Landing the Internship of Your Choice
My personal experience looking for a summer internship. Below, I’ve outlined what the internship search process was like for me, as well as some key details that can hopefully help you.
A Little About Me
So before I dive into the specifics, I think it’s best that you have somewhat an idea of my background and technical interests. This way, you’ll have a stronger understanding of what some of my goals were and why I chose to pursue them. To start, I’m currently a third-year studying Mathematics-Computer Science and Chinese Language at University of California, San Diego. A few of my academic interests include the following: Machine Learning, Cryptography/Security, and Algorithms plus Graph Theory. As for my personal hobbies, I enjoy cooking, playing games, solving puzzles, reading, golfing, and browsing the internet while listening to music.
Ask Yourself What You Want
I’d say the first step before doing anything is asking yourself what you want. Essentially, ask yourself what kind of internship do you want and what experience are you looking to get out of it. There are plenty of internships available and I think it’s definitely important to have an idea of what kind of work you want to be doing. Here are some great questions to ask yourself: what do I want to do, what do I want to learn, what kind of people do I want to be working with, what size company would have a working environment that I’d like, and etc. Applying to companies that align with your best interests will likely be the ones that not only give you best chance during the application process, but also will probably be the most enjoyable!
In my experience, I originally wanted an internship from a larger company that focused on software development. I also wanted to be located near a bigger city. However, all of my desires changed throughout the process. As school progressed, I wanted a position that was far more “mathematical”. To be more specific, I wanted something that was related more to some of the subjects I studied as a math major rather than software engineering itself. A field that seemed really attractive to me was cybersecurity, so I decided to pursue that. Note, the COVID-19 pandemic changed a lot of things for as well as everyone I know, so adjusting to the new expectations was definitely a challenge.
Qualities Companies Look For
Observe what companies look for in applicants and consider that in your decision process. While I recommend to apply to as many internships as soon as possible (due to the nature of the recruitment cycle), I somewhat take caution to this advice. If a company is hiring Quantitative Analysts and your interests lie strictly within Web Development, I’d normally have you reconsider making that internship a top priority. Take note of what technologies and characteristics a job is looking for. If the technologies are aligned with what you like and that company is looking for someone with your expertise, then I think that you would make a much stronger applicant.
My experiences and knowledge was kind of all over the place. I didn’t really specialize in any one area and I was spread thinly. Nonetheless, I still had a lot of internship experience, which is something I definitely emphasized. At first, I tried applying to as many internships as possible, which proved to be not a super effective strategy. I was able to land a series of interviews, but not all of them were successful. With security on the other hand, I was able to better tailor my application by focusing on my cryptography classes and internship where I worked in the cybersecurity space. I also researched the companies that I applied to.
Preparations and Interviews
At this point, you now know what you are looking for and how to market yourself. The next step is to submit the actual application and, hopefully, go through the interview process. Most internship applications consist of the following: resume, cover letter, referral, and personal information. I’ll go through everything I did and maybe you can learn something useful.
First thing I did was prepare a resume. There are two strategies here, either you can tailor a resume to each individual company you apply to or use a general one. I used a general one. The template you see above came from the university career center. On a separate note, I did receive much help from various student organizations, particularly ACM. Generally, students will have a very good idea of how the internship application process works and seeking advice from them is strongly recommend. In fact, they were arguably the biggest factor in helping me find an internship. Anyway, your resume is obviously up to you, but I recommend including some contact information, related experience, academic achievements, contests, technical skills, projects, and education. There are probably others I’m forgetting, but those are the ones I included. As for the cover letter, an example can be found from the university at this link: https://jobs.ucsd.edu/CoverLetterTips.aspx Last and most certainly not least is the referral. Having someone who works at your desired company write a strong referral is a massive benefit to your application. I highly recommend exploring this option if possible. Even if it cannot be done, there is a strong importance to networking. Unironically, leveling your speechcraft can help you better navigate the workspace, make connections, and leverage deals.
Now you are at the interview stage. Different jobs will have different interview styles, but most will be either technical or behavioral. Most likely, you will undergo a series of interviews as to just one. To prepare for the technical interviews, I did two things. First was the LeetCode Blind 75. Here’s the link: https://leetcode.com/discuss/general-discussion/460599/blind-75-leetcode-questions LeetCode is a powerful tool, but how you use it can greatly influence how you absorb information. Personally, I recommend selecting topics that more commonly appear in interviews. This can be found out by researching the company beforehand, or by doing the Blind 75. This list includes a list of questions that have the greatest chance of appearing on any interview. Second thing you can do is prepare any technical knowledge or facts that you can be asked. Cybersecurity interviews are more like the latter, so I prepared topics like Incident Response, Programming Concepts, DevSec Ops, Networking, and Basic Cryptography. I even went as far as to just google “most common cyber security interview questions”. At the bottom, I attached some of the links I used. As for the behavioral interviews, take note of the STAR Method. Follow this link to get a better understanding of how this works: https://www.themuse.com/advice/star-interview-method. Keep your responses short and effective. If you don’t need to elaborate on something or if something can be shortened, shorten it.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” (Da Vinci)
Ending
You just finished your interviews. After waiting some time, hopefully you got an offer. I applied to countless (and I mean literally countless) internships and ended up with only 2 offers. Out of the two, I decided to accept one of them as a Security Intern at Confluent, a medium-sized company based in Mountain View. Throughout the application process, I was definitely discouraged by my rejections and sometimes I didn’t even hear back. Very often was I greatly disheartened, but I knew I couldn’t let that stop me. While it sounds rather cliché, I genuinely do believe that you can produce a similar magic as I did in “finding the light at the end of the tunnel”. With some studying and good preparation, I too think that you can land the internship of your choice.
