Tactics and Strategies on getting a Transformational Internship

Scrounging through internship listing after internship listing. 20 tabs open. One on StartupHire. Another on AngelList. Another Monster. The list goes on and on.

This search characterized much of my spring semester at Texas A&M University. I really wanted to get an internship in Silicon Valley. I had worked internships locally in College Station but Silicon Valley was a whole new ballgame. I wanted to find the perfect internship, one where I could wow the employer and vice versa.

This whole internship hunt all began with an emotional conversation I had with my father about student loan debt and thinking of ways to solve this problem. One solution was scholarships but after failing to obtain any… well let’s just say that, that was the beginning of my transformational journey.

After questioning the real value of college given this issue with student loan debt, how I wasn’t enjoying some of my classes, and the pressures of life-after-graduation I happened upon a job posting. This was of course when I thought — well since I didn’t get any scholarships, I can get a paid internship.

I saw this job posting for an innovation focused internship in an entrepreneurship club and I immediately felt a rush of adrenaline and excitement. I had never done anything “innovative” but my personality certainly fit the bill.

I proceeded to spend the rest of my day applying to this internship. Creating a LinkedIn account. Working on my resume. Completing a cover letter. It took hours and what was even more frustrating was that I didn’t even know if I was doing it right. All that hard work lead me to the moment when I walked into the interview room. I walked out with an offer.

During my internship, I learned more than I could have ever imagined. I was inundated with a whole new world of experiences and concepts that felt so riveting. Soon, concepts like Lean Startup, venture capital, and business plans sparked flames in my head which turned into an inferno of creativity.

New ideas rushed through my head like the ensuing flood after the breakage of a dam. I could see all the connections and I felt there was so much to be explored. There was so much opportunity in the world and so many people just didn’t care to see it!

And this brings me to my spring internship search. My spring classes weren’t exciting but I found ways to get good grades while getting involved with the local startup community. All the while though I was riveted by the idea of working in San Francisco with the best and the brightest the startup world had to offer. I knew San Francisco was big time and I knew I needed to get there.

So I started applying. I applied to my first 10 companies. No Response. Next 10. No Response. Next 10. A phone interview but that didn’t lead anywhere. I kept applying until I hit my 71st application where I found a match between what I wanted and what the employer was looking for. I interviewed over Google Hangouts and at the end I had accepted a job at a startup in downtown San Francisco. It was a dream come true just weeks before the semester ended!

Going back to my application process for summer 2014, I was determined to find a special kind of internship. I wanted my employer to be wowed and I wanted my employer to wow me. In effect, I wanted to have a transformational internship experience. I had interest from employers besides AirPair but they didn’t come close. I knew I wanted a specific type of internship and I was determined to do everything in my power to get it. This lead to the birth of InternshipCoach.

I became riveted by the idea that I could help other people experience a transformational internship. I knew the work was tough but I knew I could make it happen for people. I had mastered a series of tactics that had proven success. I didn’t have metrics but I strongly believed I could help people experience what I had experienced in San Francisco.

After applying to so many internships, I had determined some pretty effective ways to apply, sometimes through the chat boxes, emailing the corporate investor contact, and various ways of maximizing your chances via AngelList. I now use these as templates and the basis of my strategy for my customers.

To conclude, I think it’s important that we recognize that internships are an essential component of any college education. Not just so-so internships but internships where we discover our passion, love, and creativity. I believe strongly in college but I feel we need to learn outside the classroom as well.

It’s also important that we don’t settle for mediocre internships. It’s not fair to the employer or employee. Both parties should be wowed and amazed after an internship and that’s what a transformational internship really is.

Currently, my fellow coaches and I are working on getting our customers transformational internship experiences at InternshipCoach. I have never felt more passionate about something in my life. We conduct Google Hangout calls for coaching and sometimes I can be on the line for 3 hours and it feels like 3 minutes.

I think one of the main things we have discovered at InternshipCoach is the gap between employers who are eager to train and integrate interns into their workplace and interns who really want to get some work experience. Much of this gap is an information gap with many interns erroneously thinking they can’t get internships when they can. We tackle this information deficit at InternshipCoach.

Another realization for interns is that we can’t apply for internships the same way that we complete homework assignments. School has generally trained us to be polite, respectful members of society. However, it has not trained us to truly hustle for the opportunities we want and to sometimes use unconventional tactics. Applying for internships is not meeting a rubric; in many cases, we have to improvise just to get an interview.

A huge paradigm shift many students face is the variability of the internship search. In academia, there is a tremendous amount of certainty with the parameters of success being so clear and defined. In finding an internship, a student may feel they reached the qualifications of one internship more than the other but get accepted by the former. It is a test of mental resiliency. The biggest thing we need to realize is that we are trying to get jobs from people who have tons of things going on in their lives. A little empathy for our employers’ situations can have a long way to a productive and enjoyable interview.

As coaches, we bridge the gap between prospective interns and employers. A lot of this comes down to psychologically helping students break through their fear of failure and develop a little empathy. Not only do these skills help our customers get internships, but also it helps them interact in their everyday lives.

Keep applying and be fearless!

Tyler Bauer