Navigating the countless internship opportunities within the marketing industry can be daunting and confusing at first. While there are numerous opportunities to be grabbed, what can you do to stand out amongst the crowd? How do you tailor your written application to catch the eyes of recruiters? How do you successfully market yourself into a marketing internship? 

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Following her most recent role at Vnova – which focused on B2B campaigns and assessing market trends and campaign performance – Amy Vu offers insight into applying for more analytical roles within the marketing industry. Ananya Dhaka’s experience falls across multiple marketing internships around the world, including digital marketing at Hector Beverages, and media-marketing at People Matters, having a taste of all the different types of marketing internships on offer. Currently at L’Oreal as a Media Intern, with previous experience in both creative and analytical-driven marketing roles at Ryvlmedia, and as an Employer Branding Intern at FPT IS, Emmaline Chow emphasises the need to take any opportunity you are given, whether at school or in more professional settings.

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With a diverse background across multiple marketing internships across the globe, Amy, Ananya, and Emmaline offer their advice to creating an eye-catching written application to secure a spot in the next round of marketing internship applications.

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Standing Out on Paper: Tips to Make Your Resume and Cover Letter Shine

The written application process constitutes the first step, and a crucial step, into landing a marketing internship. Applying for a role in high demand can be challenging at times to be distinct from the crowd, but carefully curating your resume and cover letter can equip you with an advantage. To truly stand out to marketing recruiters, the consensus across Amy, Ananya and Emmaline is to look beyond simply listing past roles, and instead demonstrate impact, creativity, and initiative. As Amy puts it, “Show actual results of your actions, don’t just list a task.” Recruiters are looking for evidence, whether it is boosting engagement by a certain percentage or leading a successful campaign. Amy also advises applicants to be strategic by “pick[ing] out the experiences that directly relate to the job position you are applying for”, whether that be using keywords from the job description, or making full use of the University’s resources when crafting your resume and cover letter. 

 

“If I saw an opportunity, I just took it,” Emmaline says. Endorsing the value of being proactive, she explains that even small opportunities can be powerful in showcasing any marketing-related experience, especially if you are new to the game. Whilst having marketing experience helped set her apart from those who just had a marketing degree, “just joining a club and getting any experience you can, can be used to your advantage” she adds. Additions of involvement in student clubs or volunteer roles to your resume and cover letter can further reflect your personality – “It represents you,” she says. Structuring your cover letter does not need to be lengthy, Emmaline suggests, offering a proposed format for a cover letter: an opening paragraph to introduce yourself, followed by two more paragraphs that detail your interest in marketing and why you want to work at that specific company. Emmaline also pays close attention to the minor details, having used the Harvard style with added colour to headings, and reminds applicants that “minor but crucial details: correct spelling and punctuation” can make all the difference.

Cementing this, Ananya places emphasis on the need to show “tangible impact on the company”, reinforcing that it is not just about listing past responsibilities, but demonstrating real outcomes. She encourages candidates to reflect on recent university or extracurricular projects, especially those with a creative edge. “Note down all experience, especially anything creative”, she advises, consolidating how individuality can shine through even in student-led work. Internships, marketing projects, and leadership in student organisations are all reputable examples if they illustrate initiative and real-world relevance.

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More Than Numbers: The Role of Creativity in Marketing Careers 

Choosing a degree, a major, and later trying to navigate all the possible career pathways in an industry is complicated and confusing at the best of times. The Marketing major, despite falling under the Bachelor of Commerce degree, often has a different focus to the Finance, Economics, or Accounting majors that usually spring to mind when people hear “commerce”. While there are countless individual differences that could be analysed, Amy, Emmaline, and Ananya all agree that the underlying difference between marketing and other commerce majors lies in the industry’s emphasis on creativity.

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Amy puts this wonderfully: “Marketing gives you more room for design [and] storytelling.” To then be the stand-out candidate when applying for internships, the two key recurring differences all three interviewees mention are: 1) your digital presence and 2) a creative portfolio.

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The importance of networking and keeping your LinkedIn page up to standard remains crucial for any commerce student. Sometimes it becomes overwhelming, where every second person you meet is chronically on LinkedIn as a self-proclaimed ‘LinkedIn warrior’. Whilst other commerce disciplines may focus more on networking and connecting with industry professionals, marketing roles and internships have a greater interest in showcasing your potential and experience.

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“Always include your LinkedIn…. You can’t put everything – all your experiences – in your resume. That’s why you want to utilise your LinkedIn, so [recruiters] know your extracurriculars and [experiences]. [Your] digital presence matters more in marketing than other commerce streams,” Amy reflects.​ Similarly, Ananya also mentions that “the initial step [of setting up a LinkedIn account] is a little hard. You need to lock in and sit down and do one hour, or two hours [of setting up], but it’ll pay off.… It’s a good investment, at least for your future.”

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More than anything, your digital profile acts as your marketing passport; it shows recruiters your experience and “a lot of creativity and initiative”. As marketing moves further towards the online and digital platforms, it is important for applicants to highlight their engagement online. Your resume and cover letter may be tailored to the brand, but your digital presence tells the story of you. Put simply by Amy, “Recruiters stalk your LinkedIn or your portfolio.” ​She also states that, “For [some] roles, I don’t put my [role as] 'President of Gleam Up' [on my resume] because that’s not relevant,” but it is in her LinkedIn to exhibit all her leadership experiences and further create her digital presence.

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Inside the Diverse Landscape of Marketing Internships 

It is also important to note, however, the varying roles within marketing internships. The traditional creative marketing role differs from more data-analytical positions, such as digital marketing, or advocacy, and consumer market insights. Amy’s internship at Vnova was “more tech and business-related” than other design-related marketing roles; Emmaline also notes, “For L’Oreal, [my internship role] is less on the creative side – [I’m] not designing advertisements, it’s more about managing it, and the strategies behind the marketing.”

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“There’s a lot of different aspects to marketing; a lot of my friends are in advocacy… or brand management.… Another one of my friends is doing consumer market insights, so just researching what the consumer likes, and they do that for every brand, so the brands know what type of content they should be putting out.”

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Sharing a similar sentiment, Ananya reinforces how there are a myriad of marketing internships and “people do need to know the difference”. For distinct roles, requirements for submitted written applications may vary – more data-driven and analytical roles, such as digital marketing, may not require extensive portfolio work, whereas the traditional creative and design-related marketing roles may require applicants to upload their portfolio. Both Emmaline and Ananya state that the company will likely evaluate your skills and “choose which teams you’d be suited for.”

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It comes naturally, then, that your digital presence (such as your LinkedIn profile), plays a crucial role in your written application. It is important to “go with an open mind”. As Ananya shares, “You might sign up for social media, but they see that you are really good at branding, or really good at social media posting, and they’ll put you there. So go in with an open mind, sometimes the role you apply for might not be the role you end in.”

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Building and Expanding Your Portfolio 

Updating and creating a diverse and unique portfolio seems to be a continuous siren that echoes in the back of people’s minds, yet few really dedicate the quality time needed to commit and build an expansive and effective portfolio. As mentioned above, the creative side of marketing is what defines this industry from other commerce disciplines; your portfolio is then equally as important, if not more important, than your traditional resume and cover letter. If your digital presence is your marketing passport, then your portfolio is your unique fingerprint.

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While there are multiple ways to approach the creation of an effective portfolio, Ananya, Emmaline, and Amy all recommend creating a website. As Amy says: “It is more impressive.” Similarly, Emmaline repeats similar notions, saying that it’s “just for marketing. Just to make [you] stand out.” While a normal PDF file can be equally as expansive and creative as a website, a website sets you apart from the crowd and is easier for recruiters to refer back to.

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How Ananya describes it is: “A website is really, really good. It’s easier – visually, especially for marketing, where visual aesthetic is really important. It makes a huge difference.”

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What Amy did was she “used Canva to create a website”, which included “a mix of personal brand projects and club extracurriculars, and university campaigns.” She encouraged any applicants to “do a mix [of personal and professional work], don’t just do strictly just work. Leadership roles are really important as well.”

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For creative marketing internships, your own aesthetic and style is crucial to your application. The only way recruiters can really start to understand your personal brand is via your portfolio. As with Amy’s inclusion of personal and professional work, Emmaline and Ananya also agree that your portfolio should be diverse and showcase an extensive range of the content you create, whether for professional or personal use. “I used stuff from university clubs [as well as] my work from Visual Communication Design in VCE,” Emmaline mentions.

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Ananya also says that for your “portfolio, put everything. Even if it’s completely random things that don’t relate to each other, that’s completely fine [to put in], it shows how diverse your portfolio is.” Your portfolio may be quite lengthy, but “it is up to you what you want to show them.” Afterwards, always provide the link to your website, and recruiters can look at your entire portfolio in their own time. As mentioned earlier, recruiters are likely to “stalk” your portfolio to get to know you better. 

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What is important to remember is that your portfolio is always a work in progress. No portfolio should ever stop being updated. As Ananya expresses: “Every time you’ve done something, put it up there.” Any project that you work on — whether for leisure, or for more professional settings — builds and strengthens your own unique fingerprint and visual aesthetic. If anything, your portfolio should be the best representation of you. 

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Starting Fresh? Clubs, Courses, and Passion Projects are Your Best Friend

Landing a marketing internship without prior experience can feel daunting, but as the insights from Amy, Emmaline, and Ananya reveal, there are many pathways to break into the field. The key is to take initiative and showcase your potential in creative and strategic ways. All three interviewees shared a common thread of placing strong emphasis on the importance of building both hard and soft skills through extracurricular involvement and personal projects. “Gain hard skills and soft skills. You can’t be 100% fresh with no experience at all,” Amy notes, stressing the need to go beyond theory and into practice.

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One effective entry point is through university clubs, where students can take many roles within communication, design, or publications. These experiences often mimic real-world tasks and provide tangible content for resumes and portfolios. “Join clubs, or in high school, you can do publications, and some high schools have marketing roles as well,” Amy advises, urging aspiring marketers to get involved and gradually build experience. 

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In addition to extracurriculars, building a portfolio is essential, especially for those without traditional internship experience. Ananya encourages students to start with personal projects: “It doesn’t even need to be public, if it’s just stuff you’ve done for yourself, but it showcases ‘this is my aesthetic, this is the type of content that I like’.” A thoughtful, well-curated portfolio can demonstrate creativity, initiative, and a growing understanding of branding – all of which are key in marketing. 

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To support this practical work, pursuing online certifications and short courses is a highly recommended strategy. “If you don’t have any experiences like that yet, definitely do some free online courses to have some skills that are actually certified,” Amy recommends. Ananya adds that certifications, such as those from Google, can be a great way to “demonstrate that you know what you are doing,” and equip you with certified skills, even without formal experience.

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Another key concept enforced was the benefit of staying open-minded. Marketing roles are diverse. “There are different marketing roles... they require different skills, so having many different experiences can help with this,” Emmaline shares. This kind of flexibility not only enhances applications, but also helps recruiters discover which paths best align with your strengths and interests.

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Finally, tapping into university career services for resume feedback and interview preparation was a shared suggestion. As Ananya put it, “just because I don’t have any prior experience doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing.” Be confident! With the right combination of self-initiated projects exhibiting a willingness to learn, even newcomers to the field can stand out and land their first opportunity in marketing.

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Key Takeaways 

Resume and Cover Letter:

• Illustrate tangible impact and results whilst tailoring content to the specific role using keywords.

• Present personality through extracurriculars

 

Uniqueness of Marketing:

• Marketing emphasises creativity and storytelling more than other commerce disciplines.

• A strong digital presence (e.g. LinkedIn, portfolio) is essential to stand out in the field.

 

Diversity of Marketing Opportunities:

• Roles can vary from being more creative, to analytical, or advocacy – so different skill sets may be prioritised.

• Be open-minded – you may be placed in a different team than expected based on your strengths.

 

Getting Started:

• Get involved in university clubs, personal projects, and create a website portfolio to showcase your work.

• Take free courses or certifications to build practical skills and strengthen your applications.

 

Entering the marketing industry through internships requires more than just academic knowledge. It demands initiative, creativity, and a willingness to showcase your unique potential. Through the insights of Amy, Ananya, and Emmaline, crafting a tailored resume and cover letter, developing a strong digital presence, and building a diverse portfolio are critical components of standing out in a competitive landscape. Whether through student clubs, personal projects, or online certifications, aspiring marketers can build a compelling profile even without prior formal experience. Ultimately, success in marketing applications stems from the ability to combine storytelling with strategic thinking, all while staying adaptable to the evolving demands of the field. The path into marketing is not linear, but with effort and openness to learning, it is absolutely achievable!