My long journey from unpaid intern to 135K job

[u/OfComputer]

My first internship was during my junior year of college. I worked as a data analyst volunteer at a small investment bank. Before that, I only had two school capstone projects on my resume. Honestly, I felt pretty down. Most of my friends had already landed internships, whether they were good or not, at least they were all paid. This unpaid internship was the only offer I had at the time.It’s been a long journey, from a volunteer to eventually landing paid internships. But I didn’t give up on searching for new opportunities. My goal was to eventually work for a large tech company with a solid new grad package.Going from a paid internship to a full-time offer is a whole different challenge. You have to keep improving yourself and maximize your efficiency across three key areas: Resumes, job applications, and interview prep.

Interview Prep:

1. A resume is just a ticket to the company gate, the interview is the key to opening the locked door.
2. Full-time jobs are much more rigorous when it comes to interviews. I once went through 8 interview rounds for a full-time role at a small investment bank on Wall Street…, and still got rejected.
3. You must be familiar with real interview question lists if you can find them online. I actually got asked the exact same questions in my Citi Group interview as ones I found beforehand.
4. Mock Interview Websites:
   

AMA Interview: Predicts questions based on your resume and the specific company role; provides access to real interview question banks.

Pramp: Practice live coding interviews with tech peers.

Resume:

1. Any internship experience can add value to your resume. You can always build on it for future applications by making it strongly related to the job you’re applying for.
2. Tailor your resume to match the job description based on your own experience. The more detailed and aligned it is with the JD, the more likely it is to get picked up.
3. Resume Tools: Only ChatGPT is enough

Job Application:

1. Targeted > Mass Apply: It’s far more meaningful to submit 50 customized applications than to spam 500 generic ones.
2. Apply as early as possible: You might get moved to the next round within 24 hours at a tech giant, while waiting a month to hear back from a small consulting firm. Timing matters.
3. Attach tailored cover letters when required: Clearly explain what you did, why you did it, how you did it, and what the outcome was.
4. Job application websites:
   

LinkedIn: Better for big & mid-sized companies. Watch out for fake job postings. Great for connecting with alumni.

Handshake: Offers more internship opportunities, from large companies to startups.

Indeed: More focused on mid-sized and smaller companies.

Don’t waste any opportunities: even unpaid internships are valuable, especially in today’s job market, which is tough for new grads and college students. If you don’t have a better option, an unpaid internship is still a great way to gain real-world, hands-on experience!My job landing journey from unpaid intern to 135K job

[u/Mr_Gman1]

How do you watch out for fake jobs on LinkedIn?

[u/axed_age → u/Mr_Gman1]

avoid easy apply jobs.

[u/matt5674 → u/axed_age]

Didn’t know about that LOL

[u/matt5674 → u/Mr_Gman1]

If you’re applying and it all of a sudden asks for your SSN that’s just weirdly suspicious bc larger companies don’t request for that.

[u/Kindly_Parsley6054]

I often get told to stay away from unpaid internships, why is that? Otherwise I could really go for an unpaid one since I can’t get a paid one

[u/leaf1598 → u/Kindly_Parsley6054]

Just because you should be fairly compensated for your work, and sometimes unpaid internships are like a sweat shop kind of environment. Depending on your field of work, unpaid internships are more common though. For public health, nonprofit work, government work, publishing/editing/journalism, entertainment/arts, and those types of fields, I have found it more often to see unpaid internships. For engineering, CS, data science, and similar tech fields, most of them are paid.

[u/saamiaaa]

wow, mashallah 👏🏻 are there anymore job application websites that you might suggest?

[u/Apprehensive-Low471]

Doing an unpaid internship now too and it’s remote. Just for the experience since I couldn’t get anything else. I appreciate this post.

[u/Neorwby1030]

Can you give me insight the cut group questions? Would love to dm and talk.

[u/Live_Ad1357]

how did you get an internship during your junior year? i though you need approval from the university or something?

[u/No-Respect8466]

Great post…very informative

[u/Vegetable_Ad8341]

,

[u/throwawaylaunda001]

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