Internship 101 — How do I go about it?

Sachchit Prasad
Aug 28, 2017 · 20 min read

Introduction

I wanted to write this guide mainly for undergrads who are going through the internship process for the first time and wanted a better idea of how to approach the whole thing. When applying for the first time, it can be quite daunting to know where to apply — am I going to the right place, am I good enough, will I enjoy it, is it worth it etc. With so many different options out there you may feel a little overwhelmed or just a bit lost as to how to get started.

I’ll go through some of the things I wish I had been told when I had started out at university and started applying to my first internships. Most of the areas will be covered, from making your CV, choosing where to go, applying and then also how to make the best out of your intern experiences.

First a bit of background — in the first year I had decided that I wanted to build up my skillset and opted to try freelancing and learning more languages and frameworks on the side. In hindsight, it would have been better to go try for an internship since freelancing can be difficult at first if you are just looking to pick up work. The type of work may not be what is best for you to learn and in my experience, freelance clients tend to be very picky. In the second year, I decided to apply to a variety of places and in the end chose to intern in a technology role at an investment bank. In contrast to what I had decided in the first year, the summer of my second year has been much more insightful and useful — helping me further to understand what I wanted to do when I eventually graduated.

Why do people go for internships?

Internships can be useful to give you a better idea of what life after university in work can be like. Often it goes both ways — people have a preconception of what working in a place might be like thinking it is not going to be that fun but instead find out they really enjoy the role. Whereas sometimes it can also be the case you think you would really enjoy a job but then when you find out more about what the work involves then you may realise it is not for you.

Securing an internship can often lead to a return-offer upon graduation, thus securing a job. This can be a major factor for some students who prefer the security of knowing they will land a graduate job. Some internships may have a sign-on bonus when you decide to work there full-time which can be useful financially.

For a lot of people going for an internship, they want to learn something new over the summer in a field that interests them and want a taste of what it’s like to work there. Internships provide you with a chance to learn many new things that you may otherwise not be able to do at university or at home as it provides you with the environment to do so.

The summer is quite long in university and some people would simply like to not spend it doing nothing and want to make some money over the summer — perhaps to pay off loans, rent or just for savings. There are many internships that do pay quite highly and a single summer doing an internship can be enough to pay off the years tuition fee or rent, depending on the company you choose.

Whatever the reason — the bottom line is that an internship can give you the skills and experience that definitely helps boost your chances for a job after education, while also letting you make some money on the side.

Deciding what you want to go for

The first thing to ask yourself is what field do you want to get into — as a computer science student, you have the option to join a huge variety of fields. The three main fields people tend to go for is technology, finance and research. Some people have a natural inclination to one field over the other and if you are not sure which one you want to try, it is worth doing further research into what you would be doing in each field — it is good to be proactive about this at the start.

You could ask your professors and tutors about where they have worked in the past or what their experiences at certain places have been like. Professors also have field-specific knowledge and would be able to point you to others you can speak to that have first-hand experience. Parents and friends may have also interned in the past at places and will be able to give you a good indication of the scope of a certain role and what you would do day to day from a frank perspective. Classmates that have already worked somewhere or are searching for places just like you are also a good source and it would be good to share your approaches with each other. Essentially, the idea is to talk to who you can and talk to as many different people as you can — but just as importantly listen to yourself, ask yourself questions about what interests you. What are your motivations for the internship and why are you doing one in the first place? Do you want to secure an internship to get a return offer after you graduate, do you want to make some money over the summer, want a new skillset or just want to find out what life in work is like. All reasons are equally as valid and trying to answer these might nudge you in the direction of certain places over others. There can be nothing worse than working in an environment you do not like, doing something you do not want to do for a long time.

The other consideration to make here is where you will be working during your internship. This is where you should be thinking about what sort of culture you prefer to work in since this can make a massive difference to how you much you enjoy your summer. You may be doing research projects in university along with faculty staff or you may be one of many desks in a large corporate company.

To help you to understand each of the areas a little more, I’ll gloss over what you can expect from each.

Finance — there are options ranging from FinTech start-ups to large corporate investment banks such as JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley. One of the main misconceptions with applying to finance is that you need to have prior financial knowledge, however this is not entirely true. While it is true that some financial knowledge can be useful for specialist roles, even then you will be given the training and told what you need to know because you will often be starting on with a specific project. Banks and finance firms need technology roles to be filled and it will not be the case that everyone does finance hence if this is something worries you then be rest assured it will not hinder you. Fintech start-ups tend to work on more disruptive technologies and investment banks tend to give you singular projects to work on and because a bank is so vast — this can be from virtually any language (usually Python and Java). If you have a particular bank in mind, it is worth finding out what projects interns can be expected to get and what sorts of roles you would fill.

Technology — technology companies have a much wider selection of specialities — it would be a good idea to decide whether you prefer a software or hardware position and also what sector the tech company is in. For example, working as a tech intern at Tesla, a car company and working at EBay, a commercial online store, will often have a different focus. I could make a whole separate post on tech internships but again just to gloss over, there are many tech start-ups and established companies like Google or Facebook. For tech companies, I would recommend finding out what the culture and work cycle is like since these do tend differ a fair amount from company to company. Since there are so many potential projects you could be given — it is a good idea to find out what interns are able to work in. You might be really interested in one product from a company but as an intern you won’t always be able to work on it. The rule here would be to do as much background research as you can on the culture, technology used and projects normally done.

Sometimes companies may not advertise their tech programs online and it is worth sending in an email — also many companies you may think do not offer tech programs do in fact run them, which is why it is worth doing your research.

Research — there is also the option at many universities and some companies/ institutions to undertake a research internship. These differ slightly the other types in that they are focussed more around a research area which is being worked on by the university. When picking a research internship, the best place to start would be talking to your faculty and department since they will be the ones who are running the programmes in the first place.

Start-up — these may tend to pay a bit less than its counterparts however can offer more flexibility in terms of projects and working hours. These tend to be much smaller companies and so you may feel more like you can make a direct impact to them.

Corporate — this culture is the most rigid of the ones looked at so far, corporates are large companies that require many rules and regulations to keep everything managed and under control. This leads to a very hierarchical system with many layers of managers and people working under each other — it depends how much of a structure you like to work in and is a preference you have to ask yourself about.

How to find internships

Now that you have an idea of what internships you want, you will want to know what programmes are out there and whether the companies offer internships in the roles you want. Most companies offer a “summer technology internship” role on their websites in the careers section — a good place to start looking. Many of the larger companies and start-ups will advertise this clearly on their pages with details on how to sign up and apply. Sometimes you may find that the company you are looking at does not have any details about an internship on their website, that doesn’t always mean that they do not offer a program. In the case you cannot find it on their page, it is worth calling them up or dropping an email by to ask if they have any roles for the summer.

You will want to keep an eye out for the start date of the internship and duration — while most are around 10 weeks long, it is not uncommon to have some lasting 7 weeks while others are 13 weeks. It is a good idea to check whether the start date clashes with any commitments towards the end of your course as sometimes the first week of an internship may overlap with the last week of term.

Also look out for any further supporting documents they want from you; some companies may require a cover letter as well as your CV.

You can also check your university website to see if they offer any internships online via their own website and have a careers service you can book an appointment with.

Careers fairs are also common, either organised by your university or external bodies — these give you a good opportunity to chat to representatives or past interns from these companies.

Specifically, many investment banks run Spring Week programs which are often held in April and provide a 1 week taster into what working at the bank is like and often a few Spring Week interns will be called back for the summer. If you are not sure what a bank is like or are just curious to have a taste of the area before trying to commit a whole summer, these are quite handy to apply to.

CV Tips

A CV is one of the most commonly asked for documents when applying — you should take some time over making sure your CV stands out from the rest and at the very least gives all the information you need to catch the eyes of employers. If you are applying for your first internship, chances are that you have not needed to create a CV until now, so I’ll go through a few of the main points to consider when creating one.

It is important to try and keep your CV length to 1 page where possible — most of the people looking at CVs go through many in their screening processes and keeping your CV short and relevant is key. If you find your CV is too large and spilling into 2 or 3 pages, then you need to cut down the descriptions and only pick relevant points to put in.

A good CV should contain all of the following content:

· Address, Email, Phone number

· LinkedIn profile link (optional)

· Tagline (optional)

· Education — high school (optional) and university

· Qualifications — A Level grades, other related courses (GCSEs are not really needed but can add)

· Skills — programming skills rated by proficiency

· Spoken Languages — again by proficiency

· Projects — most recent first

· Work Experience — most recent first

· Voluntary work (optional)

· Hobbies and interests (optional)

· Scholarships (options)

A few things to keep in mind when making the CV is that space is important to make use of so try and limit the amount of whitespace. This does not mean that you should bunch everything up with no spaces in between — but do try and make sure you don’t have massive margins and that there isn’t a lot of space between points as this is space you could potentially use. Have a smart, clean structure to the CV — look up templates online to have a better idea of how to create one. In general, you don’t really need to make your CV look “pretty” as long as you get the points across. That being said — you can always give it a go and see what others think of it in case you do come up with something that works well. Make sure everything is consistent in your formatting — bolding, underlines, spacing, date convention etc.

You don’t have to be very verbose in your descriptions of your work experience and projects. The rule here is to keep it short and sweet, try to convey the maximum information in as few words as you can. This will allow you to fit in more points into the CV if you have many, while still allowing you to get your points across. Some people prefer to use “Pigeon-English” which allows them to condense their sentences.

In the descriptions of work experience and projects, you should mention the technologies used and the impact it had on you and the place you worked at. Many people may only offer a technical description of something but giving more detail into the impact of your work and what you learnt highlights what you got out of that experience and what you can offer.

If you feel you do not have enough on your CV in terms of projects or work experience — that is fine too, since a lot of the time university students won’t have had experience in all these areas. Write down all the points that you can and it may spark a few ideas as to what other experiences you could try to pursue and in turn put on your CV (never just do something so you can put it on your CV as I don’t feel its beneficial, but that is my opinion, many people do this sometimes too).

Cover Letters

Some places need an additional cover letter on top of your CV. This is usually a page description of why you would be fitting for the role you are applying to and is usually specific to the place you are applying to, so unlike a CV you may have to look at these on a case by case basis. These should never go over a page and often can be done in less than a page as well — only fill the page as you have more relevant points, not just for the sake of filling it up.

A cover letter should highlight your motivations, your skills in more detail and why you feel you should be given the role via what you can offer to the company. A cover letter is often a good chance for you to highlight some soft-skills in more detail that you may not be able to in as much detail on your CV. Talking about inter-personal skills, team management skills and organisational skills can be quite useful here.

A good CV coupled with a strong cover letter will help you stand out more — they are often employed as another filter for candidates as cover letters do take a fair amount of time to create compared to just handing in a CV that can be sent to multiple places.

Online Short Paragraphs Tips

Sometimes as part of completing the online application you will be asked to answer questions about your motivations, a specific project you have completed or about a time you have demonstrated a skill. There is usually a limit to the number of words you can have with most either being 100, 200 or 250 words.

Some examples include:

· Talk about a time you showed leadership

· Talk about a technical project you have undertaken

· Describe a time you have shown your organisational skills

· Why do you want to apply for this role?

These are another filter in the application process that may make the process seem a bit longer but they are just as important. For these sorts of questions make sure that you answer the question as it is asked — many people tend to go off topic when they see these, answering the question that they want it to be rather than the one that is asked. If the question asks for a single experience or project — only mention one.

You should make sure your answer makes a point and backs these up with evidence — rather than say “I demonstrated X”, say “I demonstrated X, by doing Y”. Evaluating what you did is useful as well, “I demonstrated X, by doing Y and learnt Z as well as a result”. Remember they want to see actually demonstrable qualities and so do not just waffle around one point — again like your CV, be short and sweet.

There are usually about 3 of these to answer in an application that asks for the short paragraphs and they take about as long as a cover letter to write in my experience.

Competitiveness

The competiveness of a role depends on the number of seats offered vs the number of applications, the process (pre-screening, interview, online tests). To find out about this you can either ask them straight or look into some forums on how past applicants found the whole process. It is a good idea to spread out the places you apply to, applying only to competitive places may not always be best way to go about it. It is good to be ambitious but also it is nice to have a fall-back that you can take in case you don’t get the choices you go for.

Do your research and find what companies there are in your field apart from all the obvious ones — for example in tech, apart from FB, Google, Microsoft, there are other smaller startups which can offer great experiences or even other medium-large sized companies.

When to apply by

Many internships tend to open in October — November, with a few opening up positions in January. Always keep a look out on their recruitment pages to see when they are planning to open and make a note of these. It is generally a good idea to get applications in fast as some internships start on a rolling basis, taking a first come first serve basis for interviews. Some companies may employ a batch process where they interview in batches of the course of the application lifetime however towards the end they may find they have filled up their places, so it is best not to leave it late.

Another reason to apply early is that it can often allow you to get an internship secured and applying to other places out of the way for the rest of the year — it can get quite hard to juggle towards the end with revision and exams lurking, not to mention much more stressful.

Online Tests

Once you have started your application and have made it through to the next round — you might be asked to complete a series of online tests. These can be a combination or all of the following psychometric tests:

· Non-verbal reasoning — patterns recognition, shapes

· Mathematics — quick questions to test your estimation, finding relevant numbers from a large set

· English — classifying text, finding the meaning, intent and purpose

· Behavioural — how would you act in a given situation

Most of these psychometric tests are timed and quick fire — you often have around 30 seconds on average per question and sometimes you cannot go back to a question once you have answered them. It is a good idea to do these when you know you have no distractions and won’t have to leave your desk. Make sure to use a mouse and not a track-pad since you will have to click quickly sometimes if you are short on time and a track-pad just gets in the way. If you are not sure about the answer to a question (and sometimes you don’t have the time to do full working), you must make sure to have a smart guess to what the answer is by estimating. Sometimes it is much faster to estimate an answer and eliminate the ones that are definitely wrong rather that work out the correct answer.

There are many online resources that will allow you to get up to speed and familiar with the different type of tests and their formats. Use these to get some practice until you feel confident for the real thing — don’t use them all up in one go and instead spread it over the course of a week or do one of each type a day. They will also give you many tips as to how to approach these tests.

Sometimes you may also need to complete a coding question where you have to write actual code — this is on the form of a Hacker Rank style question and method of judgement usually.

How to prepare for interviews

There are two sides to the interview process in most cases — some may only consist of one of these, the technical interview and the behavioural interview. Whether it is on the phone, on skype or in person, the general points to consider are the same when it comes to preparation.

The first thing to do is know your basics very well — as long as you have a strong foundation, you can adapt to the interview. A method that personally worked for me was to make a list of all the core topics in my subject and make sure I knew I could explain them comfortably in some detail. Making sure I knew core programming concepts, definitions, algorithms, data structures and pseudocode gave me confidence that I could have some angle with which to approach interview questions.

After this is done, it is a good idea to find out what sorts of questions you may be asked and make sure you know some of these. There are some common questions you are asked, so make sure you understand these. You should then apply these concepts and basic questions to more advanced questions — one way to test your programming is to use online services like LeetCode or Hacker Rank. These have an array of questions which span various topics and will give you good breadth of knowledge and some practical preparation.

Reading “Cracking the Coding Interview” was also very useful for me to give me a solid grounding in the foundations and also general advice on how to tackle the application process and I would thoroughly recommend it.

Make sure to do a little bit each day or couple of days and challenge yourself a bit more each time — over the course of a few weeks you will start to grasp more concepts and it will stick with you as a long-term skill as you keep at it, rather than learning for the interview and then forgetting afterwards.

The technical side is one that some beginners may feel daunted by however by doing a little each day and regularly while preparing will build up confidence.

The other side of interviews to prepare for is the behavioural section, which focuses on your softer skills and what your approach to real life situations is like. Here they ask questions about how you would react in a certain situation or if there was conflict, how you have dealt with it. You can look up the sorts of questions they ask around this sort of stuff online to get a feel for what they may ask and it is a good idea to practice answering these in a group where you ask one another the same questions. It is a good way to get a feel for to answer the questions spontaneously — I never like to learn these by rote since that is not a good way to prepare for me. It is better to know what experiences you might wish to mention and then just practice naturally talking about it with others.

One common question which you may encounter here is, “what is your biggest weakness?”. The only thing I would mention about this is not to say, “I work too hard and that is my biggest weakness” since the interviews have heard this answer a lot. There is a lot of discussion online as to how to approach this question which is worth looking up.

Interview on the day

For the interview on the day, there are a few things to remember that can be of great help even though it sounds quite simple. Quite often even though people are more than capable of passing the interview, they let nerves get the better of them on the day and can’t show themselves at their best. It is therefore really important to stay calm, of course this is easy to say but it’s important. The day before you should try spending time calming yourself down and should have prepared sufficiently so that you don’t really need to look over your notes again and can just try put your mind at rest.

Make sure you have all of your documents sorted out the day before — some companies may need passports, so don’t leave it to finding them on the day. Have a full night’s rest and get as much sleep as you can — making sure you have had a good few days of sleeping on time.

For the interview format itself, we have already discussed the technical and the behavioural side. However, there are some other styles and settings in which you may be interviewed.

Sometimes you may be asked to do complete a case study, where you will be given around 20–30 mins to read a case study and will then have to answer a question or summarise your findings. This tests how well you can take in new information and then condense it in a short time span.

Some interviews may also require you to sit a test in the centre itself which will be similar to a psychometric test but on paper.

Remember to always answer questions clearly and answer the question being asked — not the question that you had prepared for and want it to be. It can be easy to spot a scripted answer sometimes and interviewers can tell if you are going off-topic. Also have a few questions to ask the company interviewing you, it is as much a chance to “interview” them as much as they are interviewing you.

Final Thoughts

So, like I had mentioned at the start, I wanted to know more about the process when applying to internships and a bit of guidance to go about it. I have just glossed over some of the things to keep in mind when applying and you will hear different opinions from different people — so always know the facts and go about it your own way.

I will write about how to make the best out of your internship experience later in a future post…

Good luck for the year! :)

)

Sachchit Prasad

3rd Year Computer Science Student at UCL with a passion for writing!

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