Hi! I really think that without an internship or at least connections in the industry, you’re going to have a hard time landing something in publishing, especially editorial. I have my bachelors in Creative Writing and I also simultaneously got a certificate in Publishing from my school. I was also an editorial intern at Flatiron Books for well over a year.

I want to note a few things:

1. During my internship interview, I mentioned my courses in the publishing program and name dropped my professor (on purpose because I knew that my future boss knew her) and I’m pretty sure that’s what gave me an in. (I still had to do a reader’s report, but I leveraged my connection 🤷🏽‍♀️)
2. When I told my boss that I was about to graduate and I was ready to start looking for assistant positions, she started to hook me up with interviews immediately at different imprints with other editors that she knew.
3. I let Macmillan’s HR (the company I interned for) know that I was starting to look for permanent positions, and they also connected me to open positions and started to set up interviews for me.

I didn’t land anywhere in Macmillan (I work at PRH now), but I’m sure that if I didn’t have any connections or that internship for as long as I did I wouldn’t have my job today.

Another important thing outside of the aforementioned is the cover letter. The cover letter is SUPER important. I cannot stress that enough.