When Can I Ask My Current Internship For a Reference Letter?

You are about eight weeks into your spring internship and curious as to when you can ask for a letter of recommendation. Before you ask for a reference letter, I’d suggest sitting down with your employer to get a mid-way spring internship review or evaluation. If you are getting school credit for the internship, you might already have some forms that are evaluation-like for your employer to fill out. Try to get some sort of feedback about your performance, be receptive to the feedback, and try your best to improve whatever you can for the last half of your spring internship. Also, make sure that you know when the end date of your internship will happen. If you don’t know, ask another intern and if they don’t know, I’d suggest emailing your internship coordinator. Typically, companies align the last day of the internship with your last day of school. The internship rarely runs more than two weeks past your last day of school. In general, I’d suggest asking for a letter of reference two-three weeks before the last day of your internship (hence why it’s important to find out when you last day will be). Submit your request in person and follow up with an email. Give your employer 1 week and then politely follow-up about the request. If you get the sense that the employer is really busy and could potentially run out of time you could suggest to put some thoughts down on paper (similar to a template). In my book, All Work, No Pay, I discuss this as well. Good luck!