Over the years, we have had some amazing interns. We’ve also had some pretty amazingly bad intern applications. It’s truly astounding what applicants reveal in answering questions such as “what makes you stand out?,” “give three words that describe you,” and “what are your strengths and weaknesses?” Someone on staff had a great idea to pull some of the most amusing answers and print them in the magazine. (Zac will try to steal the credit for it, even though it wasn’t really his idea. He just tried to enhance the idea, but that didn’t really work out, so it’s actually the original idea, which wasn’t Zac’s. But, again, he’ll tell you it was.)
Read some of the responses below. For historical accuracy and out of respect to the applicants, all creative grammar and spelling were left untouched. And know this: we didn’t make any of these up.
To whom it may concern: My major integrated marketing, advertising and public relations and I am very interested in obtaining a marketing internship at D Magazine. I have attached my resume and cover letter for your consideration and I have filled out and submitted the online questionairre. Additionally, I believe on the survey question 5, I wrote in Texas Monthly at the end of the paragraph instead of D Magazine. I truly apologize for this error and it does not in any way effect my commitment to obtaining in internship at D Magazine. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you!
Objective: To obtain an entry level position within a prominent institution that will allow me to utilize my knowledge of anti-money laundering to successfully accomplish the goals of the company, as well as continue to develop professionally.
What makes you stand out? You will always see me busy. I’ll be the guy asking a lot of questions. Helping who needs to be helped and making people laugh. Also me being Asian.
What’s your greatest accomplishment? Until my college career, my biggest accomplishment was winning a contest to name the new baby giraffe at the Tulsa Zoo.
What are your strengths and weaknesses? When I seeing somebody doing the wrong thing, such as laziness. I am eager to change them. I know it might be harsh to others, but I am really worry about them. I think this could be my weakness.
What makes you stand out? Im me, and plus my socks never match i wear pomade n my hair and all i need is an am/fm radio and im so sitting on the world. Shake n bake
What are your strengths, weaknesses, and interests? I have a keen sense of what is fashionable, or what will be popular before it becomes a trend (i.e. I was the first of my friends to purchase J Brand Skinny jeans, an iPod, and I started the trend of knee socks in 7th grade at my private school).
Please tell us about a time you took on a project or task that no one else wanted. I recently began a busniess relationship with adult film stars that everybody seemed to make fun and nobody treated it seriously. It was diffcult to show people the real world of the gay porn industry and to actually show people that these models are human beings who are treated harshly by society and also but their employeers. Like working with any photo story I found the end results so far to be a teaching step towards understanding the lines that society has set and how my eyes or my lens can walk over those lines and take a moment that can become a guidance towards future generations.
Please tell us about a time you took on a project or task that no one else wanted. I saw an old friend and noticed he was on the wrong side of the street and waited for him to get outta the vehicle and come get a ride with me.
What makes you stand out? I stand out from others because I believe I think more outside the box then other people. I have all kinds of crazy creative ideas that no one would ever think of.
What’s your greatest accomplishment? Being 21 years old, my accomplishments are few, my greatest ones have yet to be done. But one thing I’m proud of and became a life defining moment for me was after September 11th. I was 13, I didn’t pay attention to news and current affairs and I was very unaffected by the tragedy. 10 months later I took a trip to New York for Independence Day, and my family and I went down to Ground Zero. The site was appalling and for the first time I felt truly devastated by what had happened. There are about 5 streets in all directions that lead to Ground Zero and every street had blocks lined with vendors selling memorabilia on 9/11. T-Shirts, ashtrays, key chains etc. It wouldn’t have bothered me so much had the vendors been Americans, but they were all Asian, Middle Eastern, Pakistani, so on. I’m not prejudiced towards those countries or cultures, but it didn’t seem right to me for them to be commercializing on it. With tears in my eyes and pure rage I started screaming at some of the vendors. Did it make a difference? No, not at all, they started screaming right back. But I fought for something, for the first time in my life. I realized then how much I wanted to be a journalist and I became aware of the world around me.
Illustration by Brian Ajhar. A version of this article appears in the March 2012 issue of D Magazine.
