Diversify companies for internships or stay with one company?

<p>All,</p>

<p>I have a question regarding internships and experiences during your undergraduate years. Does it ever matter to a company looking at potential interns/full timers whether or not you stayed with one company with your summer internships versus moving around?</p>

<p>For example:</p>

<p>Bob - Bloomberg (summer 2009), Amazon (summer 2010), Apple (2011)</p>

<p>vs.</p>

<p>Tony - Amazon (summer 2009, 2010, and 2011)</p>

<p>This is assuming both Bob and Tony did similar things in both of their experiences (software engineering working with things like GUI, networks, securities, etc.). If both candidates are, for example, looking to get an internship at the same company for the same position. Thanks in advance!</p>

<p>No. We’re talking about short internships, here – not decades long stints as a full time employee. The only thing that matters is what kinds of work you did.</p>

<p>I have heard directly from a few different recruiters that you become less competitive if you intern at the same company multiple times. One guy in particular told me if he looks at a resume and sees BP or Chevron for 3 straight summers, a lot of times that person won’t even get an interview because he figures it will be too hard to steal them from BP/Chevron.</p>

<p>That seems silly and I find it rather difficult to believe. In any case, I don’t think that sort of thing happens for software engineers (which is what the OP was asking about). The top tech companies are always looking to recruit the most talented students and one of the easiest ways to identify them is by poaching them from other tech companies.</p>

<p>That said, if “Tony” interned at Apple for 3 summers and he goes in to an interview at a different company, I think the interviewer may ask whether or not he received a full time job offer from Apple, and if so, why he hasn’t already accepted it.</p>

<p>Stay with one company. This way, you have a better chance of receiving at least one guaranteed full-time offer. </p>

<p>Employers will be looking for previous experience in general. I have never heard, and think it’s outright silly, of an engineering graduate being frowned upon for internship experience with the same company multiple times. In my experience, companies considering you for a full-time job LOVE people with extensive internship experience, regardless of which company it was under. And why wouldn’t they? You have more real world/industry experience than others, after all.</p>

<p>If you really really want to work for apple, then no problem. Just intern with them multiple times and chances are, you’ll end up over there.</p>

<p>Personally, I don’t want to intern the same place twice. The first internship is the “foot in the door” at the company, and after that it is quite easy to go back. I prefer to get my foot in the door in multiple companies/industries.</p>