about internship application

just replied the guy from internship company to decline his offer and recommended my groupmate to him. few minutes later she got one email from him. he said that the reason why he sent email to ask me first "is that his resume indicates his experiences in ...", and he asked her to "tell me more about your research work".

my boss asked us this morning: why you couldn't go but got the offer while she can but not? i think the guy's email explained it somehow. this is a different position with the one we got phone interviewed at last time and they didnt know that i can't go so they reviewed our application at the same time and make the order.

i think resume and cover letter are important documents for job hunting. and of course another, maybe even more important factor is the recommendation from someone in or connecting with that company.

last year i spent one whole week in preparing my resume and cover letter, with the revising help from my advisor and career center and my friends. i longed for internship very much at that time. but since nobody recommended me, i couldnt get an offer. none of those applicants from my department got it although we are among the top in that field.

this time i also spent about half a week to prepare the resume and cover letter, although i just needed to change from my previous version. i asked my friend: can you give me your sample of colver letter? to my surprise he told me he didn't have it. he is looking for job. he said that the companies only require resume. yes i haven't seen any company asking for cover letter directly. but i think it should be useful to demonstrate myself by cover letter along with resume. after that my friend sent cl to his application too.

my groupmate wants to go to industry in the future and internship is important for her. but she is just careless or idle. she just modified her last year resume and sent to the company one day after we got the internship info. when i asked her about cover letter it's too late for her to make up it. i am not sure how important the documents play role in the application but i think at least this time it's important: the guy asked me whether i will go since "You seem to have good experiences in this area" and he asked my groupmate to describe her research more. i believe that it's not b/c i m doing better than her, but b/c she didn't show her abilities well and clearly
in her resume while i did.

today Los Alamos National Lab is looking for graduate internships from our department (via a joint program, working at our department and paid by LANL. my boss still said no to me). i helped my groupmate to revise her email. her english is pretty good but she is careless in my eyes in writing. and she still wrote in chinese mail style and she seldom checked her writing before she sent it. i asked her to be careful since she care about this application and position very much.

a bad thing about careful is wasting time. i wish i can learn to be efficient and careful in the future.

phone interview

just finished the phone interview from internship company. my first one at usa. about 25 minutes.

i am still in cold and couldnt speak clearly. my research matches their topics a little, not much. but in my eyes it's easy for me to get into theirs.

he asked me about the frontiers of my field (also theirs) and we discussed. he wanted "advanced researchers who are familiar with these work". but that's a high requirement for intern.

we talked about the difference between academia and industry research.

the problem is that they want me to go for 6 or 9 months. i cant since i need to work on my dissertation and graduate. in fact my advisor told me that he is "thinking whether it's good or not to let you go in the summer instead of working here with me". i'm also hesitated.

he asked me to think about the possibility to postpone my graduation. i dont think it's acceptable for me and my advisor. i will reply him next week.

anyway, it's a good experience for me to be interviewed.