ENTREPRENEURSHIP ESSAY
Do you possess excellent writing skills? Marketing in a small business consists mainly of text such as signs, flyers, direct mail form letters, etc. Also small business owners communicate with suppliers primarily in the form of email or letters. This is one reason why an essay is required to apply for an internship, so spend time to compose an impressive paper, proofread it carefully, and perhaps ask someone to look over your essay.
When writing your essay, consider some of the ideas listed below.
1. Why are you interested in an entrepreneurial internship?
Did high school clubs, such as VICA or FBLA, influence you? What did you learn about entrepreneurial businesses while participating in extracurricular activities?
Do you know a small business owner who inspired you by their example? What impressed you the most?
Have you conducted a micro business? Often children sell lemonade and teenagers cut grass or deliver papers. In past years college students have airbrushed tee shirts, cut hair, sold hotdogs, peddled candy, and painted fingernails out of their dorm rooms.
Did someone's life story influence your interest in entrepreneurial businesses? Many minority businesses, such as NC Mutual Life Insurance and Dudley Hair Products Company, began as the dream of African-American entrepreneurs. Also many Hip-Hop stars have built business empires on the foundation of their musical success such as Sean Combs. In fact Sean Combs's first break came in the form of an internship while a university student.
What are your goals? Self-direction? Independence? Altruism? Wealth? Respect?
2. What skills do you bring to the Entrepreneurship Program?
Are you willing to work diligently for long hours? Entrepreneurs joke that they work 16-hour days, 7-days a week - just so that they don't have to work a regular 9-5 job. Entrepreneurs, such as Turner Kirkland, built their businesses through a combination of persistence and perspiration. In particular student interns must learn to balance academics, work, and personal lives.
Have you earned good grades? Since business courses do not involve higher level mathematics or intricate logic, only hard work is required to maintain a good grade point average. Good grades demonstrate that you are willing to exert the effort necessary to master the course content. This is why the grade-point average is one factor in the process of choosing interns.
Are you trustworthy? Small businesses have less internal control so employees must be honest and reliable. One important factor of internal control is the "separation of duties", which means that employees perform different jobs that check on each other. For example one employee runs the cash register while another employee reconciles the register total to the amount in the cash drawer. Since small businesses have fewer employees, separation of duties is more difficult to achieve so employees must be very trustworthy. On a more fundamental level, interns must come to work every scheduled day and arrive on time.
Have you mastered the full range of business skills from accounting to marketing? Entrepreneurs must be able to perform all business functions because they have no staff, like Human Resources or Information Systems, to depend on to do different tasks.
Do you have the ability to adroitly use many computer applications? Once only big businesses could afford computers, but now personal computers have put the power to analyze information on the desks of small firms. Entrepreneurial firms are more flexible than large, established companies, so small businesses quickly capitalized on the opportunities presented by the Internet. For example, in the space of only a few years Amazon.com grew from a garage operation to a national corporation listed on the stock exchanges.
Have you demonstrated leadership by your positions in student organizations? Entrepreneurs must provide effective leadership for their organization in order to succeed in business.
3. What do you expect to gain from an entrepreneurial internship?
How will an internship with an entrepreneurial business fit into your career plans? Have you thought about starting and operating your own business? Most entrepreneurs started with an idea - "a dream". Most have a passion for their business - they love what they do in their work. Successful entrepreneurs turned their dream into a plan and their plan into an enterprise.
