Don't have an internship for summer, feeling really down

May 10, 2013 7:36 PM

I'm a computer science major with a 3.16 GPA finishing my Junior year at UT Dallas. I feel really unsure as to how to go about getting internships, and I failed to get an internship for this summer, though I did manage to get one interview from dropping off my resume at a booth at an on campus career fair. It seems like a lot of people from my class haven't gotten internships either, though obviously I can't take a scientific poll.

I tried reaching out to various people on LinkedIn working at various companies I wanted to intern at to see how they got their positions, but only one guy responded. We had a productive chat about how to get internships, and he recommended that I get into my school's Industrial Practice Program (which I can't get into yet since I haven't taken electricity and magnetism yet for reasons I won't go into here but will definitely do so this summer or fall), which he said garnered the highest response rate for him when sending out resumes. He also suggested that I buy the book Cracking the Coding Interview. He has a 3.99 GPA due to an A- he got in a government class once, so he's obviously in a different class than I am, but nonetheless I did enjoy speaking with him.
My friend has said he could probably get me an IT job at this random place, and it doesn't sound all that enticing and frankly I'm not sure I'd be qualified for it (although I know I could learn anything they cared to explain very easily). I haven't sent out as many resumes as I should in part due to my anxiety over cover letters causing me to procrastinate, as I'm not entirely sure what I should say. I mean, I know it should summarize my resume, include something about the position and/or company, and I guess thank them as well, but I'm just not sure how to execute it. That guy I spoke with said that he has never once written a cover letter, but then again the reason he's been able to get away with that is that his resume makes you start back a bit when you look at it.
I'm also not sure I should say that I have been exposed to functional languages like Haskell and Lisp (which I worked with in a class last semester and enjoyed) because it often seems to cause recruiters to develop this smirk. I'm worried it makes me look too much like I'm just some kid who's gone to school but has no experience with the real world, which is true, but given the way things seem to work these days it might be a good idea to get rid of anything on my resume that just smells like that.
I'm eager to get out there in the real world and start to feel like an adult who's capable of bringing in a paycheck, but I just feel like there's a lot of inertia and uncertainty keeping me from getting there. At the one interview that I managed to get, there was me and two other undergrads along with five or six master's students. My professional communications professor said that this was probably due to the economy, which didn't exactly encourage me.
Anyway, if anyone can give me some advice/tell me how screwed they think I am that'd be appreciated. I know these things are ultimately kind of a crap shoot but anything useful that you have to say would be appreciated.

posted by bookman117 to Work & Money (21 answers total)

Have you applied to places located elsewhere, like the bay area? A lot of companies here are very interested in getting new interns even if they're from elsewhere in the country.

On Haskell/Lisp: I may be biased, but I don't think it hurts to mention that you've used functional languages before. If the recruiter/interviewer is worth anything at all, they'll take it as a nice advantage. (Disclosure: I'm a clojure fan and I immediately like anyone who mentions functional programming.)
posted by mcav at 7:43 PM on May 10, 2013

Response by poster: Have you applied to places located elsewhere, like the bay area? A lot of companies here are very interested in getting new interns even if they're from elsewhere in the country.
Well, I actually did have a contact at Google who was this grad student that babysat me during this cool summer research program I did with UTD summer before freshman year, so I managed to apply there. :) Didn't get anywhere though.
posted by bookman117 at 7:53 PM on May 10, 2013

Best answer: Also, on "if anyone can give me some advice/tell me how screwed they think I am" — chin up. Computer programming is only going to become more and more important and needed. Economy schmomomy, you'll be able to find a programming job out of school, no problem, if you're wiling to look around. The hard part won't be finding a job, it'll be finding something that interests you. (agreeing with COD below that internships aren't really as valuable, and may be harder to get these days)

If you'd like more specific advice about your resume and all that, I'd be happy to look over it for you and send you my thoughts over e-mail (it's in my profile).
posted by mcav at 7:56 PM on May 10, 2013

Internships are tough to get these days. Build something awesome this summer and launch it. It'll be far more valuable to your career than an internship.
posted by COD at 7:58 PM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]

It sounds like you're focused on working connections. Just apply for internships. People make a huge deal about connections but seriously, every job I've ever gotten has been because I sent in a cover letter and resume, not because I called a guy or asked for a favor or scheduled an informational interview.

Looking for internships is like looking for jobs. You should not plan on getting callbacks or interviews from most places and you shouldn't let that discourage you. Just put yourself out there and see what happens.
posted by kat518 at 8:12 PM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Also, you can still get a summer internship. I might try cold-calling places. Things come up. People's summer plans change. When I was a summer intern, the first two weeks involved a lot of people moving around, getting internships, quitting internships, getting different internships, etc before settling down for a few weeks. And you can always get an internship during the fall or spring semesters - they're a lot less competitive and you can get more substantive work.
posted by kat518 at 8:26 PM on May 10, 2013

HELLO. I AM AN OK PROGRAMMER WITH A DEGREE TO PROVE IT. GIVE ME MONEY. - this is an acceptable job-hunting strategy, and will yield fruit. The kind of places who put heavy value on unpaid internships - are not the places you want to work for. They're cheap and fad-driven. If you feel you need to "prove" yourself, get a consulting gig.

Always be paid more than what you feel you're worth.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:40 PM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: My friend co-founded Intern Match, a startup aimed at getting students internships - they have both a lot of info on the process, and listings of places to apply at.

Applications for bigger programs (Google, Microsoft) have closed by now but smaller places will be open to getting an intern right up to when you start. And if you don't get an internship, then you should make an effort to do a project for yourself. I don't know if you'll need a job, any job, to support yourself over summer, but even if you do, then you should be programming over the summer around it. If you don't have your own wishlist, the list of projects that were suggested for Google Summer of Code would be a good place to look for something you can do - choose one that isn't being done by an official student, and there will be people already interested in helping you get it complete.

My friend has said he could probably get me an IT job at this random place, and it doesn't sound all that enticing and frankly I'm not sure I'd be qualified for it (although I know I could learn anything they cared to explain very easily).
If you can get this, it would likely be better than doing nothing for the summer and could be very good for your resume. It's not clear what kind of IT position it is, but hopefully you would get some solid problem solving experience (golden! That's 50% of your CS interviews right there) and exposure to how some real people use computers, which is more valuable than you might think. If there's any sysadmin aspect, for instance, you could learn to write some shell scripts for yourself.
posted by jacalata at 8:49 PM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Without preview, when Slap*Happy says unpaid internships - don't take an unpaid internship! I can't quite imagine anyone with any kind of worthwhile programmers around would offer one, so I expect it would be a terrible experience. But a paid internship is definitely a good thing to do.
posted by jacalata at 8:51 PM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

To be honest, you've probably missed the cycle for internships. Some places will have interns arriving in a week or two. But that doesn't mean you can't have a productive, educational summer. If you want to do something practical, contribute to an open-source project. Or, if you want to broaden your horizons a little, work through 7 Languages in 7 Weeks. If you want to explore Lisp more, Paul Graham's On Lisp or Siebel's Practical Common Lisp. Or if you want to explore Haskell more, Okasaki's Purely Functional Data Structures or O'Reilly's Real-World Haskell.

I think any of these (but especially the open-source work) would look more impressive on a resume than some random IT job. More importantly, they'll give you some skills that will help you through any technical interviews you land during your senior year, which the IT job won't.

I'm also not sure I should say that I have been exposed to functional languages like Haskell and Lisp (which I worked with in a class last semester and enjoyed) because it often seems to cause recruiters to develop this smirk. (bookman117)

There are plenty of good places that have no use for your functional programming background, but anybody who marks you off for having it is probably not a good person to work for anyway.

He also suggested that I buy the book Cracking the Coding Interview. (bookman117)

I have a different edition of the same book. It's a fine way to get practice problems, but just pretend that the solutions section doesn't exist, and try not to read the words in between the problems either. At one point the author gets hash tables mixed up with balanced binary search trees, or something equally laughable.
posted by d. z. wang at 9:11 PM on May 10, 2013

You can only get internships you apply for, even if you are talking to people via LinkedIn or otherwise networking (and at some larger companies, people can't just offer a job to someone who hasn't applied). This mental block was one of my big hurdles in undergrad, but I worked a semester in my department's Career Resource Center and saw how frequently good internships came in that no one applied for (although this was ~2005, so a different time I suppose)! The worst thing that comes from applying for a job you're not qualified for is you don't get the job, and the best thing that happens if you don't apply is you don't get the job, so if you have the time, apply!

It's OK to be selective, and remember that interviews are a two way street -- the interviewer should be working to convince you that the position & employer is a good fit for you. I try to remind myself of this before every interview. It feels weird to talk yourself up at first, but that's what one does in the interview process-- highlight your strengths, acknowledge your weaknesses. Internships are all about learning, and are a low-stress way for employers to test fit. One of the positives you're bringing in is that you don't have (many) bad habits they'll have to break yet! And if it's not a good fit, you won't be there very long.

When I write a cover letter, I try not to summarize my resume (because my resume is right behind it), but rather explain why the experiences listed on my resume align with the position I'm applying for. This usually requires some insight into the company, but you can standardize your cover letter quite a bit, especially if the jobs are fairly similar.

I don't know your school's Industrial Practice Program, but even if you think you don't qualify (there's a course requirement?! That seems bizarre), go talk to the office and see if they have any internship positions you haven't heard about. Our CRC also offered resume reviews and mock interviews, so they may have additional services beyond just job matching.

Oh, on preview re:"you've probably missed the cycle for internships," one of my favorite internships started mid-June (2005), I applied for it after the spring semester ended. I ended up interning for that company for the next 11 months, and seriously considered staying there after graduation.

Good luck!
posted by worstname at 9:17 PM on May 10, 2013

Best answer: I wish I had understood this when I was younger, but most positions aren't filled with an online job application and a resume and boilerplate cover letter. Most jobs happen through personal connections. So: pick a programming language or platform or technology that you're interested in. Find local meetup groups. Here's one for Python in Dallas; they are meeting tomorrow. Many of the people there will work for companies that might be hiring interns or will know someone who is.

Also: if you know how to code, you will have a job. You may be the only one who has a job. See here.

Stop worrying about recruiters and cover letters -- this is for people who don't know how to code. Build something cool and show it to programmers and they will find you a job and let the HR people worry about the details. It's a skills-based industry, so work on developing some skills, and think about a portfolio of programming projects. Public code samples on github; contributions to open source projects; that kind of thing. "Build something awesome this summer and launch it" -- this is the winner of the thread. But also make your summer goal to be connecting to the local professional community, who can help you with whatever personal projects your working on and connect you to future opportunities.
posted by PercussivePaul at 9:17 PM on May 10, 2013 [5 favorites]

How many jobs have you applied for? For perspective, for my current full-time job I applied to 60+ openings. Finding a job through a friend of a friend is better if it works out, but if you end up just applying to openings don't get discouraged if you get a 10% response rate.

Also ask around to see if any professors need a research assistant for the summer.
posted by sninctown at 9:56 PM on May 10, 2013

You need to just get over the cover letter thing. Do not let perfect be the enemy of good. If you just need to crib from somewhere to get motivated to send things out, there are lots of books of sample cover letters out there. I have one called Cover Letters That Knock Em Dead. It just gives you some ideas to get you started.

Roughly three paragraphs:
-P1-I am applying for XYZ position for [date range, or not--your choice]. I think I'd be a great fit for this position because of ABC reasons. For example, this one project I did that LMNOP.
-P2-I'm so excited about your company because of [reasons you've researched that are relevant and show your interest in the company and what they do].
-P3-I look forward to hearing from you, I'd be so excited to work with you.

That is a very basic one that would work in my field, this may be different in your field. It is literally three paragraphs. You can totally do it.


I work in the non-profit world and as I said, it may be different from your field but here's what I have to share:

I select the interns for my organization. Cover letters are there to give you a brief narrative on why this person want to work for you and why they think they're a good fit. They don't have to be long. When I go through a stack of applications, I use the following filter:

-Do they present themselves well? Do they seem intelligent and careful or are there preventable typos/formatting errors? (I have gotten many cover letters with the wrong organization name in them, with track changes formatting still in them or glaring spelling errors that could have been caught with spell check.)

-Do they show a skill set that is relevant to the work we do? If not, is there evidence they could learn the skills quickly because of their genuine interest in learning?

-Does this person seem like they're really interested in what my organization specifically has to offer or are they just applying for the sake of having an internship somewhere? Is this person truly interested in my field? Can I see this interest through the projects they've done for school, papers they've written, clubs they've headed, volunteer activities, multiple classes on one focused area of study or a conversational ability to show their interest in our issues? Do they follow current events? Are they genuinely interested?

-----------------------------------------

I manage interns at my non-profit organization. It is a lot of work. I only take on people that really seem interested in a future in my field. I only take on interns that have dreamt of working for an organization like mine. We are not able to offer paid internships and I still have a huge stack of applications to choose from. They all have great GPAs and great activities to list. (Recently, because of the economic downturn I've also been getting post-graduate intern applications. So, this is happening!)

Lots of those people with great GPAs and extracurriculars do not make the short list because it is obvious that they're just applying to 100 places and trying to get in somewhere . . . anywhere. Maybe their parents are bossing them into doing any internship. I'm not interested in them.

In California, it is stated in the labor law that with unpaid interns, "the employer must derive no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded." I put a lot of work into making sure our interns learn skills that will serve them when they continue on in our field. I could work much faster without my intern, work from home without having to supervise anyone and save the time I'd be spending preparing work for my interns/reviewing their work.

I do not get paid any more from my employer for taking on an intern but I take on more work. Because of budget cuts, my department has been cut in half but the amount of work has doubled. Other industries are probably impacted in the same way in this economy. This may be why only one person responded to your inquiries about internships.

I enjoy sharing my world with someone that is excited to learn about it--that is why I take on the extra work of managing an intern. Nerd + Excited Nerdling = Happy & Proud Mentor.

If I'm pleased with my intern, I'll take time to write great letters of recommendation for them (even years later) and use all of my connections in my field to help them get jobs later down the line. This year, I had an intern that was so great that I brought them with me to every organization that was hiring for entry level positions in my field and introduced them personally to my contacts there. Our own organization ended up hiring them because they were too good to pass up.

Think of the person that will be your mentor, they have to be interested in you and your potential to make that investment in you. If you have some key targets for internships, find out who runs the internship program and try to learn about them. Then try to do some framing in your application that will underscore the qualities and skills that you think this person will connect with.

I have not yet chosen my Summer intern so don't assume it is too late. Just get yourself out there. Choose a goal of how many to send out in one week and do a certain number a day. If you don't get any nibbles, use the time this summer to do some great projects that will get you noticed in the Fall! But actually do it. Treat it like a job. Make a work plan, charting out the days until school starts up again. Wake up by a certain time, go to an area to work, work a set number of hours a day, set goals for completing a project and take it seriously.

Talk to your professors and the people in your department about internships to see if there's a list of opportunities they manage. Find companies you'd love to work for and call them up to see who you should send your application to. Try smaller firms that the hordes of other interns may not have approached yet. Just don't give up.
posted by dottiechang at 11:41 PM on May 10, 2013

I'm in the UK but I have spent a fair amount of time helping students find placements in the last 6 years so may be able to say something relevant.

Firstly, don't give up now, I would estimate at least a third of my students find something after May 1st. You will have missed the big companies recruitment cycles but there will still be interesting small companies out there.

Make contact personally. Do some research, find companies you want to work for and call them. Your career department will be able to help and you may be able to find company directories online. I'll say again, call them. Emails are very very easy to delete. Explain what you are after and what you can deliver. Have a monthly salary figure in mind in case they ask. Even minimum wage is better than nothing.

Network: many of the best placements come through someone a parent or other relative knows or works with. Talk to your folos and get them thinking about people who might be able to help out.
posted by biffa at 1:54 AM on May 11, 2013

If I can offer some help for the cover letter anxiety: I'm a non-technical person at a tech startup. The bar for cover letters from a dev is much, much lower than for, say, business development or marketing. What really matters is your previous work, your Github profile, the people you know and your willingness to work and to learn.
posted by third word on a random page at 2:12 AM on May 11, 2013

My friend has said he could probably get me an IT job at this random place, and it doesn't sound all that enticing

It is better than nothing. Summer after my freshman year, I got an internship testing CASE tools. Not that interesting, but it paid.

Also, yes, put down every language you have used in your classes. Everyone else is doing that; you should, too.

Summer after my sophomore year, I lined up an internship during finals week. Hang in there.
posted by deanc at 3:36 AM on May 11, 2013

Definitely list the functional languages, but don't go out of your way to emphasize them in your cover letter unless they seem relevant to the company in question. I second the idea to look at small Bay Area startups that may not have a well-developed intern program or good advertising for said program.

The trick is finding these places... look at the careers page of every interesting website you come across, especially if it's tech- or e-commerce-related. Do you have any friends who are CS majors and perhaps a year or two ahead of you, who have found internships in the past? Especially if they go to a different school than you, they may know about resources that you don't. Or maybe you can apply to the same places that they did--the goal is to cast a wide net. CS industry internships should pay enough for you to cover housing/food for the summer and still make a reasonable wage. (Even in San Francisco.)
posted by serelliya at 7:38 AM on May 11, 2013

Yes, target smaller companies at this point. Use your functional programming interest in your favor--google for startups using Erlang or Scala or Clojure. Or try even more nontraditional venues--today, many many advertising agencies do boatloads of web and mobile development and need programmers. Pick a geographic location and use all your most creative internet skills to make a list of smaller companies that hire programmers. When you find them, don't worry about an application or specific listing; find a contact email on their jobs page and send them a quick note asking if they take interns. Not a cover letter, cause those are scary and hard, but just a couple sentences explaining who you are and how far along you are in school and do they take interns? When they reply, you'll already be in a conversation and it'll be MUCH easier. And yes, make a template and send this to as many places as you can.

There is a lot of very good advice here for internships in other fields. Do not pay any attention to it. CS internships are always paid. They do not require passion or even knowledge of the organization, and they are always placed through an interview process that includes a resume and a technical interview, not friend-of-a-friend networking (although a recommendation can help you begin that process.) You can definitely do this.
posted by kelseyq at 9:29 AM on May 11, 2013

If you're seriously looking for a Google/Amazon/Microsoft level internship, I second your friend's recommendation to get hold of Cracking the Coding Interview. The first part, IMO, accurately describes the process & expectations at places like this. And the rest of the book gives excellent advice to help you do well in the kind of coding/whiteboard interviewing process that they have made the standard in the .com world.

If I were to meet you at a career fair, and/or phone screen you, here is what I'd be looking for:

- you're a Junior CS major. You should have some serious courses under your belt by now, including an algo/data structures class, and you should know that material pretty well, and be able to use it to make sensible design tradeoffs.
- can you solve problems?
- have you written much code? personal projects? websites? Are you really fluent in some programming language (which one is secondary)?
- do you seem energetic & really interested in the work, or are you only putting in time? I had a candidate this year who did very well on my technical questions, but who came across as not very engaged, almost bored by the discussion. He was good enough "on paper" that we went ahead with the screening process, eventually inviting him in for an on-site interview, and in the post-interview debrief, everybody's feedback was a variant of "well, he solved my problem, but he didn't seem really interested/excited," and we ended up passing on him.

You want to get as much of the above into your resume as possible, since it's the main tool you have for attracting the attention of potential employers.

At this point, it is getting very late. You're going to have to rely on your resume to get you that phone call, the on-campus recruiting is long past. Put down anything that helps make it clear you're worth phoning:
- certainly, list your coursework in CS. Surprisingly, not everybody does, and CS programs vary wildly in what they include
- don't be afraid to mention your functional programming - as long as you're prepared to talk about it if asked!
- include any relevant knowledge, e.g. website development, whether it was from a course or not. Especially if not from a course, it shows initiative. Also mention (briefly) any pre-college programming experience.
I'd de-emphasize most non-CS accomplishments, _unless_ they relate to starting/operating/managing some sort of business.

Good luck! And even if you don't get a good internship this summer, prepping for this will help you interview for a job in the fall. Which is when you should start looking.
posted by mr vino at 10:08 AM on May 11, 2013

Googling for "Dallas Computer Haskell" shows that Dr. Pervin of your institution may be teaching, on July 1st, a workshop for high-schoolers on Haskell. Maybe contact him and ask if you can assist? If so, keep notes and write a status report each week, and after the class, write a report.

Also contact Gregg Lebovitz at FPComplete. I'm sure he can find you something to do. Here's a video of him talking about some of the things FPComplete does.

And if none of those work out, Make your own internship. Perhaps write some code for this org (their codebase is in Haskell). FrictionFreeDemocracy.org. Blog about your progress each week, and do a presentation at the end of the summer. Post a video of your presentation to your blog. Actually, maybe Dr. P above would be your mentor for this project.

Are you interested in Arduino's, Raspberry Pi, stuff like that? I've seen some projects on getting Haskell on small boards like those... that could be fun. There must be some Makerspace type places around Dallas that have some Arduino interest groups. If not, start one at UT Dallas? I'd recommend bringing a friend to the makerspace, just to molify your mom. Maybe bring your mom.

If you'd like more pointers to Haskell info, or project ideas, feel free to contact me.
posted by at at 4:22 PM on May 11, 2013