How I Navigated Internships In College
Getting a job right after college can be a difficult process. In fact, getting an internship was something I struggled with a lot as well. And of course, the struggles change every year. I want to share my experience with you to shed light on how I was able to secure an internship every year and get multiple full-time job offers by the time I graduated.
Internship after freshman year
I remember going to our college career fair, where 400+ companies come to recruit all types of students from our university. I walked in so hopeful. I said to myself: with over 400 companies coming, I could easily score an internship with my high school credits, volunteer projects, and an outstanding senior project. Boy was I wrong. Nada. I got no replies, no interviews, nothing at all. I was immensely disappointed. I took a couple of weeks to myself to think about why that happened. I took a step back and saw the reality from their perspective, I was just another freshman not knowing anything about how companies in the real world operate.
After that realization, I dove right into it. At that point I had no choice but to apply for every internship opportunity I could find at any company I knew about. I kept trying for months: still nothing, no lead anywhere at all. I started freaking out. I needed a job, an internship, to start somewhere.
Another career fair was coming up in the spring and I said to myself: alright, this is it. One last chance to prove myself. I went to the career help center in college, refined my resume, wrote cover letters for the bigger companies I wanted to target. As part of my extraneous research, I created a list of common questions that recruiters ask. A week before the career fair, I sat down and answered them in depth. Not only did this help me prepare for the interactions with the recruiters but it also gave me a confidence boost. And guess what? I finally was able to get my very first internship!
Internship after Sophomore/Junior Year
The approach towards getting an internship after a year or two of college changes slightly. Now that you have some experience, you have a portfolio to show off. You can now sell yourself better by expanding on the knowledge you gained. So how do you differentiate yourself this time? What companies do you target?
With the experience you have, I would first leverage the classes and skills you’ve learned from them. Have a section in your resume labeled 'skills' and list out what you can do. This gives the companies a clear view on what you have mastered. As far as which companies to target: this is your chance to direct your career in the way you want to. Voice your dreams, work towards the dream goal, and take a step towards YOUR OWN future. For example, I was majoring in Computer Engineering and that gives me a lot of flexibility in the industry I want to be in. My dream job growing up was becoming an astronaut and therefore I was always interested in the aerospace department. I applied to a bunch of aerospace and defense companies. Using my experience with previous companies, sharing my knowledge, and talking about my classes, I was able to score an internship an aerospace company!
First Job after Senior Year
This is the most important round of applying to jobs as this sets you up for your future. There are two paths that people take to get a job after graduation. One is to work for the same company you interned at. Second is to apply to a different one. The first is typically easier to do as companies love to transition interns as full-time employees so I will focus on the latter. Most seniors start applying for jobs in September/November when the career fairs begin. This is where it is especially important to differentiate yourself from your peers. I cannot stress how important it is to start even earlier. Personally, this is the point in my college career where I considered myself adept on all things job application related. Here's how I did it.
I was very clear on what I wanted. I wanted to work at a big tech company (Fortune 500). The only two places I was willing to move to were either California or New York City. I knew that from the beginning and I stuck to it. I knew getting a job in either of these two locations can be competitive. So I started ONE WHOLE YEAR early. I started applying to full-time positions when I was still interning at my Junior year internship. I targeted big companies with positions in those two locations. From that point onward, I moved to the next step of interviewing, went through the process and got a job in August (before school even started!!!) I highly encourage you to do the same. It helped me so much. Remember that this doesn’t lock you down - I kept applying to other companies during career fairs throughout the year. The stress of getting a job had disappeared and I found a role right up my alley :)
I could go on forever on how to build your resume, how to talk to recruiters, how to interview, and how to best prepare. Let me know if that is something you would be interested in hearing about and I would love to help! You got this!!