REPORTS TO: District Internship Coordinator/Supervisor

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

To develop the communication and administrative skills needed to best respond to constituents; to apply the principles of learning and understanding methods involved in researching legislation for a Congressional office; to develop skills related to a specific major or occupation; develop general skills such as oral and written communication, critical thinking, organization, problem-solving, decision-making, leadership, interpersonal and technical skills; to learn and understand the logistics and components of event-planning in a government setting.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES:

To assist the District Congressional Office staff in fulfilling its primary responsibility of constituent services, which includes doing research, processing mail, data entry, reception duties, record keeping, filing and performing other related work, as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS:

 Excellent oral and written communication skills;

 Ability to work cooperatively and courteously with others;

 Good organizational skills; and

 Responsible, dependable and willing to learn;

 Professional telephone manner;

 Thoroughness and careful attention to detail;

 Basic knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint;

 Ability to perform job duties listed below.

 

Skill required:

 Developing and maintaining effective working relationships with those contacted in the course of the work;

 Maintaining accurate records and files;

 Excellent research skills;

 Business letter writing and the standard format for typed materials;

 General familiarity in the workings of government;

 Basic business data processing principles.

 

SPECIFIC DUTIES:

 Answer the telephones;

 Sort and distribute mail;

 Greet walk-in visitors and guests;

 Input constituent information, including chronicling opinions and specific issues into our constituent service database (IQ);

 Perform additional data entry, including logging in letters and constituent requests;

 Perform research (CRS, Library of Congress, or other available resources);

 Accompany staff members to committee meetings, conferences and seminars, as needed;

 Handle casework assignments;

 Log in all incoming and outgoing mail and incoming telephone calls relating to casework;

 Performs other duties as assigned by the Intern Supervisor.

 

For more information on Illinois-based internships, contact Alan Banks at (708) 679-0078 or alan.banks@mail.house.gov.

 

To apply, complete the online application at http://robinkelly.house.gov/services/internships