I mean, of course no one “cold calls” anymore — it’s all done by e-mail. Here is the sort of letter of inquiry I have received many times:
Dear Rev. Dr. PeaceBang,
I am currently seeking an internship for the coming year. Are you hiring?
Thank You,
Seminarian
Here is the sort of thing I write in reply:
Dear Aspirant to the Ministry,
If I could give you a little feedback, it might help you tailor future communications to prospective field ed or internship supervisors.
I genuinely sympathize with the panicked tone of your note, as it sounds like you need to line something up for this year’s field ed. I remember the feeling! It’s a hustle and time and energy consuming.
But it would have helped me to connect with you so much more had you included a brief introduction. Do we know each other? Have we met? Did we have a conversation? Remind me (or your correspondent)! — ministers meet so many people. If you haven’t met, introduce yourself. “Looking for an internship” is too broad. Who are you, in brief? Where are you in your studies and aspirant status? What skills do you bring? What competencies are you looking to get trained in? Parish ministry is a generalized field. Are you a social media minister? A social justice warrior? What is your background? Are you new to UUism, a life-long UU? Give me something to work with and respond to.
Congregations generally set our budgets in the spring for the following program year and set our program goals over the summer. If you expect to be compensated for your work, it will be important to allow time for the congregation to budget for it.
I hope this letter is received in the spirit in which it was meant, which is to encourage you to communicate more clearly and thoroughly with ministers or other professionals you hope might mentor you in a field ed or internship capacity.
I don’t know where you are in your course of study but do keep in touch for future opportunities or just to check in. I know that seminarians need a lot of support and I am here for you — just meet me (and other potential mentors) a little more in the middle and I’m sure great things can happen for you.
All the best as you start your year,
Etc.
This may seem like a smack down, but it is in fact an important reality check. And let me let seminarians in on a little secret: some ministers see a student looking for an internship and think “FREE LABOR!” Especially when seminarians who seek field education placements can provide work study stipends that let the congregation off the hook financially, ministers are only too happy to snap up and exploit seminarians as slave labor. No one wants to say this, but I will, because it’s true and because too many seminarians have suffered in this system.
To be a good, responsible mentor and supervisor requires planning and discernment. Some schools require that the supervisor attend sessions at the seminary, but many do not, and just let their students loose to find their own placements over which there is no oversight. You do not want to get stuck with a bad internship supervisor who just wants you there to do the things he or she doesn’t want to do, or to use you as supply preaching or as a wedge between themselves and an unhappy congregation. The best way to avoid that is to seek internship supervisors who you really want to work with and learn from in a setting that you feel will best suit your learning objectives, and communicate all of those things in your first correspondence with the prospective mentor. A generic “Hey, I need a job, can you please hire me” does not speak well for your organizational skills, maturity level or respect for the person to whom you are writing.
I can’t wait to read your comments on this!
Kiss of peace!
I think your response was very generous. As a lay person, I don’t know about the inner workings of seminary culture. I do know resources are stretched thin, so maybe seminaries don’t have the resources to support candidates for internships. All the same, I’m surprised that this person didn’t receive that advice before contacting you.
One other thing I’d suggest – and again, to plagiarize Click and Clack, this is unencumbered by actual knowledge of seminary culture – it might be good for candidates to find out something about the parish. That way, you could begin an inquiry by saying something like, “I understand that you have a great program for kids, and I was a middle school teacher before I entered seminary.” Or “I heard that you were a chaplain at Occupy Wall Street, and I participated in the movement in my own city.” Or whatever match might exist between the mission of the parish and the candidate’s own desire and ability.
I so appreciate your caution about how hurried (and often unpaid) “matches” between seminarians and churches may not serve the seminarian well. As a seminarian, I never knew that some internships “fail” in the middle, setting the seminarian back years, if they’re even able to go forward after a terminated internship. (And I feel grateful in hindsight that my own unpaid internship went fine.)
Unpaid internships will continue to be a reality in our denomination, where field ed is required. But it is still important for seminarians to find a supervisor and congregation that are prepared to nurture those in formation, and are a good fit for the intern.
Oh my! Where to begin? As the chair of a parish ministerial intern committee, I was stunned to see this kind of initial approach by a seminarian! Just as for any job, research into the “company” is a must as is a serious, well-thought-out introduction. Also, “Dear Peacebang”?? Isn’t the seminarian going to have a professional relationship with Rev. V. W.? You were most kind and instructive, I would’ve been tempted to trash this email. May this person benefit from your gracious help (and may he/she not come calling on our door!)
[Just FYI, the “Dear PeaceBang” was just for the blog. No one has ever written to me with that salutation! I’ve had plenty of “Hi, Victoria” salutations, though, which is ridiculously familiar. – PB]
Cold calls don’t really work in sales, and they definitely don’t work in a circumstance like looking for a ministerial internship. so unmannerly.
Anyway….my story is a little different. Before I applied at the congregations where I applied, I wrote to the minister of another congregation. I had a specific reason for writing this minister; I knew the minister fairly well and they have a history of choosing interns of color. I asked if the congregation was going to have an internship and, if they were, would this person be ok if I applied. The minister told me that unfortunately the congregation wasn’t going to have an intern that year for budgetary reasons, but if they heard of anything, they would let me know. But the only reason I did that email was because I knew the person. I would dream of doing so informal an email to someone who I didn’t know.
Manners just seem to have gone out of style in all places these days.
It’s important to emphasize the timing aspect, as you did. I was the first intern at the church where I had an internship, and the only reason they were able to say yes (which the minister SO wanted them to say) is that I inquired very early, so that they could budget for me. (My entire internship stipend wasn’t enough to pay for the many car repairs I endured while there, but that wasn’t their fault.)