How to Recover from Losing your Internship: COVID-19 Edition

So you just received the phone call from your employer. They are cancelling your summer 2020 internship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After spending months intensely recruiting for an internship, this can feel incredibly devastating and discouraging.

About three weeks back, I also received the same phone call from my employer that they will be rescinding my internship offer. So yes, I can confirm this is a very tough spot to be in. In the time since, I felt the weight of a job loss, restarted my job search, and accepted a new internship with R2 Space, Inc. as a Software Engineering Intern. Before moving forward into the summer, I thought I would share some of the lessons I learned along the way from this process. As confusing as it was to navigate through, it was definitely a formative experience that will help navigating through career setbacks in the future. Here are some possible steps to take to refresh your career in this tough time.

Grieve.

As much as you may feel rushed to jump back into finding another job, take time to feel upset about your situation. Realize that you are probably experiencing some form of mental shock. You are likely feeling hurt, angry, or depressed and all of those feelings are completely valid. Now is not the time to try and put things into perspective with the world health crisis just yet either. Everyone is experiencing loss during this pandemic in different ways. Whether you are grieving the loss of a loved one or a job loss, your feelings in this moment are completely justified.

For now, really take time for yourself to grieve because you did, indeed, experience a personal loss. Go easy on yourself and do not try to bottle up any feelings. It might not sound productive, but you must face your feelings as is so that you are not carrying emotional baggage with you in the coming weeks. Cry, journal your frustration out, go for a run, eat some ice cream or your favorite dessert. There are healthy and unhealthy ways to grieve. I found this article to be particularly helpful over the first couple of days. The mental shock may not completely leave you for a little while, but you can let the most unpleasant feelings pass earlier on in the process.

Reach Out.

As counter-intuitive as this sounds, this is a step in the right direction. You may naturally feel the tendency to withdraw from those around you. You may feel alone or embarrassed about your situation. You will come to discover, however, that reaching out for help speeds up this process entirely. Whether you need a shoulder to cry on, someone to hang out with, or practical advice from someone, it helps to lean on family members and peers in the process.

At some point, I also recommend reaching out to your intended employer to thank them for the intended opportunity through email or a phone call. While this may sound counter-intuitive, they provided you with an intended opportunity because they felt you are a strong candidate in their competitive applicant pool. It is likely they were not able to provide an opportunity at this time because they were unable to give you the full experience as an intern at their company. With the current situation, it may also have been hard to move to a virtual format if your work requires you to be on site. Definitely reach out to them and stay in touch, as there will likely be more opportunities in the future.

Restart your Internship Search.

Once you took time for yourself to feel the loss, now is the time to bounce back, if you decide to continue with an internship. Reach out publicly on LinkedIn explaining your situation and that you are back on the market for another internship. Highlight that you took time for yourself, the intended role you were to go into, and any other offers you had to choose from during the normal recruitment cycle. I also recommend highlighting any skills you have that you can use in a remote internship such as a particular software skill. It is likely your next internship will be remote or virtual.

You will be surprised how many people will see your post and reach out to you either for an interview or to let you know they are there for you. If you left your last internship on good terms, reach back out to your past employer(s) and see if they can feasibly hire you back. If anything, they will reach out to their connections and recommend you to someone who might have a job.

Realize that this recruiting cycle will be different. Every part of this process is remote and you must use your online platforms to truly stand out from other applicants. I wrote another article going through several steps you can take to get started on virtual recruiting that you can reference in your search. And, of course, stay persistent as you would in a normal recruiting cycle. You will face rejection and see a lot of closed doors, but keep going regardless.

Make a Plan B.

The fact is, you are not alone in this situation. Thousands of students are losing internships and unfortunately a lot of this is out of our control. Future employers will understand if you were unable to find another role for the summer as this is clearly an extenuating circumstance. If you are unable to find an internship, do not feel disheartened. There are still many ways to make use of a summer without an internship.

Here are a few ways to make the most of your summer:

• Identify a few personal projects or skills you want to hone in on for the summer. Whether it is contributing to open source software projects on GitHub or learning to cook Indian food, you can fill your whole summer with one or more cool projects!
• If you are looking to make a career pivot once this is all over, now is the perfect time to prepare for that. Take more classes for credit or certification online and work on personal projects. Many online platforms like Coursera are offering free certifications for courses during lockdown!
• Volunteer. This is a tough time. While many of us are facing internship losses, others are facing losses of their loved ones or their full-time jobs. COVID-19 has made the worst of everyone’s situations, and everyone is going experiencing this pandemic differently. Make PPE at home, fundraise for your favorite charity or small business, or join a volunteer team for your state.

If you are running out of ideas, UM’s Women in Electrical & Computer Engineering (WECE) generated a list of summer opportunities and project ideas that you can reference!

I wish you the best of luck in this tough time. Building resilience this early in your career will definitely pay off in the long run. We will get through this very soon. Stay safe!

—

Thank you for reading my article! I am Isha, a senior studying computer engineering at the University of Michigan. If you have any follow-up questions, feel free to contact me on LinkedIn or email me at ibhatt@umich.edu