Hi Blind, I’m posting here because I’m feeling desperate. Backstory is the following: As you can see my English sucks, that’s because I moved to United States not so long ago(in 2016) right after graduating High School back in my home country(former Soviet Union), as soon as I moved I started Community College and graduated with AS in CS after year and a half just because I didn’t want to stay there any longer, my GPA was around 3.8. After that I went to one of the City University of New York colleges, yeah I know it’s not an Ivy League, but while applying for summer internships during my first 3 years of studying I never even had a single interview, except one with Google during my freshman year, which I failed because at that time I knew only what Bubble Sort was, but since then I mostly applied to some smaller less competitive companies, since come on I am a CUNY student, but still with no luck. Recently I had to skip a year of studying because of health issue, but while not going to college I finished a Web development boot camp and since I’m going to return to college for Fall 2020 I decided to apply for some summer internships this year as well, hoping that I’ll have some advantage over other folks, simply because I went to boot camp and some people are able to find an actual job after that and I am only looking for internship, but still nothing...even though I am mostly applying to internships most focus of which is web development. I have projects on my resume, I have some work done outside of college, like simple apps in Swift, I’m doing leetcodes but never actually had to use that knowledge lol Overall, I am pretty good at college, super calm and sometimes shy because my English is not as good as other languages I speak, my resume is pretty good too and was checked by someone with experience hiring people for technical roles and people at career services at my college. If you might be able to give me some advice on how I can improve or become more noticeable for recruiters or share a word of wisdom, that would be nice. Thank you! TC: 0
Check out Poncho app. Speak with other interns and ask them for referrals https://apps.apple.com/us/app/poncho/id1479671074
The hiring for summer interns usually starts in fall, around october or november in many companies. Now there might be some open positions but it is much harder to get interviewed. On the other hand, what helped me the most to get interviews were referrals. I hardly knew anyone from top tech companies to refer me at the beginning but little by little and with lots of patience you eventually meet people or firends of friends who might help you with that. And it’s kind of weird that you didn’t get a single interview. I would suggest you to get your resume reviewed and to make sure you apply to absolutely everything, even if the company might not be quite what you are looking for. That will get you to practice real interviews for the ones that actually interests you.
Thank you for your advice! I actually started going to meetups and different events recently just to connect with people who can hopefully refer me somewhere, so I am slowly getting there🙂 And yeah, I feel like you are right and I should be less picky with companies I apply to, will try different approach next week. Do you think following up on my applications with recruiters is a good idea?
Sounds good! If you have the recruiter’s email then there is no harm on contacting them directly to be considered for an internship. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Also, apply as early as possible when the positions are opened. That’s key.