How to get an internship without relevant experience?

Hey guys. Lately I’ve been applying for a lot of internships and looking forward to next summer. I am a sophomore (3 semesters finished) ME with a 4.0 but I don’t have much for engineering experience at all. Up till now I have not been active in an engineering club (I plan on joining one this coming semester), I didn’t get an internship last year, and none of my previous jobs are directly related to engineering (grounds maintenance, farm worker, and column writer). I try to use these to my advantage by highlighting skills they have given me but it still is not engineering experience. The one piece of experience I do have is leading a group last semester tasked with recreating a chainsaw in Creo. Of course I try to bring that up in my resume and cover letters the best I can.
The thing is I’d really like to work out of state in a mountainous area. That’s eventually where I’d like to work and I honestly get kinda sick of living in a super flat state after a while so having the summers out there for now would be great, especially if it was at a company I would like to keep working at. Unfortunately this means there’s virtually zero employers from those areas that come to our career fairs, I don’t have much for connections, and I’m stuck with filling out online applications, trying to get enough of somebody’s attention for an interview. My grades help but that only takes me so far without experience. I don’t need a super lucrative internship at SpaceX or something crazy, just anything close to the mountains, really. How can I catch someone’s eye enough to get a shot?

I am just trying to help in here. Have you talked and consulted with your ME professors regarding any opening in their summer research or REUs (undergraduate) or Co-Ops if any? have you asked them about their network connection outside of the school? sometimes they may know a thing or thing about outside research but if nobody ever has approached them then they will not open their mouth about those things.

Also, have ever talked to any senior upper-classmen who have done internships and ask them how they got them and where to find them?

Also, have you looked at the right internship website for engineering like internships.com, indeed.com, glassdoor.com, engineerjobs.com, etc, etc.

I know for online apps, you need to do those months and months before. Those internships being posted online are competition in nature and apply to a lot of those. I know sometimes you will get frustrated in applying online as it takes time 20 minutes per application but keep doing it.

Lastly, go straight to any company’s website and browse the internship openings. Then start applying. Never give up and in the end, you will be rewarded if you don’t get tired.

Sounds like you are doing things right but you need to relax some of your expectations for a first time internship. Are you interviewing with the companies that DO come to your school? Getting that first engineering experience is the most important thing right now, regardless of the location.

And I highly recommend joining one of the several engineering design competition teams if you can. I know several ME undergrads including my son, and I am amazed at the experience they get as part of an FSAE team. It goes far beyond the technical work.

I was almost exactly in your shoes about 35 years ago. In Nov of sophomore year, I had 3.9 gpa, but corporate internship interviews were first-come/first serve on a sign-up list. So I had to stand in line outside in the snow waiting for the career center to open on sign-up day… (The folks at the front of the line had arrived hours earlier and were in sleeping bags. To this day I remember being #78 in line for 80 slots… thank goodness I didn’t have that second cup of hot chocolate I had contemplated before braving the verrrrry cold 1 mile walk.)

These days I’m sure it all works differently. My point is do whatever is needed to leverage you career center opportunities. This summer get an internship in the flatlands. Then next year you’ll have work experience and can seek your preferred mountain setting.

Make sure your resume is ATS compliant.

https://premium.linkedin.com/jobsearch/articles/the-easy-how-to-guide-for-formatting-resumes-for-applicant-tracking-systems

In my experience, the best way is to just walk in like you already work there.

Once you do a couple odd jobs for some senior department member, it’ll be too late to kick you off the premises.

@Good-times-r-here has given you some very good advice.

In addition, I suggest looking at the craigslist in the various places you would like to work and see if there are either internship ads or ads for places that sound like you would like to work and pitch them on taking you on. As you probably realize, it is hard to get a paying internship as a Sophomore so you may have to settle this year to work where you currently are.

If you do not have a linked in profile with a good professional looking photo make one now, that is the first place employers look to get a sense of you. When you send ur coverl etters, put ur linked in address below your name so they can readily click on it and see what your background it like.

Some work experience even in non engineering is better than no work experience.