How to get an internship in tech
As a student in University, landing your first internship can be extremely daunting. It can be a stressful process and requires a lot of effort. However, attaining one can tremendously increase your chances of getting a full-time job. So a bit of background about myself, I’m a rising 4th Year Student at Queen’s University majoring in Computer Science with a focus in AI. I have 2 tech internships under my belt. I’m currently working for one of the largest fintech companies in Canada. For this article, I will show the strategy that I will be utilizing for my next internship | full-time job.
Planning
The first and for most is to have a plan. Know the dates when internship applications are posted. This allows you to get a good idea of how much time you can prep for. Your timeline to get into a big tech in other words FANG, and if you are more hipster FANGALU. You should expect applications to be posted around August — September. You should aim to apply as early as possible. So if you are watching this in August congrats, this is your sign application right now. If you are interested in startups you can expect hiring around October — January.
Networking
I highly recommend networking as much as possible. You can use platforms such as Linkedin to find people that are already in the industry. This can get some insider knowledge about Computer Science. And please for your sake do not send a generic email…
Like…
Wrong-Way: Hi! I am a CS student at X university and would like to have an internship with Y company.
Please don’t do that… just don’t
Insert “Your not that guy pal meme’
What you want to do is
First of all, research who are you talking about. Is a recruiter, senior developer, or intern?
Next, you want to check every resource they post on their LinkedIn profile. Whether that is about their personal website, GitHub, medium, etc. Find a unique commonality that you can talk about. For example, when I first dive into LinkedIn. I saw 3rd Year University student at that time who had an internship at Google. He had a personal website that showed his interest in photography and a strong passion for front-end development. And so I reached out and mentioned my background in photography and we had a much more interesting conversion otherwise.
In how initiated the conversation, I said along lines of.
Hey! I noticed we have a similar background in photography and web development. I would like to talk about your experience as an intern as X at Y company”
We had a one-hour coffee chat that felt more like a casual conversion on the first day of class, rather than a school presentation.
Your goal is not to get something from them but to genuinely create a connection with the person you are talking to.
Don’t think of it as some kind of business exchange, but rather meeting what you think is really cool.
Side Projects
Think of side projects as a way to test out the waters. Do you want to make the next social media app and try to do the whole full-stack development or learn something more specific like front-end development and learn the latest tech in the field? Or even dabble in machine learning and try to make a model that predicts what’s the next meme stock. The options are infinite. Don’t let a certain company dictate your interests. At the end of the day, these companies want to find passionate students. They will ask you about your projects and if you explain them with a lack of insight. You will have a much lesser chance of getting hired.
Compared to someone who has a strong interest in certain projects. Let say you were super passionate about hotdogs. And you made the world’s best predictor of hotdog or not hotdog. Then explain that show enthusiasm how you made your model. Such as how did you make your ML model, what activation function you used, and what kind of data set you used. The fact you show passion will greatly impact your chances of getting another interview. I’m half kidding about the hotdog, but it just shows it doesn’t really matter what it is as long as you are super interested in the thing you make.
Leetcode
The pain of every college programmer in existence. You have to do 200 easy, 100 Medium, and 50 hard. In 2 weeks. I’m just playing the key is to be consistent. This is something I’m struggling with, and something I continually trying to improve. You don’t have to be that guy that grinds Leetcode 8 hours a day after school. We all have a life and just try to at least do 1 or 2 questions per day. Like I said if you know a certain date ahead of time. You will have good insight into how many questions you need to. Another tip is to go back to old questions. There are only so many Leetcode style questions there are. You will be able to understand certain patterns to do question
The recruiting timeline starts in August — September for America
Interview
Congrats. You somehow got an interview through an online application or referral. You’re almost at the finish line. Typically interviews happen in either 2 to 3 more separate sections depending on the company. Each of them has its own style. But typically for a large corporate company, the internship will contain a behavioral, technical, and some kind of final interview.
Additional Resources
Check out Emily Durham’s podcast. She is Senior Recruiter for Intuit. She has an amazing podcaster for essential tips for getting an internship in Canada.
Bonus Tip
So for how I was able to get my current internship. It was through a hackathon. I think it is highly underrated what a hackathon can do for a student. It shows the effort that you are willing to do outside the classroom. Which are good characteristics recruiters look for. No joke, for one of the hackathons I attended I did not sleep for the whole 36 hours.
I was able to win a hackathon that was held online. The company reached out to us without really knowing the prize and gave me and my teammates direct interviews. I think companies would do this because hackathon allows recruiter | senior developers their capabilities as technical skills, creativity, and presentation within 2 minutes. All of these are required attributes for a good developer. This significantly increases your chance of getting that internship as they see more than just a resume. It is also I great entry point for people who have an entrepreneurial mindset. It can test your abilities in what you can do within 24–36 hours and present to a large group of people.
