Finding and doing an internship is a crucial part of every undergraduate student's life. While finding the right one and the one that pays, might not be a cakewalk for you especially if you don't belong to the premier educational institutions of India like IITs, IIMs, IISc, NITs, or IIITs etc.
In this blog post, I will tell you the top 10 ways you can use to find internships easily no matter in which year of your college you are in! And will also share my personal experience with you.
Let me first tell you about the types of internships available in the market:
- Remote Internships
- Onsite/Office Internships
- Paid Internships
- Unpaid Internships
Remote Internships are basically working from home internships which means you can work from any part of the world or country (depending on eligibility set by the company) from the comfort of your home.
Onsite internships mean you need to go to the office where the company is or on-site like where the company has its projects to do the internship.
If an internship pays you the stipend it's termed as a paid internship otherwise it's an unpaid internship.
Now, let me come to the main topic of this article, How do you find an internship for yourself? Well, there are many ways, online and offline. Let's discuss them one by one.
Offline Methods/Traditional Methods:
Approach your Professors/any college faculty:
While you might not believe but this still works the best. Your college professors might be knowing people from many companies who may help you land an internship. Also, professors usually are in contact with many alumni, or their favorite students who might ask them if they could recommend anyone for internships at their company.
This method is quite effective and works if you want to go for both local startups, unicorns, small enterprises, large companies within your country, and even MNCs.
Make sure to share a good relationship with your professors, do their assignments regularly, and submit them on time, this might even work better if you are a topper of their subject.
Relatives and friends:
You can take the help of your relatives, cousins, parents friends, friends of friends or even your friends if they have any illustrious contacts in any companies or they work there directly. You might sometimes feel occward but don't hesitate to ask as you might get your first break easily.
Also, your own friends and classmates may be helpful. But don't keep asking everyone. Do your own research on their background.
Your friend's parents may be industrialists, businessmen, self-employed or might be at top management level of a company. If this is the case then you should definitely prefer this method if you are not good with your faculty.
A direct approach to the companies:
There might be some huge industries or prestigious companies working in your city. You can directly go to their office with your resume and talk with them about the internship.
You should also look in your neighboring cities, but only if you are OK to travel or have some arrangements for your accommodation there based on the working hours they assign you.
They might ask you to work for free, don't run behind stipend. Getting work experience should be your top priority.
I have seen many of my friends getting their internships by following this method.
College placement cell:
If you belong to a great college, your placement cell may conduct a separate placement drive for internships to many prestigious companies. You also directly approach the TPO(Training and Placement Officer) of your college and ask them about internship opportunities they've got to offer.
Job Fairs:
Although, it's very rare to find internships at a job fair you can still give it a try. Job fairs may be organized by a local employment office (a government body) or any private players.
Now coming to the online methods, these are more effective in today's world especially after the impact of COVID19.
LinkedIn:
Well, you might be thinking that LinkedIn is for jobs, but that's not completely true. It is a common myth among students, and I believed it when I was a student.
You need to make a great LinkedIn profile filling in all the details and also optimizing it for the right keywords of your industry. After doing these basic things, just go to the job section and search for internships in your field.
For example, you can search for a Civil Engineering intern, UI/UX design intern, Web design intern, etc., and apply for internships that fit your skillset and knowledge.
Another, unspoken way of finding internships on LinkedIn is to use the search option. Simply type for eg. "web design intern" click on filter posts and you will find posts on LinkedIn related to that keyword.
Often, people post on LinkedIn to find interns. Use different permutations and combinations in the search terms like adding the name of your city, state, company name, etc.
Job boards:
These are the websites exclusively made to post and find a job. Many recruiters post on job board sites like monster.com, naukri.com, and indeed.com for internships.
You may need to sign up on these websites before applying for internships/jobs. Make sure you make an attractive profile as competition is high here.
Internship websites:
There are websites made exclusively for posting internships. You can try websites like internshala.com, internshala.com, internmatch.com, letsintern.com, hellointern.com, twenty19.com, findspark.com, and internships.com.if your goal is to work for a startup go to angellist.com or ycombinator.com.
Also, there are remote self-paced internships available on websites like forage.com, and paragongo.com These don't have any fixed duration and you can start whenever you want, complete them at your own pace, and your time. Thus providing lots of flexibility to its users.
But a major con here is these kinds of self-paced internships are not accepted in major colleges. It really depends on you, if you do them seriously you will learn how the work happens in the real world.
Please share your suggestions/experience of finding internships and help others.
Thanks for reading till here!
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