How to find an internship during a recession or a pandemic

This winter was one of the toughest job-seeking terms I’ve encountered yet as a college student. Going into my 4th year with several internship experiences under my belt, I thought finding my final internship before graduation would be easy. For context, I look for product management, consulting or data analytics internships. If you would like to skip my own job-hunting story and go straight to the advice, scroll down to the bottom. Otherwise, I’d like to briefly share my own experience:

In January of 2020, I was applying and receiving interviews. I applied to around 100 places in the month itself, and had received over 10 interviews with one or two homework assignments or prompts. I thought I’d be able to secure my next job before the end of February.

Around mid-February, I began noticing that more coronavirus cases were hoping over to other countries. Catching up on coronavirus news had no impact on my thoughts or plans of finding internships whatsoever. It wasn’t on my mind at all, until it was too late. I obtained 2 internship offers, one being in NYC and the other in Vancouver, Canada. I turned both of them down thinking I may be able to obtain something greater, as I had a couple interviews with other US-based companies, including Apple, Splunk, Datadog and Axon.

I ended up getting rejected by all 4. At the time, this was still okay — failure in this category was nothing new to me. I would push on and continue applying, completing more homework assignments and more interviews. By the end of February, I had applied to over 150 openings, completed 5 different homework assignments and had over 20 interviews. I had 2 more offers on the table (one in Toronto and another in Calgary), but I turned down both as I thought to myself that since this was my last internship before graduation, it had to be something very different — greater product management practice or a new city I’ve never been to. For the record, I’ve never been to SF or NYC.

After declining those 2 offers, job search began to turn upside down. Coronavirus began sweeping exponentially in numbers across North America and it had already began to take over Europe. As March progressed, I began noticing that several of my interviews were being cancelled. Notably, companies like Points and Softheon cancelled theirs. Textnow and Cinchy cancelled their internship programs after interviews were already completed. A few companies I had been in touch with began considering remote internships. I began to regret not taking one of the offers I got previously.

Elsewhere, I had obtained one more offer, from a healthcare company in Boston. This was awesome. However, they didn’t offer a remote opportunity amid the coronavirus pandemic, so I had to ask them what their plan was. They decided to push back the start date of the internship program to mid-June. Did that mean it was expected that the virus would be gone by June and it would be safe enough? That seemed slightly far-fetched in my opinion.

I continued applying to other places on LinkedIn, AngelList, and my school’s job portal while I waited on the status of my internship offer in Boston. During this time throughout March, I completed more homework assignments, had several more interviews, had a couple interviews cancelled, and other openings cancelled before even reaching any interview stage. Internship cancellations and offer revokes began to rise up and seem more common now.

That’s when April hit, and I finally got an update from the Boston healthcare company: cancellation. My initial thought was, ‘I should’ve expected it.’ Obviously I was disappointed — it was an offer involving data science and cross-functional work with a very innovative team in their tech department. This is when I decided I’d write this story. By the end of this story, I’ll have somehow fought through the fire and obtained a remote internship — this was my initial thought when I began writing this article on Medium. I had to keep track of my job-search journey as it progressed and I experienced ups and downs spontaneously all over.

I needed to keep going. I applied to many more places on AngelList, LinkedIn, and several of the few available jobs still left on my University’s job portal. I’d say I have to give massive props to AngelList — many of my interviews and several offers came from applying on that platform, one full of start-ups and amazing job opportunities.

By mid-April, after another homework assignment and several more rounds of interviews, I obtained 3 more offers — all remote. It felt like fighting through the fire was well worth the effort.

As a takeaway for all students and graduates looking for their summer internship, fall internship or post-grad job, first of all, I’m probably in no position to provide you all with advice. Some luck played out. However, luck only gets the opportunity to play out with effort. For those still in the job hunt:

1. Apply on AngelList. Yes, apply on LinkedIn, JumpStart and other job portals, but DO NOT sleep on AngelList. Creating a great profile is easy, and AngelList boasts HUNDREDS of good job opportunities from fast-rising start-ups.
2. Forget cover letters if you can. Just mass apply. Obviously this doesn’t apply to everybody — but for devs, pms and designers (who can just show a portfolio, GitHub links, etc.), this may be useful.
3. Leverage LinkedIn. Whether it’s posting your resume, asking peers to share your resume with others in their circles, or reaching out to acquaintances from networking sessions or projects, it may be well worth it.

For those who still do not find a job for the summer:

1. If you’re in the financial position to do so, work on a passion project or start-up in any field you like. This experience may actually end up being just as valuable as the internship experience you missed out on.
2. If you’re not in the financial position to do so, offer contractor/freelance work from your skillset on apps such as fiverr, or promoting yourself on social networks. Some bits of payment are better than nothing!
3. Leverage online resources and learn it all. Whether its software development, reading, learning a language, a new instrument, or improving some other personal skill. Don’t just sit there and watch Netflix/YouTube/Disney+ or other TV shows/movies all day that help you cure your boredom. Go and be productive.

Finally, I’d like to share my job search numbers for this winter 2020 semester:

Without factoring in coronavirus:

Number of internship openings applied to: 200+

Number of tailored cover letters written: 30

Number of interviews (including multiple rounds) from Jan — April: 40

Number of homework assignments (each took 4–5 hours): 10

Number of total offers: 7

So how did coronavirus impact these results?

Number of interviews from March — April cancelled: 10

Number of offers accepted and then had rescinded: 1

Number of offers rejected but they were cancelled anyway: 3

Number of offers moved to remote: 3