Internship Insights

Navigating the Competitive Landscape and Strategies for Success

Jun 17, 2024

Every year, I receive numerous LinkedIn DMs, personal DMs, and emails requesting a referral for the upcoming internship season. Every local and international student has a dream of securing at least one internship during their graduation tenure. It gives them a glimpse of working in a professional environment with the chance to utilize their bookish knowledge and skillset in reality. Tech internships are particularly popular in the USA, offering great benefits.

Today, I am planning to provide some insights into internships based on what I have observed and my discussions with past intern colleagues.

Before we move forwards, some disclaimer
It’s been long time (2014), I tried to find an internship for myself 😅
I was not successful in getting one but gave multiple interviews which helped me in pivot my strategy for full time 😀
I am writing this based on my observations, knowledge and discussions and experience with other past interns.
I am not talking any information with specific company. Just reflecting general open information.
I don’t have any internal information for any company, so please avoid asking information around that.

Let’s start with analysis numbers..

The tech internship market is highly competitive, with some finite number of positions available across various tech companies, ranging from startups to established giants like Amazon, Google, Meta etc

Each year ~300k people interns in USA
Total undergraduate students enroll in USA: ~16 million (NCES)
Total graduate students enroll in USA: ~3.1 million (NCES)
Total students = ~19 million
Let’s assume 60% of them who are applying for an internship = ~11.4 million
Only <3% people get a chance to do an intern (Too less opportunity)

Number of internship job listing are dropping in all recruitment platforms such as Hanshake, ZipRecruiter, , Glassdoor Linkedin etc.

ZipRecruiter, which registered a 14% drop in internship listings in the first quarter compared with the same period last year.

Chances are getting more slimmer: For ex: Goldman Sachs, for example, saw a record number of applicants this year — over 315,000 resumes for only 2,700 spots, an acceptance rate of less than 1%. That’s up from over 260,000 applications for some 2,900 spots last year.

This is almost like a lottery 🤯

There are some more interesting statistical analysis you can find

Why I am talking about analysis?

I am discussing these statistics and analyses to set the reality in mind. Every student should know the level of competition they are entering. Remember, only 3% of people are getting a chance, so the competition is definitely high.

So our job as an applicant is to increase our chances of getting an internship in this fierce competition.

How most companies are hiring an intern?

Most companies having similar process

Internship Listing on Career portal, Linkedin and other recruiting platforms
Application filtering (Most company recruiters are using some tools)
Onlined assessments to shortlisting
Technical and behavioral interviews
Offer

Interns are mostly hired in a common pool and then assigned to specific teams based on the resource requirement in particular team.

Trending Skillsets

Let's start with skillset. It is the fundamental asset for getting any internship. For computer science folks, I am listing some important skills here. Remember, it's not limited to this.

The most sought-after skills for tech internships include:

Programming Languages: Proficiency in languages such as Python, Java, C++, and JavaScript etc.
Software Engineering Life Cycle concept, System design
Data Science and Analytics: Skills in data analysis, machine learning, and data visualization tools etc.
Cybersecurity: Knowledge of security protocols, encryption, and ethical hacking etc.
Cloud Computing: Experience with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
Artificial Intelligence: Understanding of AI algorithms, natural language processing, and neural networks.
Dev Ops: CI/CD pipeline, Deployment infrastructure etc.

Roles Available for Internships

Tech internships span a variety of roles, including:

Software Engineering: Involves coding, software development, and testing.
Data Science: Focuses on data collection, analysis, and machine learning.
Cybersecurity: Involves protecting systems and networks from cyber threats.
IT Operations: Includes managing IT infrastructure and support.
Product Management: Involves overseeing product development from conception to launch.

Approach

Once you have gained enough skillset and knowledge, now it’s time to take actions.

Timing:

Summer internship positions for many companies typically become available during the fall of the previous year or early in the current year. Some examples.

Google’s summer internships typically open in August and close by November or December.
Microsoft opens applications in August or September and closes them by December.
Goldman Sachs summer internship applications usually open in July and close by November.
Meta applications open in early September and close by November.
Amazon positions are posted starting in September and close around January.
Intel applications generally open in September and close by February.

Actions:

Make a small 1 pager power packed resume
Optimize your linkedin profile with clear intent of internship seeking in header
List out all the possible companies in every domain where tech/IT/Software can be used
Go to their careers website and start finding an internship positions and start applying.
- If you don’t see any position, set a notification alert their for future.
- If you know someone then message them to give you a referral
- Tip: Don’t wait for more than 3-4 hours, apply ASAP
Apply internship positions available on the job portal such as linkedin, indeed etc.
Find the 3-4 recruiters of those companies on linkedin and send them a brief message with asking for an internship position if they can help directly. Sometime recruiters are good way to directly route your resume to a particular hiring manager.
You may contact some hiring managers on linkedin and see if their team have any direct positions available (Thin chance but try it!)

Above steps are going to be repeatative for so many companies, so it will take your most of the time.

Tip: Spend 60% of your time in practicing and preparing for potential interview for an internship and 40% time in above steps in a day.

Benefits of an Internship

Hands on experience
Industry exposure
Professional development
Networking opportunities
Resume Enhancement
Exploring different career paths
Referrals and Recommendations
Job opportunities

Two major benefits are

Have a chance of internship getting converted into a full time job 😎
Paid internship can help you financially 💸

What if You Don’t Secure an Internship?

After doing everything, if you are still struggling to get an initial call or not able to clear the internship interviews, don’t worry! Read my analysis again; it clearly states the slim chances in this competition.

In my time, I held the following statement in my mind:

“If you get an internship, that’s amazing. If you are finding it hard, keep trying or plan to graduate early and try hard to land a direct full-time job before others with an internship 😅.”

Remember, an internship increases your chances of getting converted into a full-time position in the same company with your great performance and feedback from your manager and teammates, BUT it doesn’t guarantee anything in other companies or the outside world.

The internship conversion rate to a fulltime is not very high. Sure, it will give you an experience and networking, but it's not the end of the world.

Keep trying with confidence and take the internship application process as a rehearsal for getting a full-time job.

If not an internship you can pivot your strategy, skillset, job role here. What I meant by is

If you are trying for SWE then try for PM, Network Engineer, cyber security engineer, Consultant or some other roles
If you are trying to one programming language , try for some other trending programming language.
If you are trying for an Software Engineering role, try for some solution engineering, pre-sales roles
If you have tried all main stream companies then try for other non mainstream small and medium scale companies

This list can go on with lots of other tweaking factors. I am sure you understood my intention here.

Some other considerate alternatives:

Freelance Projects: Build your portfolio and gain experience.
Open Source Contributions: Engage in open-source projects to showcase your skills.
Online Courses and Certifications: Enhance your knowledge and skills through platforms like Coursera, Udacity, or edX.
Networking: Attend industry conferences, workshops, and meetups to make connections and learn about job opportunities.

To conclude, if you are planning to apply for an internship in this economy with this level of competition, then go in with a positive mindset and see it as one of the many hurdles in your life. It’s not the end of the world.

Hope this insights give you some new ideas to pursue. Best of luck !!