This article is an excerpt from The Internship Bible  by Mark Oldman and Samer Hamadeh

Good internships are like good haircuts: easy to see, but not so easy to come by. As internships are growing increasingly popular among college and grad students, the competition for intern positions at big-name organizations is becoming fierce. From the FBI to Hallmark Cards, top internship programs are now forced to choose from an ever-expanding pool of applicants.

For those dissatisfied with the internship chase, there remains a long neglected but potentially winning route to a dream internship: make your own. Rather than apply only to preestablished programs, internship seekers should consider persuading an organization or an accomplished person who does not normally hire interns to offer an "ad hoc internship."

Here's how: Think of six or so accomplished people whose shoes you would love to fill. It could be a bigwig advertising executive, a documentary filmmaker, a renowned park ranger, a compelling author—the sky's the limit. Just make sure it's not someone so famous that a letter from you would hit the trash before it ever reached your quarry's desk. Supercelebs like Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Springsteen, and H. Ross Perot fall into this class of virtual "unreachables."

After deciding upon a handful of people worth writing, it is time to research them thoroughly. Go to the local library and look up what that journalist (or cardiologist or ski racer or pilot) was doing last week, last month, and last year. Use biographies, databases, magazine indexes, annual reports, the Internet, or anything else that will tell you exactly what your potential mentor is all about.

Then, write each figure an earnest letter that not only introduces you, but convinces him or her that hiring you as an ad hoc intern would be mutally beneficial. Play up your best qualities—abilities either directly related to your potential mentor's work (e.g., your fluency in French if you are writing to the French ambassador) or traits suggesting that you would be a valuable assistant (emphasize your enthusiasm, discreetness, diligence, etc.) Be sure to customize each letter, showing each person that you have done your homework by incorporating into the letter choice bits of information unearthed during your resarch. Convey why his work is exactly the kind with which you want to be involved or why her organization is singularly important to your career aspirations.

Chances are that your six letters, voraciously researched and carefully written, will yield at least one internship opportunity. If you think about it, this ad hoc internship may be more rewarding than a preestablished internship. There will be no preexisting limits to the internship, no areas where you are told "interns have never been allowed to do that." There probably will be no other interns, giving you the pick of possible projects and undivided accessibility to your mentor. It is not hard to see how the ad hoc internship will allow you to work closely with your mentor, forging a professional connection that may last a lifetime.

Some students have already discovered the rewards of the ad hoc internship. A few years ago, a sophomore at a university in California was paging through an issue of Life magazine that profiled the now late Albert P. Blaustein, a constitutional law professor at Rutgers University who had helped more than 40 countries draft their constitutions. His interest piqued, the student dashed off to the campus library and researched Blaustein's recent work. He then wrote this "modern-day James Madison" a detailed letter, introducing himself and offering his services as a summer research assistant. Within two weeks, Blaustein wrote back, informing the student that although no undergraduate had ever asked to be his assistant before, he would take a chance and hire the student for the summer.

When summer came, the student ended up researching constitutional histories for the professor's encyclopedic set of the world's constitutions. Importantly, the professor and his student assistant got along so well that at the end of the summer, when the government of Romania asked Blaustein to help it draft its new constitution, he invited the student to accompany him on a one-week trip to Bucharest. The following autumn found the two journeying to post-revolution Romania, where they met with the country's foreign minister, members of Parliament, and various other officials. Watching the professor advise government officials and academics, the student received a hands-on introduction to constitution-making that he will never forget.

When all was done, the student had created an ad hoc internship that rivalled anything he could have experienced at the best preestablished internships. It goes to show that it sometimes pays to look beyond the internship chase-and create an opportunity where none presently exists.