so hard to get an internship...

[jinduy]

i'm a junior in college looking for some computer science-related internship and it's sooooooooo not easy to get one... any tips? i have 0 work experience, which can attribute to this problem i'm having...i know you have to start from the bottom up...but how bottom? mcdonalds?

i've submitted like about 20 resumes to various companies and i get no response . i don't think my resume is that bad (looking). anyone have any tips? should i storm the offices of various companies telling them i want an internship rather than submitting a bunch of emails in which they'll just throw my resume into their dumpster database?

 

[Heisenberg]

/starts stopwatch and waits for kneepad comment

 

[bubbadu]

I am a freshman CS major... I was also looking for a summer intership so i applied to the mastercard one where you would produce the new Jurasic Five album ... of course theres no way in hell of me geting it, but i had fun making fun of the RIAA in my essay.

-Bubbadu

 

[Angrymarshmello]

Economy is tough. They're looking for the best of the best. I've been looking since January

 

[TommyVercetti]

HP is looking for a lot of interns.

http://www.jobs.hp.com/Content/Search/SearchResults.asp?ndays=&Lang=ENen&Region=AM&area=US

 

[gotsmack]

The market for programmers without experience is really bad right now and not much better if you have experience. It doesn't look like its going to pick up. Unless you are certified in Oracle, no one wants to do that sh!t.

 

[jinduy]

Originally posted by: TommyVercetti
HP is looking for a lot of interns.

thanks, i'll take a look.

 

[Noirish]

It's tough out there.
With the ongoing layoffs, no companies are hiring.
Even if they are, they want someone wit experience who can adapt to the technologies fast.
Internship is simply not what most small or medium companies are offering...
Maybe you will find some better luck at larger corps.

 

[cchen]

You just gotta wait it out man. An opportunity will open up eventually.... I applied to probably over 100 internships since mid December and I didn't land one until last week....

 

[jinduy]

what are some sources that you guys use to find jobs? jobtrak.com seems to be the best...the other search engines don't seem as good.

 

[GoingUp]

Yea, the market really really sucks right now.... I am happy to be staying at the same job that Ive had the past 6 months... its rough out there though...

 

[Excelsior]

Like others have said, including uncJIGGA, its about the people you know. Connections, relationships.

 

[cressida]

Originally posted by: Excelsior
Like others have said, including uncJIGGA, its about the people you know. Connections, relationships.

Sometimes it's just lucky as well. My friend applied for an intership at Dell and they declined him but later called him and offered him a job. They are going to pay him 14 an hour + housing. Lucky.

 

[darkshadow1]

Just keep submitting resumes...in these times 100-150 resume drops are not uncommon for a junior. Make sure your resume gets a good read through with feedback from good people (make sure it's not too crowded, job descriptions are meaningful, etc). Also, when you do email, make sure your "cover letter" is not some generic thing where you just change the company name.

Takes a lot of work, but it could be worth it. And, as people have mentioned, try to tap any family/friends that could lead to something....always worth a try. Finally, a temp agency could be useful if you need to just get your foot in the door...the work will not be all that rewarding, but it'll be experience worth listing (and it'll pay decently) Good luck!

 

[KingNothing]

Do some open source development, submit a project or two to sourceforge, then you'll have some experience to put on your resume. It is really hard to get an internship, I got lucky this summer.

 

[axelfox]

cold calls, cold calls, and cold calls.....

 

[The Dancing Peacock]

good luck man. I was out of work from april 2001 to nov 2001, not fun at all. When we were looking for people in a technical capacity @UCLA, the crush of people was scary. Master in CS w/ no work experience wanting a $15/hour tech job. The LA market for tech is depressed. I'd include OC in that, but I don't know for sure.

 

[CrazyDe1]

Man, almsot everyone I knew got internships this summer...companies include
LSI Logic
Agilent
HP
IBM
Ridgeback Systems
Spectra Logic
Quantum
Seagate
Maxtor
StorageTek
Sun
Ball Aerospace
Lockheed martin
KB toys
Accenture
Xilinx
BEA Systems
MEdtronic
National Semiconductor
Xcel Energy
Level 3

Hell, most people got full time jobs too...
A lot of these companies are still hiring interns too...
There's a lot of stuff out there, you're just not looking in the right places...
20 resumes? When I got my internship I sent out like 50 and got about 5 responses...I didn't think I was getting anything then I Got 2 in one day...just look for companies on monster then go through their websites...

 

[TommyVercetti]

Originally posted by: The Dancing Peacock
. Master in CS w/ no work experience wanting a $15/hour tech job. T.

No sympathy towards a person like that. Only pity.

 

[ajayjuneja]

It's not that hard -- just be a bit untraditional. I found one for this summer at Intelligent Audio Systems, a small startup founded by Ken Kantor (of Acoustic Research, Jensen, and NHT) -- off to the Bay Area again for me -- woohoo!

I got this one by -- cold-emailing Mr. Kantor.

 

[ajayjuneja]

It's not that hard -- just be a bit untraditional. I found one for this summer at Intelligent Audio Systems, a small startup founded by Ken Kantor (of Acoustic Research, Jensen, and NHT) -- off to the Bay Area again for me -- woohoo!

I got this one by -- cold-emailing Mr. Kantor.

 

[Azraele]

If you're just submitting your resume and waiting to hear back from them, I think you need to start doing follow up phone calls.