Remember that your contact at each company will be very busy; don’t assume that silence is a negative. Rather, assume that silence is a neutral. That neutral means that they have forgotten about your request, and a friendly reminder is in order. Best to stagger these reminders about 7-10 business days from your last communication. Keep an accurate log of your communications and your next steps. Add a next step to your Google calendar.
Please be sure to create your own message, in your own words. Don’t simply copy the following text. Think about it from the reader’s perspective: If they get twenty follow-up emails that look exactly alike, they will trash all twenty. Be yourself. Be unique.
When crafting your follow-up email, you want this to be really brief... maybe one or two sentences. Start by finding the original email to this recipient. Open it and FORWARD it back to their email address. You do this, so that your resume is automatically attached already, and you don’t need to remember to do that. Plus, they have the original message, which you don’t need to rewrite.
You’re sending this communication to keep your name in front of your intended prospect. A good strategy is to forward an article that might be of interest. Or mention an article that you read on a blog featuring the company (in a positive light).
Here’s a sample follow-up email for you to consider (but not copy verbatim) as you craft your email:
Dear Ms. Smith: [Use a colon, not a comma.] [Use Ms. or Mr. and avoid Mrs. or Miss.] [Some people omit this from an email, and it is OK to do so.]
I wanted to share an article with you that directly relates to the mission of ABC Corp and my interests in data science. [add a sentence or two about what intrigues you about this article.] I am looking forward to talking with you about internship opportunities at ABC Corp.
May we schedule a phone call to discuss this further?
Sincerely,
[Name]
[Phone]
[Email]
[The “Sincerely” is also considered to be “old school” and is not absolutely needed. The address block is very important. Also, if you can add a stylized “signature” or a scanned version of your signature, that is a nice touch.]