Writing sample resquest: a.k.a. my first tiny kernal of hope in the job hunt process

A little bit of progress!

I received this email over the weekend:

Dear Saskia,

We recently received your resume for the (title removed by me!) and would like to see some of your writing samples before offering you an interview. While this may sound like an odd request, we’ve received several excellent applications and are hoping to get a better idea of each candidate’s writing abilities before offering interviews.

Ideally, we’re looking for one advocacy/policy brief and one annotated bibliography/literature review. The most related to family planning/reproductive health the better.

We are planning on holding interviews during the week of April 26^th. Please let me know if you would be able to provide these samples by COB next Wednesday and we will be in touch as soon as possible afterwards.

The only thing is, this is actually for an internship and not a full time job.

I applied for the position anyway because:

1. It's a full-time position for the summer

2. They are offering a great hourly rate

3. It's in the family planning unit of the organization (hellloo using my P.H. degree!)

4. The organization is great, and I would love to work there for real.

I figure that an internship might be a great way to get a foot in the door.

And even if they don't have full-time positions avaialbe at the end of the summer, it will give me 3 more months of employment and experience.

I can keep job hunting during that time, and I'll get paid every week. 

In all honesty, I'm a little freaked out--it seems crazy that there is this much competition for an internship but really hopeful that this or something else will work out.
And if nothing else, it's a much better email than the other one I received last week!

Fingers crossed..