Son is looking hard for a ME internship and not getting responses at all. He is over 3.0 at UT Austin. Any advice where to look or knock down doors?
Hi,
My son in Chem E found a summer internship at a local refinery through a local contact. We just lucked out. We were new to the “internship” phenomenon and had no clue about how they are common today.
Doesn’t Austin have career advisors and company connections to student internships?
The Career Counseling Center at my son’s school told him that parlaying family and friend connections is the best way to start. We all got together and brainstormed who to call. Based on those calls and the resultant emails that followed, he was able to land both a job while in school and a summer internship near home.
" Any advice where to look or knock down doors?" - Contacts certainly help, but it’s still good to leverage any advise / leads from the campus resources.
Thanks for the advice everyone. I feel like we have reached out to a lot of friends, but being in the medical field, I don’t have a lot of contacts in the area he’s looking. I do have one friend working on a possibility. Wish us luck!
What year is he? Finding internships prior to junior year can be difficult. It is late this year but the school’s career fairs can be a huge resource. My son applied for one based on info in the career office and was turned down. Several weeks later he was hired on the spot by the same company at the career fair.
Good luck with the lead you have!
You just have to keep trying. Job searches aren’t ever fun and on top of that, employers aren’t exactly hurting for qualified candidates right now.
The more I think about this issue the more I believe that it’s a matter of dumb luck. Of course the student has to meet the qualifications required by the employer, but I’d guess that most STEM applicants are qualified for the internships to which they apply. I think that Lake Jr.'s first summer internship was a case of being unique; he was an underclassman and all of the other participants were upperclassmen. His upcoming internship seems to be a combination of luck and opportunity (which probably is the same thing). He was wandering around at the campus career fair when the recruiter literally picked him out of a crowd and asked to look at his resume. Fortunately, Lake Jr.'s experience at his first internship matched well with the lab work/research background that this latest company was looking for.
By the way, he submitted resumes to over 60 companies’ online postings for a Summer 2015 internship. Not one bite from the online postings.
Agreed Lake…it’s so competitive. I do believe that you have to have an “in” somehow.
That, or have some very unusual skill that none of your peers possess that is useful in a very specific niche. That helps too.
Out of those who I know who got impressive internships, more often than not it was through either nepotism (“networking”) or meeting diversity requirements. You can get good jobs on merit alone but it’s tough, mostly because there are more people qualified for those jobs than there are openings. Blame decades of “we need more STEM majors ASAP” hype.
I wouldn’t be so pessimistic. True, it is competitive, but there are ways to make yourself more appealing to employers.
Tip #1: Get a GPA that is over the cut-offs (general consensus is a 3.0, though for bigger/ more competitive companies this usually goes up due to competition. Also depends on industry/ company/ hiring manager. My boss likes to see 3.7+ gpa).
Tip #2: Join a project team (SAE, Steel Bridge, Concrete Canoe, Solar Racecar, Robot club). Shows teamwork capability, initiative, critical thinking/ design skills, learn relevant skills, etc. Recruiters love talking about projects from what I’ve seen/ heard.
Tip #3: Join relevant clubs/ societies. Huge networking opportunities in things like ASCE, ASME, IEEE, etc. Flex those social skills.
Tip #4: Use your school’s career office (you’re paying for it anyways). Practice interviews, critiques, use their job boards and career fairs. Everybody I know got their internships from career fairs or the school’s opportunities.
Tip #5: Don’t wait. People looking for internships now are pretty behind.
My parents are in chemistry. I’m in civil (so no nepotism). I got a 5 term co-op after freshman year through my school and never looked back. Started applying with a 3.90 GPA and 1 year of project experience as a freshman.
But that’s just my experience.
There are more options for students willing to go anywhere (ie not live home in the summer). That means living expenses eat into the earnings, but it’s a worthwhile investment.
That is definitely true. I work 13 hours (by car) from my parents’ house. In a high COL city. I still save >30% of my wages and invest in my 401k and roth IRA. Some companies/ industries are very generous though and reimburse housing or have housing/ moving stipends.
He’s definitely willing to go any where, but hasn’t gotten a single response. He started looking early in the semester with the intern fair - again no responses. Have one potential possibility through a friend - fingers are crossed.
What year is he? Finding an internship is usually harder for students with just 1 or 2 years of college. But it’s still good to go through the search freshman/sophomore years … it gives job hunting experience even if it does not yield a job.
He is a senior with one more semester after this one.
Is he just looking for summer internships? There may be more options for student willing to stay for through the fall semester too.
Just a word of warning: you don’t have an internship until you have an offer. It doesn’t matter how promising it looks, no matter what verbal promises they make; if they made no offer then you may still be passed over. That’s just how the job market works.
This is one method for finding potential alumni people to ask. Have your son create a linked account if he hasn’t yet. Then he can go to the Advanced Search Option and type in his school and the career area that he has majored in. The advanced search option will pull up all the alumni who are on linkedin who have that career. in a given distance from your filled in location. Then he can try and connect through linkedin either directly if the person’s account lets him or find the company and email the person through the company directly asking if there are any summer opportunities he may apply for.
Additionally, search for alumni to your school in that career area and even if you didn’t major in engineering but you find an alumni who did, you can use your alumni connection to ask/email them about any opportunities for your son they may have.
Mind you, this is a bit time consuming, I’ve done this but last summer we did find my ME student son an internship with a company that the president went to my husband’s alma mater even though their majors were different.
I found the internship from one of those internship sites and when I googled the president, I found on linkedin he went to my husband’s school. My son applied and waited about a week and when no one responded, my husband called to “chat”. We found out they long ago had forgotten that ad and though they had not been looking, the president did interview my son and gave him summer work.
Good advice Lakemom. Figured out today that a good friend’s husband is an ME at a large firm here. He took my son’s resume and called a couple of friends. The word he is getting is that due to the oil and gas industry right now, getting an internship is harder than “finding a rapper w/o tattoos…” (his words not mine). It’s not going to be easy.