Howdy all,
After a few years of reading intern applications we have drafted a short how-to letter to you, future interns. We hope reading this may help you think up, remember, and/or explain better why you might be a fantastic intern.
Hiring is hard.
It is important to keep in mind applications and interviews are intended to help us find the candidates who are the best fit for the Garden. If working for us helps you as much as it helps us, we all win. It is more important that an applicant demonstrates a need for future learning, or career goals than having all the skills for the job.
Most of the best answers for any question are stories that show us steps and strategies.
The things you did matter. Slow down the story and take us through the process. Don’t just tell us you made a sandwich, tell us how you made it. What did you include and why? Was it good? Or, was it merely sufficient and allowed you to complete your homework.
Consider the stakes of your answer.
Talking about a conflict with a roommate can be a good example of conflict resolution, but a better answer might be an example that happened in a class. Even better, write about something that happened at work. Work examples tend to have higher stakes than figuring out how the dishes get done.
Often providing context is important to understanding an answer.
We work at the UW, but we don’t know every organization or work opportunity in Madison. Introducing an organization you lead with its full name, what it does, and your role is critical information that helps us understand why the experience has prepared you to intern at ACG.
Examples with details are often more helpful than general examples or claims.
You will have to write more than a paragraph for most prompts. We don’t expect page long essays, but for most answers to be meaningful, you will need to provide specific examples to support your point. You might want to say that your strength is that you’re a good communicator. To do so, you might need to tell us a few stories with details that show this.
Diversity comes in countless forms.
No matter who you are, you bring something unique to the table. Talk about it. Diversity includes race, ethnicity, and gender identity, class, family size, what you believe, where you grew up, and so on. If you don’t feel diverse, consider writing about how you’ve worked with people different from you.
We are in a specific place and we do specific things.
Let us know you know that. Your application should not be a series of answers we could forward to Olbrich or Bruce Company, Madison City Parks, etc. These are all great organizations doing cool things. The work of a horticulturist at Madison City Parks is different from what you are applying to do here. The work an education intern might do at Olbrich is really cool, but again, different from what would happen at Allen Centennial Garden. If you’ve had a conversation with us about interning or volunteered with us, let us know and remind us of your connection. These things help us know you have a decent sense of what you’re getting yourself into. If you’re lost, check out our blog and see what we’ve been up to the past few years.
Allen Centennial Garden’s mission is to create garden experiences that deepen relationships among people and plants. We invite you to join us in the Garden to get to know our local plants, community, and yourself better.
Your application should include references to plants.
It is important for you to actually be available for work.
We take orientation of our interns pretty seriously because we want them to be prepared for the work we do. This means that if you are going to miss more than one day of the first week of the internship (May 12 – May 16), we will not consider your application. Additionally, it’s okay to have some plans during the summer, but if you’re planning to miss two or more weeks of the summer, working at the Garden this year will not be a good fit for you.