Tips For Getting Your First Internship in Tech
It’s no secret that internships in tech are a golden way to kickstart your career. In just 10–12 weeks, students have the opportunity to learn about the industry, create an impact with their projects, and build relationships with professionals– all before they graduate.
As summer is encroaching upon us, I wanted to create a blog post sharing some tips I’ve learned while recruiting for my past internship experiences. I hope some of you who are recruiting this fall for internships (or new grad roles!) find these tips helpful.
If you have any other personal tips, please feel free to leave a comment below!
Setting a structure
The first thing I like to do when approaching a new recruiting season is to define a timeline- this helps me keep track of things that I should be doing each month and sets a structure for my interview prep goals. My structure looks something like this:
In addition to setting a monthly timeline for recruiting season, I also like to set up a system that allows me to track what companies I applied to, when, and for what role. I use this same structure to keep track of what interview stage I’m at and what roles I’ve received a rejection/offer for. I like using a GitHub project like the one below:
After you’ve set a rough overview of what your recruiting goals are for the next couple of months, it’s time to start preparing.
Update your resume… today
Recruiters only spend a few seconds looking at your resume before they determine whether you’re a good fit or not for a position. In order to maximize your chances of getting to the interview stage, you need to start by solidifying your resume. It’s important that you quantify your experiences for each section in your resume (work experience, projects, community, etc.) and highlight your impact, not your responsibilities. Recruiters and hiring managers want to see how valuable you were to a team or project and how your work made a positive impact on a business, not particularly the day-to-day tasks you completed.
In terms of resume design and formatting, it’s recommended that you keep your resume 1 page long and keep a clean, concise structure like the one below:
Typically people avoid resumes with a lot of designs/graphics because they tend to not be ATS-friendly. I recommend using Overleaf or Resumey.pro for resume templates.
Apply early
Recruiting season for tech companies typically starts in mid-July/late-August (or earlier depending on the type of role you’re looking for) and companies will finish their recruiting around December, right before people start taking time off for holiday vacations. There are a couple of reasons why you would want to submit your application early, such as:
- Maximizing the number of internships you can apply to
- More time to prepare for technical/product/behavioral interviews
- Opportunity to attend networking events and conferences to talk to recruiters/companies
While the first 2–3 months of recruiting season are the best time to apply, there are still a handful of companies that recruit during the spring. so there’s always hope in case you haven’t applied/found a role yet.
Interview Prep
I’ve interned seven times- in software engineering, developer advocacy, business operations, and product management. Interview prep for each of these different domains is vastly different, however, these are three things I never skip studying when prepping:
- The company: What’s the company mission? What are the company values? Can I talk about exhibiting each of these values in an interview?
- The team: What is the team trying to achieve? How does it align with the objective of the overall company?
- The role: What are the key objectives of this position? Is there any past experience I have that aligns with the expectations of this role? What areas are there for personal and professional growth?
There are an overwhelming amount of resources that you can use to prepare, so I’d recommend looking at ones that fit best with your learning style- whether that’s books, online courses, videos, or a combination of the three. Here are some that I enjoy:
Software Engineering
- Leetcode
- Python Source Code
- Grokking the Coding Interview
- Cracking the Coding Interview, Gayle Laakmann McDowell
- CS Careers Community
Product Management
- Exponent
- Cracking the PM Interview, Gayle Laakmann McDowell and Jackie Bavaro
- Grokking the System Design Interview
- PM Diego Granados
- Jacqueline Chung’s Product Management Resources
- Reforge Blog
- Product Buds Community
General Advice
After going through the internship recruiting process for a few years and now transitioning to looking for new grad roles, here are some general pieces of advice for anyone looking for internships:
- Not “qualified”? Apply anyway: If there’s an opportunity you’re interested in but you’re afraid of applying because you don’t meet all the requirements- apply anyway. Most companies will want to talk to you if you can show that you’ve had an impact on your previous work and are genuinely interested in the work they’re doing. Don’t reject yourself before giving companies and teams a chance to know you.
- Learn to love failure: Whether you fail an interview, fail an exam, or get rejected from a job you really wanted, failure is inevitable. Failure, much like discomfort, is a symptom of growth. It’s important to understand that failure is not a reflection of who you are, but rather an opportunity to learn about areas you need to grow in so that when you try again, you’re better prepared to succeed.
- Don’t lose hope: It’s incredibly easy to get discouraged in the recruiting process, especially in a position where you haven’t received any offers or interviews and your peers or connections on LinkedIn have already secured offers. In my second year, I hadn’t received an internship offer until March after applying and interviewing for seven months straight. Keep applying and relish the opportunities where you can learn new skills and connect with your interviewers and recruiters.
- Build relationships: If you make it to interviewing rounds, you’ll likely meet a lot of people throughout the process- recruiters, hiring managers, engineers, PMs, designers, and more. Most, if not all, of these individuals, wanted to learn about you beyond your resume, so when you’re interviewing, remember to ask good questions, let people get to know you, and treat the time you have together like a conversation rather than an interview. It’ll help ease any anxiety/nerves you may have and give you a space to make a connection, whether you move forward or not.
