How to Do an Internship the Right Way (Part 2: Networking)

So you’ve locked down an internship for the next 4 to 12 months. Congratulations! That’s step 1.

READ Part 1: Impostor Syndrome

This is the second in a series of posts about making the most out of your internship. I’ve had 3 internships so far as a University of Waterloo co-op student — my current one being at Boston-based Toast — and I have 3 more in the next 2 years. Through my experiences, I’ve managed to learn from my mistakes and improve both my effectiveness as an employee and myself as a person. I’ve assembled the lessons in this series partly for my own sake, but I hope you use them to make the most out of your experience, grow as a person, and return (if you want to) with a full-time offer locked down.

If you ask 10 different people what the most important outcome of an internship is, you’re likely to get 10 different answers. You might hear from one person that it’s to make money to finance your education. Someone else may say that the point of an internship is to gain work experience. Perhaps other people would mention things like professional standards, critical thinking skills, learning how to learn, being able to work in teams, a sense of responsibility for your work, or communication skills. This isn’t likely the first time you’ve heard any of these, but there can only be one paramount. In the end, the most important outcome is whatever you choose it is, but if you asked me I’d tell you without a doubt that the answer is Networking.

Networking

“Okay so networking it is then. It’s a big company and I’ll probably meet a lot of people. Networking will be easy.”

Networking is not easy. Or at least, it isn’t passive. Effective networking requires planning, effort, and has measurable results. Here’s what you do:

1. Identify your audience. Who matters the most to you? This will likely be a handful of senior developers, one or two recent grads, some members of the product team or project managers, and if you’re bold enough, members of the leadership team. If your company has sales or support teams like Toast does, keep your eye out for potential audience there as well. There’s sometimes more value in meeting with someone non-technical (or in departments other than your own).
2. Choose a target. Out of all the people who you chose in step 1, decide on just one of them to be your first (or next) target. Ideally this will be somebody who doesn’t seem to have a ton on their plate at the time.
3. Invite them for coffee. There are 3 ways I do this. Firstly, when standing around the coffee machine or in some other common space with them, bring up a topic that might be of mutual interest. Chat for a bit, and then tell them you have to get back to your desk, but you’d love to dig deeper. Follow up shortly. Secondly, approach them when you’re both working late (or early). I do this for people who I might not have met yet, or have only met briefly before. Introduce yourself and ask what they do. Invite them out for coffee to learn more. Lastly, I also sometimes send them a coffee invite over Slack or Email. This works if you know the person well already or if they’re in a different office than you.
4. Go for coffee. Spend time learning about the person. What they do and what their passions are, and a little bit about their personal life as well. Try to figure out the 3–4 topics they’re passionate about, and remember these. Focus on listening, not telling all of your “cool stories.” When you’re talking you aren’t learning. When you’re listening you are. Ask questions and be interested — not fake.
5. Follow up. Follow up via email or another channel after your chat. Find something you talked about and send a link to a related resource. For example, I recently sent one of my new connections a few links to algorithmic investing resources after we found that to be of similar interest. One of these was Quantopian.
6. Maintain. Once you make connections, don’t just forget about them. Remember what each person is interested in and follow up with them a few times per year. You might follow up with some contacts more frequently than others, but try and reach out to everyone on at least a yearly cycle.
7. Do it again. And again. And again. You never know which connections will become something bigger — a job, a co-founder, a lifelong friend — so make the most out of your exposure to people during your internship.

There you go! If you follow those 7 steps, you will have a much more meaningful internship experience, and your networking skills will certainly pay off throughout your career.

For effective networking, keep the following tips in mind as well:

• Don’t be selfish. Sure, you’re doing this in part for your own good, but these are people we’re talking about, not machines. Think not only about the value that a connection has for you, but the value it has for the other person as well.
• Quality before quantity. Networking is useless if you don’t build relationships to a meaningful level, and maintain them. I’m not saying “quality not quantity.” By all means, the more connections you can make, the better. Just don’t sacrifice the quality of your relationships.
• People matter, not positions. A person’s title does not indicate their value. Don’t discount junior members of the engineering, support, or sales team simply because of the rank they hold in a company. Choose who you meet with based on who they are, not what they do or what their title is.

I’ll say it again: I believe that the network you create can be the single most valuable outcome of an internship. Of course I don’t want to discount any of the other outcomes. You should focus on getting effective workplace experience and everything else that follows from that. But networking doesn’t happen by accident, so focus on it during your internship and your future self will thank you.

If you’re interested in networking outside of your workplace, or having an internal hub set up to facilitate employee relationship building, check out TenThousandCoffees.com.

READ Part 1: Impostor Syndrome

Jeff Hudson (jhudson.ca)

Thanks for reading! If you liked the post, please click on the ❤ button! If you want to get in touch for any reason, including to chat about the content of this post, I’m always available. Reach out at jhudson@jhudson.ca.