. According to Mike Pompeo, his former Secretary of State, Trump once asked, “How would we do if we went to war with Mexico?”

Trump’s former economic advisers Robert Lighthizer and Peter Navarro want Trump to impose tariffs of as much as ten per cent on foreign imports. Economists across the political spectrum have predicted that such a policy—which could trigger an international trade war, dramatically boosting inflation—would be catastrophic for the U.S. economy. “Lighthizer and Navarro are fucking clowns,” the person told me.

Those close to Trump are also anticipating large protests if he wins in November. His first term was essentially bookended by demonstrations, from the Women’s March and rallies against the Muslim ban to the mass movement that took to the streets after the murder of George Floyd, in the summer of 2020. Jeffrey Clark and others have been working on plans to impose a version of the Insurrection Act that would allow the President to dispatch troops to serve as a national police force. Invoking the act would allow Trump to arrest protesters, the person told me. Trump came close to doing this in the final months of his term, in response to the Black Lives Matter protests, but he was blocked by his Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Something under discussion is who they could actually appoint without Senate confirmation,” the person added. Schedule F, the executive order from October, 2020, that enabled the purge of career civil servants, was rescinded by the Biden Administration, but it would be reinstated by Trump. Presidents typically take their most decisive action in the first hundred days. The plan for Trump, I was told, was to set everything in motion “within hours of taking office.” This was what Trump had apparently meant when he told Sean Hannity, earlier this year, that he wouldn’t be a dictator, “except for Day One.”

The Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from the most radical aspects of Project 2025. There are no benefits—only political liabilities—to endorsing so many specifics. Trump’s supporters already know what he stands for, in a general sense. And there is the more delicate matter of the former President’s ego. “He wouldn’t want to be seen as taking guidance from any other human being,” the former senior White House official told me. “He doesn’t like to be seen as someone who doesn’t know everything already.” On July 5th, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” He said that he wished them luck.

His fortunes, though, were rising. The Presidential race was now his to lose. By the spring, he was steadily leading in national polls, with a larger edge in key battleground states. The Biden campaign had proposed two debates, with a format designed to control Trump’s pugilistic impulses: no studio audience and the microphones silenced after each answer, to prohibit interruptions. But during the first debate, on June 27th, Biden faltered. He stood rigidly at the podium, with a slack, vacant expression. His voice was weak and wavering, and he repeatedly trailed off mid-thought. The disastrous performance has since led an increasing number of Democrats to call for him to withdraw from the race. The following week, Trump was on the golf course with his son Barron and was caught on video summarizing the current electoral landscape. “I kicked that old broken-down pile of crap,” he said of Biden. “That means we have Kamala,” he went on. “I think she’s going to be better. She’s so bad. She’s so pathetic.”

In the first year of Biden’s Presidency, C.P.I. raised forty-five million dollars, more money than it had received in the previous four years combined. A single donor was responsible for twenty-five million dollars of that year’s haul: Mike Rydin, a seventy-five-year-old widower from Houston, who in 2021 made a fortune from the sale of his company, which developed software for the construction industry. Until then, he was a small-time Republican donor and a relative unknown in national political circles; in 2019, he contributed only about seven thousand dollars to the Trump campaign, according to the Daily Beast. But Rydin told me that he considered C.P.I.’s founder “the most honest man in America.”

While DeMint was in the Senate, he started a political-action committee, the Senate Conservatives Fund, to raise money for right-wing candidates who challenged Republican incumbents in Party primaries. “That was a cardinal sin,” the DeMint staffer told me. “He primaried his colleagues.” Some of the candidates supported by the PAC —Lee, in Utah; Rand Paul, in Kentucky; and Marco Rubio, in Florida—defeated fellow-Republicans backed by Senate leadership, then won their general elections. But, in other races, DeMint’s intervention backfired. In Delaware, he championed the candidacy of Christine O’Donnell, a conservative activist whose campaign imploded after footage surfaced of her saying that she’d “dabbled into witchcraft.” DeMint was unbothered. “I’d rather have thirty Marco Rubios in the Senate than sixty Arlen Specters,” he once said, referring to the moderate Republican from Pennsylvania, who eventually switched parties.

DeMint’s crusade reminded Rydin of his own career—the years of financial struggles, the uncertainties, the skeptics. “I knew what it was like to be alone,” he said. “It’s tough to be alone, to fight battles alone.” When a representative from the Senate Conservatives Fund reached out to him, in 2009, Rydin agreed to donate a thousand dollars. “That was, like, the most money I’d ever donated to anything,” Rydin said. Afterward, he told me, “someone calls me and says, ‘Senator DeMint wants to talk to you.’ And I said, ‘A senator? Really?’ ”

Rydin is polite and unprepossessing, almost droll. In our conversations, he was guarded but firm in expressing his commitment to ending illegal immigration, cutting government spending, and getting foreign countries to deal with their own problems. Rydin admitted that when Trump, as President, threatened to impose tariffs on Mexico “it scared the hell out of me.” But, he added, “everything Trump did turned out wonderfully. I’m not going to second-guess him anymore.” In the end, Rydin’s attraction to extreme figures seemed more personal than ideological. In 2015, he met Mark Meadows after Meadows, then a congressman from North Carolina, attempted to oust the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, a radical act for which Meadows was later described as “a legislative terrorist.” “He was absolutely terrified to do that,” Rydin told me. “He got no support whatsoever.”

Shortly after DeMint started C.P.I., in 2017, he and a colleague flew to Houston to meet with Rydin and other potential donors. Rydin had donated to Heritage while DeMint was there but stopped after his departure. (He has since resumed his contributions.) “It wouldn’t have bothered me if I never contributed to them again,” he said, “because they were firing Jim.” Now DeMint told him about his plans to create a conservative community in Washington, a place where members of Congress could confer before and after votes. “I’m on board,” Rydin told him. “You don’t have to say anything else.”

Rydin was ready to donate to C.P.I., but his wife, who avoided politics, was uncomfortable with him giving more than twenty-five thousand dollars. “To get her to twenty-five thousand dollars was a big deal,” he said. By the time she died, of cancer, in 2020, he’d increased his donation to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The next year, “I sold my company and had a lot of money,” he told me.

C.P.I. used part of Rydin’s twenty-five-million-dollar donation to buy, for seven million dollars, a lodge with eleven bedrooms on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, which it named Camp Rydin. The property has a shooting range and a horse stable. (“It’s rustic but luxurious,” the person close to C.P.I. told me.) To date, C.P.I. has held some two dozen trainings there for congressional staff and conservative activists, according to travel-disclosure forms filed with the government. Rydin has also donated to many of the groups in the C.P.I. network, including the Center for Renewing America, American Moment, and the American Accountability Foundation. In July, America First Legal sent out a preëlection fund-raising pitch: through August 15th, all donations up to two million dollars would be matched by “Houstonian patriot and generous AFL supporter Mike Rydin.”

As a nonprofit, C.P.I. is forbidden to engage in partisan spending or certain kinds of lobbying. Its network of associated organizations, however, has allowed it to do both of those things through a legal back door. America First Legal, like C.P.I., is a nonprofit. But it has a related entity called Citizens for Sanity, which can spend money on political advertising with minimal restrictions. In the last six months of 2022, Citizens for Sanity spent more than ninety million dollars on ads, including one that ran during the World Series. It laid the blame for crime, high inflation, and low wages on illegal immigration and warned viewers that Biden was leading the country toward “World War Three.” Other ads have decried “the woke left’s war on girls’ sports” and the “woke war on our children.” The group’s spending eclipsed that of both C.P.I. (which spent twenty-three million dollars in 2022) and America First Legal (which spent thirty-four million dollars). It’s impossible to know who donated the money, but the address listed on the tax documents for Citizens for Sanity is 300 Independence Avenue.

C.P.I.’s pitch to donors is also predicated on its close relationships with legislators in Washington. One member of the Freedom Caucus told me that House lawmakers were directly involved in C.P.I.’s fund-raising efforts. “When they made donor phone calls, they talked about how C.P.I. was the home of the Freedom Caucus,” the member told me. “The idea was ‘You should give to us because we support the real conservatives.’ ” When House members are in Washington to take votes, C.P.I. often arranges donor events at 300 Independence Avenue. “The presence of the members was to help raise money, and they were requested to mingle with the donors,” the lawmaker said.

C.P.I.’s association with the Freedom Caucus raises questions about whether the organization can credibly claim to be a nonprofit that steers clear of actual lobbying. In January of 2023, members of the Freedom Caucus met at C.P.I.’s headquarters to strategize about their attempt to block Kevin McCarthy from becoming the House Speaker. Meadows joined and advised them on how to proceed; he was regarded as someone with expertise, having tried to oust Boehner in 2015. “It’s pretty extraordinary that Meadows was sitting there talking about how to deny McCarthy the Speakership and how to negotiate concessions,” the member told me. C.P.I. also exerts an unspoken power over lawmakers because of its ties to the House Freedom Fund, the caucus’s political-action committee, which is also registered at 300 Independence Avenue.

Since 2021, Rydin no longer appears to be C.P.I.’s biggest donor. His foundation gave the group $1.5 million in 2022, but, according to C.P.I.’s tax filings, an unnamed donor contributed $15.5 million that year. Among C.P.I.’s most recent donors are the Servant Foundation, a fund backed by David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby; Donors Trust, a fund associated with Leonard Leo and the Koch family; the Bradley Impact Fund, an offshoot of a Wisconsin-based philanthropy where Cleta Mitchell serves as a board secretary; and the Ohio food-packing magnate Dave Frecka and his wife, Brenda, who have a conference room named after them at 300 Independence Avenue. “The previous dark-money political-influence operations tended to be run by more old-school billionaire, polluter, right-wing interests,” Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, told me. “C.P.I. represents the MAGA move into this space.”

On a bright, warm day in May, I visited Saurabh Sharma, the twenty-six-year-old head of American Moment, which describes its mission as “identifying, educating, and credentialing” a new generation of conservative staffers. Dressed in a blazer and tie, with round glasses and brown bit loafers, he greeted me in front of a small door on Pennsylvania Avenue that was wedged between a Sweetgreen and a Dos Toros. A narrow staircase led to a small office suite that the group had rented from C.P.I.

Between February, 2022, and March, 2023, C.P.I. bought seven buildings and a parking lot along this stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue. It made the purchases through a web of more than a dozen limited-liability companies, taking out at least twenty-five million dollars in mortgages. What helps the group cover the monthly payments is the rent that it charges its network of affiliated nonprofits. Behind the buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue, C.P.I. plans to close off the back alley and create a nine-thousand-square-foot “campus” called Patriots’ Row. It already has a property next to the Senate; by expanding its footprint closer to the House, it hopes to insure that staffers from both chambers, as well as the lawmakers themselves, have places to congregate within walking distance of their daily business.

Sharma led me past a counter with a tap for cold brew and into a room filled with chairs and a lectern. He is originally from Texas, where he was the youngest-ever chairman of the state’s Young Conservatives association, and carries himself with the aplomb of someone twice his age. “No one else is as obsessed with finding young people and making them into extremely influential political actors within bureaucratic government life,” he told me. “No one cares as much about doing that as I do.”

Four years ago, Sharma stayed up late one night reading an essay by Senator J. D. Vance, a Republican from Ohio, who was then a venture capitalist and a best-selling author. The piece, titled “End the Globalization Gravy Train,” was a statement of principles for a branch of the conservative movement ascendant in the Trump era and known as the New Right: economic nationalism, foreign-policy isolationism, hostility to immigration. Sharma was struck by a portion of the essay in which Vance argued that personnel at every level of government in Washington were not up to the task of responding to the demands of the moment. It was something that Sharma had heard gripes about before, during a summer internship in Washington. For too long, he said on a recent podcast, government offices were staffed by “twenty-three-year-old shitheads” sent to D.C. by their parents to keep them “as far away from the family business as humanly possible.” He put it to me more soberly: “The personnel pipeline needed to be rebuilt from scratch. Who are the fifty twenty-year-olds we should be looking at? There needs to be a white-glove process by which they’re brought into the fold.”

In the winter of 2021, C.P.I. convened a meeting of its top donors in the ballroom of a Miami hotel. Sharma pitched the donors on his new venture, alongside Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, and Ben Carson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Trump. “It was a very risky thing for them to do,” Sharma told me of C.P.I. “Most groups in Washington don’t want to share their donors. It shows a great deal of confidence on the part of C.P.I.” At the gathering, Sharma met Rydin, who immediately took to him. Later on, while Sharma was speaking to another donor, Rydin approached the pair. “Isn’t this guy so impressive?” Rydin said to the donor, pointing to Sharma. “Well, are you going to help him?”

Sharma considers C.P.I. a “fraternity” devoted to, in his telling, creating a new and lasting culture in Washington. “The right and its people are almost like sedimentary rock,” he said. “It’s like the Grand Canyon. You can see the layers in it. Who the President is in any given year defines what kind of people choose to get involved in center-right politics.” He ran through some history, starting with Barry Goldwater, in the nineteen-sixties, and ending with Trump. “President Trump getting elected brought in an entirely new generation of people,” he said. The problem was that most Republicans in Washington had initially detested the former President. As a result, Sharma said, “no one was interested in elevating a young kid that came to them and said, ‘I’d really like to get involved in politics because President Trump was right. We got lied into Iraq. We should shut down the border. And we’re getting sold out by China when it comes to trade.’ ”

American Moment, he went on, was correcting the “injustice” of the fact that, for the first few years of Trump’s term, the views of such young people were “artificially suppressed” in Washington. “The way that the Trump legacy will be immortal, the way that Trump himself will be immortal, is if there’s a corresponding generation of people that are drawn to politics based on his vision,” Sharma said. Some conservative ideologues tend to see Trump as a wild but ultimately necessary means to an end. In Sharma’s view, Trump is the “alpha and the omega of the conservative movement.” He told me, “The only reason these opportunities exist is because Trump ran and won. The only reason these opportunities exist today is because Trump hasn’t left the scene.”

Sharma had to leave to host a book party at C.P.I. headquarters, which was across the street, and we strolled over together. While we waited at a crosswalk, a young congressional staffer stopped to shake Sharma’s hand. A few other people were making their way to C.P.I.’s town house. At the party, there was a full bar and pulled-pork sandwiches. In a few days, American Moment would be hosting a Hawaiian-themed bash called the Lawless Lawfare Luau, where attendees would wear leis. “I don’t know a D.C. without C.P.I.,” Sharma told me. “But those who were around before say it was a wasteland.” ♦

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