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I did an internship as a Software Developer for a big company and subsequently, they offered me a job. I turned down that job since I wanted to do higher studies. Now I am trying to apply for the same company for internship and I am currently in doing my higher studies. Should I mention in the Cover Letter that I was offered a job previously or just mention that I interned with them before?

Thanks

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I would mention in the cover letter the timeline of events: You were an intern for team x, and supervisor Y. I would mention that at the completion of the internship you turned down an offer to be a regular employee, so that you could pursue additional course of studies. Let them know that you are now at a point that another internship is appropriate.

You in the cover letter need to be clear that you were good enough to be offered a job. This leverage needs to be used to guarantee that you move to the interview stage.

This is in addition to alerting your previous supervisor that you are applying for a position.

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I think your best bet here is not to mention the previous job offer in your cover letter, because it could sound a bit pretentious (like hey everybody, listen, his Excellence is back and you owe me a job, remember?).

Instead, you could just mention your past internship and I bet they might retrace by themselves the fact that they offered you a job which you turned down to do higher studies, if they have a good HR department.

Once you get to the interview, then you'll be able to mention it in the flow of the conversation.

As for your cover letter, what you could do is to mention the name of the person who offered you a job as a reference, but only if at the time you made yourself totally clear about the reason why you turned the offer down, and this person understood this reason and didn't feel disappointed or kind of upset.

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  • Yeah, I emailed my whole team and the director that I am going to pursue higher studies and they were totally OK with that ans were willing to recommend me in future. In fact, the director himself said that he will give an excellent recommendation for the internship in the same company. One small thing is that, I did not mention the reason to HR. Will that create a problem? – gambit Jan 11 '15 at 23:37
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    if so, have you thought about letting the director know (by email or by phone) about your application for a new internship, and in parallel mentioning his name as a reference in your cover letter (with him knowing and being ok with that)? – Jivan Jan 12 '15 at 1:19

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