Hi friends,

yesterday I have got an email from a design student asking me to write about how to get an internship in Car design. It is a beautiful question to which is not easy to answear, I'll try anyway according to my daily experience. Lets start saying that every car company has a method in selecting young talents, so what I am going to tell is not a sort of universal way to do it. In general, where I work, we do receive by email or by traditional mail service portfolios and CVs with a presentation letter.

Those are the 3 important elements to have at a very high level, if I receive an internship request and the CV or motivation letter or (worst) the portfolio is not so good...well that is it, I stop it having no interest to go on.

The CV

The CV must be good, very professional, precise without lies (we see them right away). The CV can have a nice editorial graphic same as your business card. The CV does not have to have your photo! For more info about CV read my article "To get a job start from a good CV"

The motivation or cover letter

The motivation letter is very important for some companies like french and american ones, it is a letter in which the candidate presents him/herself to explaine what really motivates him or her to apply for that particular company. You can immagine that letters that say "I would love to join your very well known company to feel very proud of..." are not very professionals. What to write? Present yourself, very breafly like a big paragraph plus a conclusion statement. In that paragraph you have to be able to convey the message you have in mind without over making it. This is a letter that, because of its nature and length, will be written and re-written several times before sending the right one. Please check out some simple samples here.

The mini portfolio

Dear friends, I wrote already a lot about how a mini book or portfolio should be to be taken into consideration. So read my articles as follows: "Portfolio in automotive design", "Portfolio...where to start? ", "Design students' presentations", "Getting a job in Design: English TOEIC Test", and the last important one to read is "To become a designer...finishing school, job interview".

When we receive mini portfolios with internship requests we start selecting the best ones ( at least for us), after we contact those we would like to meet for a person to person evaluation with a more complete portfolio, at the end of this processus we decide who (according to places availables) will gain the internship.

Good luck!