One guy’s perspective on finding, pursuing, and obtaining an internship

*Since writing this piece, I’ve had 2 additional internships at a seed-stage startup and an early-stage venture capital firm.*

Let’s just get a few things straight. By no means is this an end-all be-all guide to getting an internship, nor is it particularly focused on nabbing some of the more coveted internships at companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon.

Rather, this guide will provide a plethora of specific, actionable methods for finding, pursuing, and obtaining almost any internship in tech.

Although this guide will provide examples of how I (an undergraduate Economics student at Elon University) find, pursue, and obtain undergraduate internships in tech, many of the techniques can also be applied to internships in other industries and at the graduate level.

The process of finding, pursuing, and obtaining an internship will require an immense amount of effort in addition to the use of some or all of these techniques. However, if used properly, they will drastically reduce the time commitment and improve your chances of locking down a solid tech internship.

Ok, so those were your disclaimers.

Before you even begin looking for an internship, it is absolutely imperative that your resume, LinkedIn profile, and AngelList profile are up-to-date, and that your LinkedIn and AngelList profiles in particular are as complete as possible. (If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile or AngelList profile, stop reading and get them now.) For more in-depth guides on maximizing the use of LinkedIn and AngelList to find internships, you can check out my other posts for LinkedIn and AngelList (coming soon).

Finding an internship

There are numerous places to find internship opportunities, however it is important to first understand the two categories of internships. The first are those that are actually posted somewhere, like on a company website or LinkedIn. The second are those that are not posted anywhere, but still exist. Each has it’s pros and it’s cons and in fact, both can be difficult to obtain for varying reasons.

Posted tech internships are typically found in one of these places: company website, LinkedIn, or AngelList. They are therefore easier to find and offer a concrete application process typically involving either a form, LinkedIn Easy Apply, or a quick note via AngelList. Although easier to find, posted internships are often far more competitive because many students have found them and applied. HubSpot provides a solid example of a company that has posted internships.

Not posted internships are typically found nowhere. Well, duh. The trick is knowing who is hiring interns anyway and/or who is willing to hire interns anyway. Although more difficult to find, these internships are far less competitive because less students have reached out to any one firm to inquire about an internship. Any company that has no internships posted fits this category.

This applies to posted internships only…

Tech internships can be found on a company careers page, LinkedIn Jobs, and AngelList Jobs, among other smaller websites (Indeed, WayUp, etc). Company careers pages are usually found either in a dropdown menu at the top of the company home page or in a footer menu on the home page. If the careers page cannot be found in either of these two places, try googling “company name careers” or “company name jobs.” This should do the trick. If the careers page still does not show up, the company is either not hiring or they have a niche way of recruiting talent, typically via emailing “jobs@companyname.com” or “careers@companyname.com” and expressing interest in joining the team.

Once you have found an interesting internship position and have read over both the job description and requirements, you can apply for the position by filling out the form (for a company website), clicking “apply” to redirect you to the company website and filling out the form (for LinkedIn), or clicking “apply now” and writing a note (for AngelList).

This applies to not posted internships…

So obviously these internships are not located in any one place, so they require a bit more digging to uncover. Essentially, you will have to find companies you would like to work for, typically under 50 employees, as larger companies will usually post internships. These companies can be found with a few google searches. Tip: there are lists of top companies in various industries compiled by media outlets like TechCrunch and CB Insider. Overall, finding companies will require a genuine drive/passion on your end.

Once you have found a bunch of companies you would be interested in working for, you need to figure out (to some degree) if they would hire you. There are a variety of indicators that can help you target companies that may hire you as an intern. Here are a few:

1. Is the team fairly small? If so, they most likely don’t have a lot of time to pursue ad-hoc projects, market research, or new feature build-outs. Small team size is a good sign.
2. Did the company recently raise a round of funding? (Btw, recently means within the last 4ish months.) If they did, then they have money to expand their team and maybe even pay you. Good sign! (This information can be found by searching up the company on Crunchbase. Scroll down a bit and you can see the dates of different funding rounds. Click around a bit and you can often see how much they raised and by who.)
3. Is the company super high profile? Are they often in the news? Bad sign. It will be difficult to get a response, let alone an internship.

A couple other helpful tips before we get to the “pursuing” part

1. Venture capital website portfolios can be exceptionally useful in finding strong, interesting companies to work for. Here’s an example. Here’s another. And another.
2. Venture capital website career pages are often invaluable when it comes to finding high value internships at legitimate, successful startups. Here’s an example. Here’s another. And another.
3. Sign up for email newsletters. These could be from AngelList or venture capital firms…or one of my personal favorites, The Hustle. Here’s an example of an AngelList newsletter you can get in your inbox. Newsletters will keep you up-to-date and often highlight cool tech companies.
4. Set LinkedIn/AngelList Job Alerts. You will be sent specific internship opportunities straight to your inbox on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Pursuing an internship

With a solid list of companies in hand, you have to figure out how best to get in touch with them. This requires a bit of digging as well. LinkedIn and Hunter.io will become your best friends. Sometimes you will find a “careers@company.com” email on the company website, but more often than not, you will have to reach out to a specific person. So, search the company on LinkedIn. Once on the company page, click “See all # employees on LinkedIn.” Use title keywords like “people,” “talent,” “recruit,” “human,” and “operations” to filter the results and find the people doing the hiring. This applies to companies typically 10+ employees. For smaller startups, the C-level employees are doing the hiring.

Now you know who to contact, but you still have to get their email somehow. Lucky for you, you can use Hunter.io to capture their email. It’s pretty damn easy. Sometimes Hunter.io will guess based on other employee emails, but it’s better than nothing.

Email that person. Then wait.

Figuring out what to say in an email is complicated. All I can say is keep it short, funny, personal, and straight to the point. You’ll perfect your style over time. Just remember you have nothing to lose.

Obtaining an internship

Just a few notes on this:

1. Reply to emails within 2ish days.
2. The phrases “mutually convenient” and “at your convenience” are your friends.
3. You are always available for a phone/video call. Make it work.
4. Try to build an informal relationship that doesn’t always focus on the fact that you are desperately trying to lock down an internship and he or she is potentially going to give it to you.

Hope this stuff helps.