Is it appropriate to apply as an intern to a company who isn't advertising the need for one?

[Just A Girl]

I live in a small town and at the moment we have 3 months holiday. Therefore, I am wanting to utilise in a useful and grow my skills/experience in my career choice in between studying. However because I live in a small town.. there aren't really any internship opportunities. I am wanting to intern in marketing/advertising and I know there are a few companies in my town. How would I go about offer myself as an unpaid intern?

[Moi!]

Yes definately go ahead and apply. Send a speculative application, a typed cover letter and your CV introducing yourself and explaining why you are interested in their company and why you'd like to work there as an intern. Try to make your reasons sound well thought out and not like you just decided you want work experience picked up the yellow pages and found them. Sound like you've researched them and have selected them for reasons xyz. Also, never expressly say you will work for free. Don't mention pay...because 1. they may actually be willing to pay you a small salary and 2. by saying you will work for free you sound desperate and like you can't find an internship elsewhere (this isn't attractive to a company). If they call you/invite you to an interview and say they can't pay you then you could say that's fine, you just want the experience.

[Annoyingeggnog664]

most of the time businesses don't even realise they need an intern so nobody bothers to put an ad up. So it can be a welcome relief to find a CV (Resume) in the post from a qualified prospect. It also means that the post hasn't been advertised to death which means you stand a better chance of getting it.

Not only do i give this a thumbs up, But I would proactively do this for all your jobs.

I've never had to job search too much, because I work in internet marketings which is a small world and it's easy to get gigs. But I have used this technique of approaching for jobs unadvertised once and I got an interview straight away the following week.

These days I am a freelancer so I just approach media agencies directly, send a link to my website and more often than not get a response from them.

If you want to be a lawyer and requiring law internet ships for instance, set up a law blog or something. Then contact law firm lawyers from twitter/linkedin and ask for any intern ships avasilable, send a link to your blog.