How to get an internship during a recession?
It doesn’t matter if you are a web developer or a mobile developer, your project needs to be hosted somewhere.
Hey, This is Aman. I am currently working as a mobile engineering intern at Dyte. I am in my third year of college and this is my third internship (hopefully the last xD). I have worked at 2 more startups before so I have some idea on how to get an internship.
I come from a tier 3 college and till now this hasn’t been a problem, in fact, I wasn’t even asked about this in any interview of mine and I have given quite a few of them. The point I am trying to make is, no matter what your background is if you have the required skills and you know the right way to reach to right people you will never be jobless.
This blog post was originally a thread - mentioning how one should go with the job search - that I wrote because I was fed up with answering the same questions everywhere, and then Akash asked me if I can elaborate on the same. This blog post will also follow the same sequence as my original thread.
Laying the pillars right
Before applying anywhere you need to understand that the person on the other side may be busy, he might be reviewing hundreds of applications and stuck on a long to-do.
So your first job is to help him to understand your capability, below is a checklist in no particular order but you can follow this -
As a programmer, you need to use Git in every project. Push your code to GitHub frequently. When someone opens your GitHub account, a wall with enough green dots shows that you are a consistent person which creates a very good first impression.
Below is the screenshot of the wall of my GitHub account.
It doesn’t matter if you are a web developer or a mobile developer, your project needs to be hosted somewhere. When someone is reviewing your profile, they skim through your work and if any project catches their attention they want to try it and that is your moment to shine. So you should never leave any projects without hosting. Being a mobile developer, if you can’t get a google play developer account you can still host your APKs in the GitHub releases.
README files should be filled with enough information. There is very less chance that someone will actually go through the code you have on GitHub, in most cases a good readme contains this information:
Screenshots of the project
How to set up the project?
A paragraph or two explaining the project
A paragraph on project architecture
Time to rework your resume: I don’t have much to write here except linking the best resources to read on this matter.
MIT’s resume guide:
Harvard’s resume guide:
hes-resume-cover-letter-guide.pdf
Reading these guides will give you an unfair advantage over other candidates.
Also once you are done creating your resume, make sure you pass it through some resume-scoring websites and get it reviewed by some seniors.
Searching for the right job
As with any normal candidate, you can start with the jobs section on LinkedIn, or search for jobs on any job listing website but I will tell you some unconventional ways of getting it.
Utilizing Twitter to its maximum potential. Using advanced search on Twitter with relevant keywords will fetch you a lot of results which has less crowd.
Following the right people on Twitter will also help you get notified once they post about jobs.
Using Linkedin’s search feature and skimming through Posts.
There are a lot of jobs that are listed as posts but not as jobs and they are generally less crowded.
Apply on portals of start-up accelerators like Y combinator. They fund a lot of startups every year and all these startups need fresh talent like you.
The link to y combinators portal is here.
What if you want to work at Cred but there aren’t any openings available or maybe there are but you want to stand out, here comes something called Cold DM/emails. This is my personal favorite. I have gotten a lot of opportunities and connections by just reaching out to people whom I knew but who didn’t know me.
Cold DMs can not only get you jobs/internships but also connect you to very good mentors. You can learn about this through videos by Ankur Warikoo.
Optimizing your Peerlist profile can help you find internship opportunities as well as full-time job opportunities.
I hope this could help you to get your next internship sooner. If you want me to help you with something, you can drop me a text on Twitter.