Ask HN: A recent graduate, how do I get over regret of not doing internships?

[tuscarok]

I have just graduated with a PhD in CS from a top world university. I never did any internships during my studies because I always thought the PhD should take priority. Now I'm beginning to realise that this was a mistake. My friends who did internships with the likes of Google/Microsoft are now walking into top notch, high-paying jobs, while I am being rejected at every turn. This is probably because I have little interview experience and also because I just don't look as good as someone with top name brands on their CV. I feel I'm being left behind in the dust.

I guess I'm just looking for some motivation here.

I don't really have a portfolio, but I have expertise. Unfortunately that expertise is not taken into account when trying to get a foot in the door of one of these tech companies. But having one of the big names on your CV acts as a springboard to a great career.

[gumby]

Don't worry about it. As notahacker said most people didn't get those internships either. And really what you're saying is that those internships helped people get their first real gig. You have a gig, so you can make use of it too.

Three things you can do: 1 - Ask your advisor or other profs from your department for referrals. These should be better even than a big company internship 2 - Keep pugging your CV out, and when get the rejection, ask why. Most people won't tell you (either can't be bothered or, in the US, fear of legal reprisal) but some will and you can use that to improve process 3 - Build a portfolio (yes, same as a new grad or even an undergrad). For many people a PhD is a negative because many PhDs have excellent theoretical knowledge but no actual implementation skills (what's needed for a thesis can be harder but also a lot simpler / easier than what's needed to write something used by actual users). So turn that around: "I did my dissertation on compilers/OS/network routing/XXX and look, here's a project that some people are using and that is real and solid"

[Mimu]

First I would say that having a big name surely help to start land a first job, however once you're in, you can definitely have a great career nonetheless.

I did not have a PhD and I don't know the US equivalent for what I have - Master - (I'm french), however even though I did some internship, I chose them poorly and it did not allow me to get relevant experience. Note to students: Don't choose your firsts internships poorly, you'll regret it.

So I started doing personal project and phone call started to ring after I put Nodejs and Angular in my resume even though I just did some useless shit with it, and wasn't ready at all for productive work. Luckily enough, a recruiter working for a startup pass me along a test that wasn't for me, and I did it better than the original dude so I got my first job.

TLDR: Use your expertise to make some work that you can show / advertise. It doesn't have to be professional work, I would assume most people will not go in depth before calling you if it's relevant to them.

[BrandonBradley]

I had this problem after undergrad in 2008. I did no internships during my college years, taking summer courses instead to 'catch up and graduate early'. Big mistake? Maybe. But I'm having a good career nonetheless. You are likely to have a much different experience than your friends (who are probably also your CS peers). Your comparisons of yourself to them will only take you so far in evaluating what you should be doing. And not very far.

You do have a portfolio! You have eight years of schooling with possibly interesting projects. You may have even worked on a project in that course of time in collaboration with a real company. Congrats, you may have some real world experience!

From this point, landing your first job is the most important thing. Local companies would love your expertise and can train you to work on their systems. Tell us your local area and maybe someone can help.

Want to chat more? I work in the cryptocurrency space. [e-mail]

[notahacker]

Don't forget, if you had set your sights on getting an internship with Google/Microsoft there was a significant chance you'd have failed to get the internship there too if they preferred others' cover letters or had met their quota by the time they saw your application. Just as with paid work, they're not short of applicants.

Good news is, they need the full time employees more, they won't care at all about internships when you've got valuable real-life experience, and you get a lot of opportunities to reapply to companies that size in future.

[temp-reply]

If you're a top flight PhD it's more likely that people are saying "meh" than "Lord, no" to your application. Lack of relevant experience can often be completely compensated for by (1) enthusiasm and (2) good fit, especially at the the smaller, more intimate companies. If you're seriously facing constant rejection it's more likely that you have one or several of a host of generic problems that plague applicants and bring on the "meh", such as:

- Cover letter too generic. Fails to identify (1) the company, (2) what it does, (3) why you specifically are a great fit for the specific position you are applying to

- Forgot to sculpt your CV to fit the narrative of your cover letter. The CV isn't some static life scoresheet, it's a short story that changes between applications.

- Responds to questions designed to test the outer limits of your knowledge by getting anxious, inventive, and defensive, instead of taking it as an opportunity to (1) acknowledge your lack of expertise, (2) describe a creative application of related relevant experience, and (3) state your eagerness to learn the specific topic they were asking about.

- Apologized for yourself in the interview in any way. Why don't you have more internship experience? GOOD: "Well, I was interested in really focusing on my thesis at the time, but now I want to work in the private sector, and this role in particular really intrigues me. It's actually relevant to what I was doing before in that..." BAD: "Er, well, I don't know, haha, probably should have? Sorry..." Apologies are off-topic. They interrupt your narrative. Don't apologize.

- No proofreading + chance encounter with grammar nut. (But your comment was really elegantly written, so I doubt that's your problem.) Sloppy dresser + chance encounter with sartorial nut. Etc. Don't give some meanie a reason to reject you. Don't break the spell of your story.

- Didn't have any good questions at the end of the interview. Questions traditionally go at the end and in some ways it's unfair to do this to people, because by then they're usually enervated and ready to bolt... but this is the GRAND FINALE, the point where you REALLY need to drive the narrative home.

Lots of people are going to tell you to practice technical interviewing and that's important, but be sure not to neglect the NARRATIVE element of the application. Identify the company, identify you, explain why it's a perfect match. Repeat the same narrative in the CV, the resume, the interview, and the thank you note. That's how you defeat "meh".

[tuscarok]

Thank you. Just to confirm, I have a good job (in my research field), but it's paying half as much as I'd get from the top tech companies, and that's what's killing me. I guess I wish I had started on a much higher salary, because it can only go up from there. It's the top tier companies that are rejecting me.

[Bahamut]

It's up to you to put in the effort to make yourself a compelling hire.

I have a MS from a top math program, and I languished for 2.5 years unemployed. I was fortunate enough to land a first job in frontend web development & invested countless hours learning & experimenting on and off the job. I do quite well now financially, and am satisfied with where I am at.

Since you're employed, your career is up to you. Some people luck into high powered salary tracks off the bat - for the rest of us, hard & smart work is necessary to compensate.

[temp-reply]

Ugh, sorry to hear that. I bet the big ones are being picky merely because they CAN be, a fun predicament for a company that quickly turns into "have to be"... Some HR person has a glut of applicants, literally thousands of submissions, and has started making arbitrary cut-offs to justify to his boss and the team he serves why he bothers calling certain people or picking one interviewee over another. "No internship? I guess we'll toss that one... I mean, we need SOME way to pick between all these excellent people..." When you're throwing your application into a big pond like that, you're lucky to get more than 60 seconds of sloppy, eye-scanning, initial consideration, and they're literally LOOKING for reasons to toss you. So you end up at the less well known company, even though the famous company could quite literally have picked at random from among the best candidates and ended up with equally good hires. No HR person is going to say, "Oh, well, I just pick candidates at random, they're all good, after a certain point my screening only adds so much." That's basically saying, "Yeah, I'm not worth my salary." Nobody says that.

So the trick with an application mosh pit like that is one of two things: (1) insider connection (a friend recommends you or gives you the email of the person with hiring power, you email them directly with a coherent, company-specific cover letter + resume), and (2) informational interviews. With informational interviews, you reach out to someone with the role you're interested in and say you want to visit, get coffee, or chat over the phone to get a sense whether this field + role are a good fit for you. No, you're not necessarily applying, you're doing research to figure out if you and the position/company are a good match, for a prospective job change down the road. You're interested in specifics: nature of day-to-day work, nature of problems, best/worst things about the company/field. That really throws people. It impresses them and reverses the whole dynamic. You're not the groveling supplicant anymore, begging for job-crumbs... you're an autonomous person who knows his/her own worth and is shopping for a good fit. That's powerful stuff that commands attention and gets you interesting referrals, maybe even back to their friends at the big companies.

[nsnick]

What are good questions to ask at the end of an interview?