Internships, interviews and getting the job you truly want

J

joecolombia

Robin
As I started internship hunting, I´ve come to the realization that getting a call back or being noticed in the current labor market is hard as shit.

For the more experienced fellas, how did you get the internship you wanted? and how long did you take finding it.

I´ve been stuck to my laptop for the past 2 weeks with just a couple of leads but not a single solid offer.

Any tips or tricks during interviews? Situational interviews are really hard and require all your witt.

Also, getting an internship abroad is basically imposible for me since my passport is not the most useful to travel.
 
B

BBinger

Woodpecker
joecolombia said:
As I started internship hunting, I´ve come to the realization that getting a call back or being noticed in the current labor market is hard as shit.

For the more experienced fellas, how did you get the internship you wanted? and how long did you take finding it.

I´ve been stuck to my laptop for the past 2 weeks with just a couple of leads but not a single solid offer.

Any tips or tricks during interviews? Situational interviews are really hard and require all your witt.

Also, getting an internship abroad is basically imposible for me since my passport is not the most useful to travel.
Click to expand...

What do you do? Related: "Who is your daddy and what does he do?"
 
F

Forseti

Chicken
@joecolumbia - In addition to the questions above about what do you do . . . but without adding too much personal info: (1) what sort of degree do you have, (2) are you looking for a position related to your degree, (3) what is your preferred geographic area (generally), (4) do you have any relevant experience, (5) do you, your family, your friends, or people in your extended network know anyone in your chosen field, (6) does your current or prior school have any sort of placement program.

A personal or professional connection is often the best -- and sometimes the only -- method to get an interview and internship at many organizations.

In response to your question on personal experience, it took me 6 weeks to get my first internship. The interview was arranged by a schoolmate who was a year ahead of me and already working there. My second internship took 12 weeks to find; the initial interview was arranged through an on campus program.

If you are able to provide a bit more basic background information, I suspect the forum members will be able to give you some additional useful tips.
 
J

joecolombia

Robin
Forseti said:
@joecolumbia - In addition to the questions above about what do you do . . . but without adding too much personal info: (1) what sort of degree do you have, (2) are you looking for a position related to your degree, (3) what is your preferred geographic area (generally), (4) do you have any relevant experience, (5) do you, your family, your friends, or people in your extended network know anyone in your chosen field, (6) does your current or prior school have any sort of placement program.

A personal or professional connection is often the best -- and sometimes the only -- method to get an interview and internship at many organizations.

In response to your question on personal experience, it took me 6 weeks to get my first internship. The interview was arranged by a schoolmate who was a year ahead of me and already working there. My second internship took 12 weeks to find; the initial interview was arranged through an on campus program.

If you are able to provide a bit more basic background information, I suspect the forum members will be able to give you some additional useful tips.
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I just finished my international business classes and am a little bit over half-way through law. I have done several summer internships in marketing, supply chain and insurance departments.

I am interested in going basically anywhere. None of my family members are in the same field.
 
N

Napster

Chicken
joecolombia said:
As I started internship hunting, I´ve come to the realization that getting a call back or being noticed in the current labor market is hard as shit.

For the more experienced fellas, how did you get the internship you wanted? and how long did you take finding it.

I´ve been stuck to my laptop for the past 2 weeks with just a couple of leads but not a single solid offer.

Any tips or tricks during interviews? Situational interviews are really hard and require all your witt.

Also, getting an internship abroad is basically imposible for me since my passport is not the most useful to travel.
Click to expand...

Go to this website called Eventbrite and type in your city. It basically shows the different events that are going to take place in your city throughout the week. In big cities there are always some or the other events going on. Attending events like these would be a great way for networking, and you can get an internship through these networking contacts. A friend of mine got his internship and job through contacts he made at these events.
 
C

ChicagoFire

Kingfisher
You should also combine networking with searching for connections via LinkedIn. Important pointer is to get your connection on the phone ASAP. Not everybody is going to accept or even acknowledge your call to action when you request a connection. I had a promising lead vanish because I could be wrong on this but people only visit LinkedIn when they need a job. Better off exchanging numbers than relying on the messaging system.

OP suggests getting LinkedIn Premium:
https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-7895.html

I need to take a week off to deload from this job search but after that break I'll combine LinkedIn approaches with doing workaway/wwoof work. My hosts will help me out when I give them my spiel and introduce me to people I need to connect with. To echo what people have said here you preferably want warm connections if you're going in cold into an interview the odds are against you.
 
F

Forseti

Chicken
joecolombia said:
Forseti said:
@joecolumbia - In addition to the questions above about what do you do . . . but without adding too much personal info: (1) what sort of degree do you have, (2) are you looking for a position related to your degree, (3) what is your preferred geographic area (generally), (4) do you have any relevant experience, (5) do you, your family, your friends, or people in your extended network know anyone in your chosen field, (6) does your current or prior school have any sort of placement program.

A personal or professional connection is often the best -- and sometimes the only -- method to get an interview and internship at many organizations.

In response to your question on personal experience, it took me 6 weeks to get my first internship. The interview was arranged by a schoolmate who was a year ahead of me and already working there. My second internship took 12 weeks to find; the initial interview was arranged through an on campus program.

If you are able to provide a bit more basic background information, I suspect the forum members will be able to give you some additional useful tips.
Click to expand...


I just finished my international business classes and am a little bit over half-way through law. I have done several summer internships in marketing, supply chain and insurance departments.

I am interested in going basically anywhere. None of my family members are in the same field.
Click to expand...

Business and law are fairly disparate professions, at least in the first few years or one's career.

If you are going the law route, I think there are a few separate threads on the forum about the field, which appears to have a different hiring process because of the unique nature of law firms.

If you prefer business, marketing, or something similar, I think the suggestions about networking, Eventbrite, and LinkedIn are good ones. In fact, if you spend some time on LinkedIn in in a particular field, you should be able to find "headhunters" (i.e., executive search or job placement professionals) who specialize in a particular field. The talent level, contacts, and ethics of headhunters varies, so proceed with caution. A good one can generally comment on your CV/resume and set up initial screening interviews in a given field.
 
Heuristics

Heuristics

 
Banned
I have not done an internship, but here's what I learned from internship providers and friends.

a) treat like cold calls, rinse and repeat. Follow up with them. A lot of times it's just persistence. Keep emailing or calling them until you're given a hard no. If given hard no get put on a waiting list for later period of time
b) google. seriously, open yourself up to other cities as well.
c) professor/ professional connection- lot of times professors especially maybe your advisor is eager to help you with your goals especially if you have a good relationship for them--usually they have deep knowledge of different options and people at different places. Oftentimes they're write you a recommendation letter.
d) tailor your resume to what the place wants-- read their website and make sure your resume covers how you meet their goals/ mission in every way. Surely you did things in school or in past internships relevant to them. Or maybe you even did relevant research.
e) be flexible with time or duration-- a lot of people do them during summer, offer to do longer or shorter, or at non-peak times of the year.

best of luck.
 
Stealth

Stealth

Sparrow
Gold Member
Some more random pointers:

Figuring out what you truly want/don't want:
- Own experience doing them
- Talking to other people who've done them (off the record verbally, company reps are less honest at career fairs, etc. when they're officially representing the company)
- Online forums

Getting internships/interviews:
- Hustle and talk to people as much as possible.
- Pile on as many relevant things to the job on your resume as possible. Here you can embellish your responsibilities/experiences a bit, PROVIDED YOU CAN TALK COMPETENTLY ABOUT THEM IF CHALLENGED. You can always teach yourself new things and tack them onto old experiences if there's a reasonable element of truth in case of verification. And of course execute/learn commensurately if you get a job doing something similar.
- I will admit every single professional job I've had (internship, full time, contract) was through either a formal school internship portal or knowing somebody at the company.

Before the interview:
- Contact anyone you know who currently is or has worked at the company and pick their brain about the details of the company/position, what they ask on the interview, and what kind of people they look for
- Read up online/books on the job/company/business/products to know what you're getting into and get ideas for questions
- For software competency, getting ahold of books and cracked versions and teaching yourself clears the hurdle for internship level fairly well

For interviews specifically:
- Prepare a sales pitch for yourself that tells them your story in terms of all job relevant things you've done. Tailor the level of detail of each item to how relevant it is to the particular position/company. For things not directly related, try to extract transferable things to say about them. Rehearse this a few times (I've found 3-4 times to be the sweet spot for sounding way the hell smoother than winging it without spending excessive time doing this).
- After the initial few pleasantries at the interview, deliver your sales pitch at the first reasonable chance. This is often easier for the interviewers than the semi-awkward stepping through your resume and asking you odd questions that often follows otherwise, tends to answer a lot of questions they'd have anyways, and shows that you're keen and motivated.
- Answer questions well that you are confident about, if you sincerely don't know or knowledge is vague/rusty, mention what you do know and how you'd go about solving that problem. Often times admitting you don't know something on the spot but giving the feeling that you'd know what resources to seek out to get something done is good enough.
- Have questions prepared that show off you've done a bit of research/know a few things about the company. Don't hesitate to mention the name of others at the company you've spoken to about this (just make sure you don't say anything sensitive or that the person isn't a pariah there), often people are more comfortable hiring people that already know and are on good terms with people there.
- Ask for on the spot honest feedback and recommendations at the end of the interview; if you flub one you might be able to get some pointers on how to pass it the next time.
 
C

ChicagoFire

Kingfisher
Easy_C said:
Same.

You're getting generally good advice on here.

I've gotten a grand total of zero job offers where I didn't know someone there.
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+1

I really hate it when people just say yeah just fill out an application. Sorry bub but when you fill out hundreds per day for weeks on end and don't even hear back maybe it's time to work smarter.

The trick to all this is to personalize your job search.
 
Stealth

Stealth

Sparrow
Gold Member
Stealth said:
- I will admit every single professional job I've had (internship, full time, contract) was through either a formal school internship portal or knowing somebody at the company.
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Okay, so since posting this I will admit I have received an interview/later offer from a good company that I previously dismissed as being too snotty to consider me. And the reason for this was a contracting firm/temp agency/whatever you want to call them knowing about openings and marketing me to that company.

While shitty contracting firm stories are plentiful, I have personally found from mine and friends' experiences that to a good extent they are a patch for HR departments run by incompetent ditzes that screen out good candidates based on hard qualification rules (often overstated) and pull in shitty ones to fill quotas. These companies speak directly to line managers and the contingent positions they fill often pay more than permanent positions of the same type. And the people that work for them are usually sales oriented results types rather than HR "we are saving the world through promoting fluffy social initiatives and fighting the patriarchy" types. The key is to still hustle hard for a good rate and permanent employee convert benefits into hard monetary numbers to compare options.

Finally I will admit I am (somewhat of) a mid-career professional with some experience, and things are a bit easier now than they were early career. Though part of what has made it easier has been reducing my tolerance for bullshit and having no debt and somewhat of a war chest to ride out unemployed times comfortably (no clearance required for taking long vacations, whoo-hoo!) and not getting pressured into taking shitty offers.
 
J

joecolombia

Robin
Thread update:

I´m halfway through my internship right now. Turns out I came back to Colombia and started sending CVs pretty much everywhere. I scored several interviews and got several great offers. I initially wanted P&G due to its international reach, but the department I got was terrible for me (accounting and finance).

After several interviews I applied for a really sketchy offer in one of the local job offering websited... turns out it was an amazing position. I took it.

Although getting contacts is the easiest way to get an amazing intership/job, there are plenty of amazing vacants elsewhere.

I´m currently working directly with the president of one of the biggest telcom companies in the world. Amazing stuff you learn with mentors like that. I hope to continue working in the sector since its pretty interesting. However, I´ll start looking for jobs in the next several weeks just in case. It´s quite difficult to adapt to corporate culture, especially after graduating. It seems promising though.
 
Lost in Transfiguration

Lost in Transfiguration

 
Banned
Internships are actually pretty easy to get provided you have travel flexibility, Time flexibility, are persistent, and show some actual interest in the subject area with some scholarly credentials or research to back it up. The Internet is a good resource but if people at your university are doing internships and you know them,or your professor knows some stuff, it really does help to talk to them as they're the best people to make recommendations to you and write letters anyway.

There is rejection that always happens when sending out applications so my advice is to send a good number and to follow-up by email or phone on each one within a week of sending your stuff away. One follow-up email is all it took for me to get an internship, and to be honest I applied at no more then 5 to 10 places. I was just too much of a dummty to realize that I needed to follow up.

As far as your specific situation if you're from a developing country and doing an internship just go to another developing country. Many of these places have much more lax Visa policies. If you want to go to Europe, go to Eastern Europe. I know plenty of people from second and third world countries that end up in Eastern Europe and either get visas easily or automatically. Not that hard.
 
Aizen

Aizen

Kingfisher
Orthodox
Echoing what other posters have said, networking and uni connections are pretty much the only ways to get in the door.

I've heard from various people in companies that applying online is just throwing your CV into a backhole. HR has even told me once they never check those applications unless someone internal makes a recommendation.

The reality is that applying online is easy, and thus the barriers to entry are low. This means that practically everyone with a computer seeking employment will make this their go-to method. A single job posting can receive tens of thousands of applications. HR is generally too busy gossiping and checking FB; they don't have time to leaf through ten applications let alone thousands.

Personally, I've gotten every internship I've worked at through a uni job portal. I've tried my luck networking and trying to get my CV pushed through a recommendation, however I've found that it it's very hit or miss, and depends on the demand for a particular position. Your best bet is to enroll in uni and apply through their portal. If this is not an option, pimp out your LinkedIn and cold message like crazy. Get them out for coffee, and the rest I'll leave up to your senses.
 
J

joecolombia

Robin
JiggyLordJr said:
Echoing what other posters have said, networking and uni connections are pretty much the only ways to get in the door.

I've heard from various people in companies that applying online is just throwing your CV into a backhole. HR has even told me once they never check those applications unless someone internal makes a recommendation.

The reality is that applying online is easy, and thus the barriers to entry are low. This means that practically everyone with a computer seeking employment will make this their go-to method. A single job posting can receive tens of thousands of applications. HR is generally too busy gossiping and checking FB; they don't have time to leaf through ten applications let alone thousands.

Personally, I've gotten every internship I've worked at through a uni job portal. I've tried my luck networking and trying to get my CV pushed through a recommendation, however I've found that it it's very hit or miss, and depends on the demand for a particular position. Your best bet is to enroll in uni and apply through their portal. If this is not an option, pimp out your LinkedIn and cold message like crazy. Get them out for coffee, and the rest I'll leave up to your senses.
Click to expand...

I think that anything provided by universities is utterly crowded. If you´re searching for an internship, go your own way without expecting it to do anything at all. If they offer you anything, good. If not, you have several of options by searching on your own.

It takes initiative to apply on your own. Its kind of lazy if you do it through the offers uni searches for you.

If i had waited for my uni to get a decent intership, i wouldve gotten a terrible vacant in a mediocre company. Im with the president and not with a regular 9-5er for a reason.
 
Lost in Transfiguration

Lost in Transfiguration

 
Banned
Find the initiative to do things the long way unless a professor or kid you know gives you the inside track. Spend a day or two researching places that interest you and then cold email or cold call them--you can even make up an excel spreadsheet with all the options, locations. That's all I did. When they were slow to respond, I responded back. Minimal effort, got a quality internship easily.
 
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