Written by Rhiannon Williams, Global Internships Manager at UCL Careers.

Welcome to the third blog in the ‘My Global Internship’ series. You’ve heard about global mindset and how you can get started with your search for an international internship. Now it’s time to think about making some applications…

Whether you’re applying for an internship in a company that’s around the corner, or on the other side of the world, general advice around how to construct a great CV, cover letter, and application is universal. You’ll want to prepare an application that highlights your skills, experience, and interests in order to convince an employer that you’re the best person for the role. Saying that, there is some additional preparation you can do if you are preparing an application for a global internship. 

1. Research, research, research

Use a site like GoinGlobal (a service that UCL Careers subscribes to) to check the conventions in the country you’re applying to. You don’t need to follow every rule – not only do CVs and cover letters differ from country to country, but also job to job and industry to industry. However, you might discover some useful guidelines, such as countries where it is standard practice to include things like a photo or pre-written references.

If you are planning to undertake an internship in Europe, you could also check out Europass, an online tool that helps you prepare the necessary documents to highlight your skills and qualifications, including template CVs, cover letters and a language self-assessment tool.

2. Get your numbers right

Including a telephone number? Remember to include the right international dialing code. Writing a date? Get the order of day, month and year right for the standard practice of the country you’re applying to a job in. These seemingly small differences show that you’ve done your homework and back up any claim you’ve made of showing attention to detail!

3. Highlight your language skills

It’s not always a prerequisite of a role to have any additional language skills, although if it is, you should certainly mention how you meet that criteria. Be honest with your skills and include your level of fluency. If you claim to be fluent in a second language, a native speaker can easily check this at interview stage. Write your application in the same language as the job advert (unless it is explicitly stated to submit it in another language).

4. “Translating” your experience

Be aware that your qualifications, or even institution, may not be as well recognised in the country you are applying for an internship in. You can include the international equivalent to your degree (Scholera has a free conversion tool) and consider changing UCL to the local language (e.g. UCL is 伦敦大学学院in Chinese). You could mention that UCL is a world-leading university (top 10 according to the latest QS rankings) or include something specific about your department or course that makes it stand out internationally.

5. Highlight your international experience

By applying for an internship outside of the UK and/or your home country, you should highlight your ability to work in a global context, adapt to a new environment and work with colleagues from different cultures. Highlight past experiences living abroad, language skills, working with peers from different nationalities and any examples of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and overcoming challenges. Remember to also address the other skills that are required for the role – you might be able to adapt to life in the country as easy as pie, but you’ve also got to show that you’re the right candidate for the role! UCL Careers has plenty of general advice and guidance to help you write excellent CVs and cover letters on the UCL Careers website as well as the following CareersLab videos.

6. Declare your visa status

Whilst not a requirement, it can be useful when applying for an internship in a foreign country to make clear your visa status at application stage. There may be cases where it’s simply not possible for an employer to accept an international candidate, so you could either find out beforehand or outline the situation in your application. Note that your visa status is different to your nationality, which you don’t have to disclose on your CV.

7. Get a helping hand

All job applications should be proofread and spell-checked but this is particularly critical if you’ve written it in another language. Even if it is in English, it might be worth getting someone who doesn’t know UCL or your degree subject to read it to see if they can easily follow what you have written in your application. You could even contact recruitment agencies in the country where you intend to work and ask their advice. 

8. Applying speculatively

Not all internships are advertised and many students approach companies directly with the aim of securing an internship with that organisation. They may have found the company online or used their personal network to get contact details of an appropriate person. This is a really positive, proactive of finding opportunities and shows your eagerness to work for that company. If you go down this route, it is really important that you understand the culture before you send any emails. In some cultures, addressing the email or letter to ‘Dear Sir/Madam rather than a named contact can be seen as rude so try and find exactly who you want to approach.

Next steps

So it’s time to start making those applications! Remember you can have your application checked by a UCL Careers Consultant (in English!) before you send it off to an organisation. Next time we’ll be exploring video interviews, which are very common in the recruitment process when applying for internships overseas.

How do you start a career in museums? What are careers in the arts like? What jobs are there in cultural heritage? Following UCL Careers’ Museums, Arts and Cultural Heritage Themed Week, we have created this handout to provide a list of useful resources to help prepare you for the event and to continue your research into the sector.

Overview

The Museums, Arts or Cultural Heritage sector encompasses a wide range or job roles; from traditional roles such as Museum Curator, Archaeologist or Artist, to less traditional roles in IT, Finance, HR and Legal, which are set to see continued growth in the coming years – great news for talented graduates with creative flair.

Government statistics from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) show that employment within the creative industries, which include advertising, architecture, arts and culture, craft, design, fashion, games, music, publishing, technology and TV and film, is growing at four times the rate of the UK workforce as a whole.

Read more of the creative arts sector overview on Prospects

Key starting points

The following resources will provide a general overview of current trends in the Museums, Arts and Cultural Heritage sector and provide more detailed information on the range of different graduate level roles available, helping you get a better understanding of your different options:

• Museums sector trends
• Arts sector trends
• Cultural Heritage sector trends

The different job profiles listed will provide key information on areas such as:

• Main duties/responsibilities for the role
• Expected salary information (starting and potential earnings)
• Professional development, training and career prospects
• Typical working hours
• Entry requirements (formal qualifications and skills)
• How to get work experience
• How to identify key employers and where to search for vacancy

Professional organisations and other bodies

Many museums, arts and cultural Heritage sector professional body websites will produce career guides aimed at student/graduate level jobseekers, providing an insider’s view on how to start your career. They will also provide information for their members on areas such as events, news on current trends, future developments etc. for the sector.

Keeping up to date with sector news through sites like these is sites is useful for building your commercial awareness which recruiters will be looking for evidence of when you start applying.

The listings below will highlight major professional bodies for the museums, arts and cultural heritage sector and explain what sorts of information each one provides that might be useful to you when planning your career. They will also provide support with navigating these sites to find the student focussed content.

• Museums sector professional associations
• Arts sector professional associations
• Cultural Heritage sector professional associations

Employer directories and vacancy sources

Through myUCLCareers thousands of organisations target UCL students and graduates by advertising a range of vacancy types including work experience/internships and full time graduate level roles.

Log in to your myUCLCareers account now to search for current Museums, Arts and Cultural Heritage sector vacancies – (use the ‘Occupational area’ filter for ‘Arts administration, libraries, museums and heritage’ or the use ‘Quick search’ for terms such as: ‘museums’, ‘arts’ or ‘heritage’)

Through your myUCLCareers account you can also use the organisation search to identify recruiters by ‘occupational area’ who have a connection with UCL Careers and who operate in the Museums, Arts and Cultural Heritage sector.

Many recruiters won’t directly target UCL students through myUCLCareers so it’s also worth expanding your search by looking through our listings for this sector:

Company directories:

• Museums company directory
• Arts company directory
• Cultural Heritage company directory

Job sites:

• Museums job sites
• Arts job sites
• Cultural Heritage job sites

Students’ Union UCL – Clubs and Societies

Explore what clubs and societies are on offer at UCL that could help develop your interest in the Museums, Arts and Cultural Heritage sector.

Clubs and Societies of interest could include:

• Advertising, Marketing and PR Society
• Art Society
• Modo Fashion Society
• Museums Society
• Music Society
• Photo Society

For a full list of societies go to the Students’ Union UCL society search page.

Museums, Arts and Cultural Heritage Sector Themed Week

If you missed our annual Museums, Arts and Cultural Heritage sector week or would like a reminder of what happened, you can visit our website:

• Themed Week Events Programme: See past events to discover which organisations were involved and get an idea of what to expect next year.
• Themed Week Archive: See event recording from previous years. Watch talks and panel events from the comfort of your own home!
• UCL Careers Blog: Search our blog to find more articles about these sectors, including alumni case-studies and sector insights.

Museums, Arts and Cultural Heritage Sector Mentoring

Following the Themed Week, you might also want to explore the ‘UCL Alumni Online Community’ – to identify UCL graduates who are now working in this sector and who are happy to provide support for UCL students. If you’re unsure where to start with networking, see these resources on how to network professionally.

UCL Careers are here to help you find your future, no matter what stage your at in your career planning. Visit our website to find out other ways that we can support you and for any questions, please contact careers@ucl.ac.uk.

As part of the Museums, Arts and Cultural Heritage Themed Week, John Braime from the Students’ Union UCL volunteering service discusses top volunteering opportunities in the museums, arts and cultural heritage sectors:

Museums, Arts and Cultural Heritage Volunteering

London is full of heritage and cultural organisations, many of them small museums or charities that rely on volunteers to keep them going. If you’re considering a career in the heritage or cultural field, or if you just love museums and galleries, then there is plenty to choose from. Here’s a selection from the current vacancies list of Students’ Union UCL’s

Volunteering Service – you’ll find many more on our volunteering directory or drop us a line at volunteering@ucl.ac.uk.

The Weiner Library

The Wiener Library is one of the world’s leading and most extensive archives on the Holocaust and Nazi era. The Wiener Library has a strong tradition of working with volunteers. Our volunteers are vitally important to us as an organisation and we could not achieve what we do without them. We are currently recruiting for the following volunteering roles: Blogger, Book Reviewer, Events Assistant, Photographer (photographing our collections and events), Tour Guide (delivering public tours of our exhibition and archive) and Translators of German to English (translating original testimony for an upcoming education website.

Leighton House Museum

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea owns and runs two historic Victorian homes near High Street Kensington, Leighton House Museum and 18 Stafford Terrace. We are looking for volunteers for both properties, at 18 Stafford Terrace for room guides on either a Wednesday, Saturday or Sunday afternoon and at Leighton House Museum for activity volunteers to help deliver family based activities and learning volunteers to help deliver school workshops.

London Canal Museum

London Canal Museum is dedicated to educating and inspiring our visitors with the history of London’s canals – how they’ve shaped London’s development, the ordinary people that lived and worked on them, as well as the entrepreneurs who profited from them. We want to pass on the heritage of the canals so that future generations can learn about London’s industrial and social past. We’re currently recruiting Front of House Volunteers.

The Foundling Museum

The Foundling Museum explores the history of the Foundling Hospital, the UK’s first children’s charity, and celebrates the ways in which artists of all disciplines have helped to improve children’s lives for over 270 years. Our team of volunteers are a huge part of the Foundling Museum, having being instrumental in establishing the Museum prior to its opening in 2004 and continuing to contribute to its success today. We pride ourselves on welcoming a diverse range of individuals who choose to share their time and expertise with us. The Museum could not function without them.

John Braime

Volunteering Manager, Students’ Union UCL

The Museums, Arts and Cultural Heritage Themed Week is now over, but details of other upcoming themed weeks can be found on our website. These include Charities and NGOs and Sustainability. Recording of previous years events can also be found on our Themed Week Archive.

Every year UCL Careers holds a number of Careers Fairs to help you talk to employers and find out first hand what they are looking for. You will get more out of the Careers Fair if you spend a little time preparing…

Be aware that there will be a mixture of all kind of employers from all kinds of sectors exhibiting each day and you might find an employer that you had never really considered before as being a front runner for you. To help you prepare effectively we’ve put some handy tips together to get you started:

Before the fair

We strongly encourage you to do some research on the exhibitors before the fair: www.ucl.ac.uk/careers/fairs

As well as reading the exhibitor profiles, click through to the organisation’s own website to find out more about them.

You can then decide which exhibitors you particularly want to talk to, and you will be able to ask more informed questions. Try to prepare some questions in advance and think about the main points that you would want an organisation to know about you – it can help you feel more confident.

At the fair

At the fair, each exhibiting organisation has a stand and their reps are there to answer your questions about what the organisation does, what jobs they offer to final year students and graduates, what internships/placements they provide to earlier year students, and any other opportunities that they offer.

Wherever possible, try to talk to someone on the stand instead of just picking up a brochure. Use the opportunity to ask your questions face-to-face.

If you are feeling a bit nervous about approaching your first choice organisation, it can be a good idea to visit some other stands first to practise your technique.

If you are given a business card, make a point soon afterwards of noting on it anything that it would be useful to remember. Have they suggested you email them with further questions? Did they give you advice on their recruitment process?

Even if you have a ‘hit list’ of exhibitors, consider other organisations at the fair that are less well known. They might be offering just what you are looking for.

Remember to bring your UCL ID or GradClub ID card as you won’t be able to enter the fair without this!

Other hints and tips

• Remember that many of the opportunities are available to students of any discipline
• Staff on the exhibitor stands are often relatively recent graduates who can tell you what it is really like to work in their organisation
• If you want to have a CV ready to hand over, arrange an appointment at UCL Careers before the Careers Fair to ask for some CV feedback
• The fair may be busy when you arrive – don’t be put off. People tend to congregate by the entrance, so head to another part of the fair where it will probably be quieter
• Avoid walking round the fair with a group of friends. The exhibitor may not realise that you are interested in them, and you could miss out because your friend happens to be more talkative than you!
• If you feel overwhelmed, and don’t know what to do or where to start, make sure you visit the UCL Careers for help.

For further information about the fairs, please visit: www.ucl.ac.uk/careers/fairs