Hi all, I just wanted to write about my experience so far, in searching for a tech internship for summer 2024. My aim is to simply add another data point for anyone who reads this and to hopefully foster some discussion about internships in general! ITT I'll highlight my internship search stats, some strategies I've employed, and what tools I'm using to make it easier for me when applying.

My internship search stats

As of September 14

• I've applied to exactly 266 different internships
• been rejected from 56 of them
• am currently interviewing with 3 different companies
• with the rest still pending/waiting to be ghosted.
• I've tested out 3 different resume formats, and found one that has worked better than the first 2.
• I've done probably 10-15 hackerrank/codesignal tests and have failed almost all of them lol

I'm targeting a data engineering role, but have applied to mostly software engineering roles, as these roles open applications significantly earlier than data analytics. I started applying in mid July of this year (while I was in my previous internship lol). To hopefully give this post any credibility at all, I'm currently interviewing with Microsoft, Atlassian, and Infoverity, set to have my final round interviews next week. I can make another post talking about my interview experiences with these companies if anyone is interested. I currently have a pending offer with the company I interned with last summer, which I feel has really helped push the ball along with Atlassian and Microsoft.

What tactics have helped me so far

I'm of the opinion that getting a job is mostly a numbers game, combined with the intuition to adjust as you go along and find what things aren't working. For resumes, there is no one answer of what the best format or bullet point is. By applying to a massive amount of jobs, you start to have a big enough sample size to start making accurate changes. When I was first making my resume, I compiled like 10-20 different resumes of people that got into FAANG, and copied the general format of theirs. I didn't submit a single cover letter to any jobs, or change my resume for any one specific posting.

I also personally don't look for referrals at all. I've tried for a couple companies that I'm specifically interested in (if anyone working at riot games sees this, hook me up 👀) but it just feels like I'm using this person only for my personal gain. I also don't know very many people that got a job by a referral and would prefer to put my time toward something I know will work.

I don't formally know DS&A, but have been self-taught for around 4 years now so I know enough to tackle easy/(some) medium leetcode problems. If I did know my way around a hackerrank assessment better, I may have even more interview but I have a personal vendetta against the whole premise of OAs so I willingly abstain lol.

Recently the rate at which I have been applying has slowed down, but on average I was submitting 20-40 applications a week. If you haven't started applying already, start now. I wouldn't be surprised if 20% of the posting I've applied to are closed already. Recruiters get thousands of applicants so they have to close the posting early and deal with who they have already.

What tools/resources I'm using?

I'm using a tool called huntr.co to track my applications. This is not sponsored, I just find their tool the easiest to use when tracking applications. You can track up to 40 apps for free, after which you have to pay $10/month to add any more. For me, this is worth it simply because of the volume of applications I put out.

The other tool that I highly recommend is called Simplify.jobs, which autofills applications with just a few mouse clicks (not sponsored either!). Sites like greenhouse and lever are filled out instantly, and sites like workday or icims (that I used to actively avoid applying to anything on) are easier than ever. Every job seeker should be using this tool!

Lastly, where am I finding the jobs that I applied to? 99% of all the jobs that I've applied to have come from this github repo, filled with over 300 open (some are now closed!) internships for summer 2024. They also have a sister repo for new grad roles, in case anyone is/has graduated. There are only a handful of apps that I've submitted not sources from this repo, that have been on linkedin or indeed

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I hope this post was helpful if you read all the way up until this point! Job searching is never easy, especially internships, so I wish you the best of luck if you're currently searching!