For an internship, the where doesn’t matter. That you have one matters.
Set up an indeed search. Summer intern engineering. Or Mechanical Engineering Don’t put in a location. It will send him daily jobs all over the country.
Apply three a day (45 mins)
2nd year is tough and not everyone has success. You need #s - like when I was in sales - every no in one step closer to a yes.
If you live in Idaho or Mississippi - so what - it’s a summer.
Mine was in MS - his other opportunity was not engineering but customer service at an engineering company - in NC.
Junior year and jobs were no issue. He was at a good time but in general, experience begets experience.
PS - it’s October - most intern jobs likely won’t happen (offer wise) til the Spring. Many won’t even post til then either.
While your son is applying for internships, he can also be talking to ME professors about working in their labs over the summer. The money won’t be the same but it can be a valuable experience to have on the resume and help for getting an internship after junior year.
This depends on the industry. At financial firms, the recruiting starts as early as May of the prior year, or (for tech roles within these firms) in the summer months or early fall. All offers are out before winter break, if not months earlier. It’s important to keep these timelines in mind.
Yes, but the student is a mechanical engineer and there wlll be loads of listings - in the fall and spring - and offers late - my son’s came very late (thank goodness).
Jobs - he was done by xmas.
In indeed, I put in summer intern mechanical engineer. I left the location blank (no zip codes).
I got up to 13 pages of listings and stopped counting - this with a last two week timeframe.
Each page has 10 listings.
Now, each won’t work and some may not be summer…but if you can get on a cadence - whether one, two, or three a day, before you know it you’ll have applied to a lot.
It’s 10-12 weeks - so the where matters little unless being somewhere is paramount - you just want experience on the resume…even if it’s not the exact industry you want.
Yes, do on campus stuff, job fairs and more - but this is an inefficient but for many effective supplement.
Sorry, I’m not sure which student you’re referring to. This is a general job prospects thread so I wanted to make sure people are aware that recruiting timelines differ by industry.
Yes, @momofboiler1 : your daughter’s timeline is what I’m worried about: if he doesn’t get something locked down very soon, he’s unlikely to have a summer internship. I’m sure there are always a few late postings as some kids’ plans change, etc, but my understanding is that for engineering, fall is the time for summer internship recruiting.
And so yeah, now he’s going to start looking for summer research positions as well. He knows that it would be a really bad look to go back to his HS summer job. Sigh.
It is not a “really bad look” to go back to a HS job. A kid who goes back to the HS job can also take an online design-related course, a foreign language, something cool he/she didn’t have time for during the regular school year, etc. Same kid can volunteer, create his or her own “internship” by pitching their services to a local non-profit (maybe something data analysis related? assist with a software upgrade?).
There is nothing magical about an internship for a sophomore. What’s important is spending the time productively! A prospective engineer can help the local foodbank reconfigure the system for restaurants and supermarkets to drop off food donations (a great optimization problem), help your city’s hospital improve the way RN’s get scheduled for overtime (an even bigger optimization problem), etc.
All is not lost if the corporate internships don’t work out. Time to pivot- a great skill for an engineer!
My older son earned his EMT certification the summer after his sophomore year (2020) because everything else was canceled due to the Covid lockdowns. Sometimes the pivot can be as impressive as an internship.
100% disagree with this, especially for summer internships. There are many firms that will not post til spring - and the same for full time. Also many post now but don’t hire til spring. But as a sophomore it’s not easy. Possible but not easy. That’s why shotgunning is important. One or two companies don’t make the world.
You need diligence for it to pay off - but shotgunning adds a lot. It’s not efficient and the rejections are depressing but remember you are just looking for one internship - that’s it. You need to apply every day at least through March. That’s where indeed comes in. And multiple roles at the same companies. Those are easier to apply to.
Agreed the summer job is fine too. That he’s working he gets a leg up next year. It says something that an employer brings you back multiple times.
For EE my kid did not get any offers in the fall but they got many interviews and several offers in February/March. Might be a regional thing but in the NE there were a ton of internship announcements immediately after the holidays.
Edit to say that a lot of companies only consider juniors though…
My D said on this last recruiting trip she thought some students were getting bad advice on resumes. Apparently it’s a trend to leave off GPA but her company uses it as a hard screening cut off. The company assumes no GPA = poor GPA. Turns out there were kids at this job fair with 3.5+ GPAs, well above the company cut off, that were told to omit it from their resumes. (They discovered that during the networking event the night before so they were able to ask for GPA information from candidates they were interested in speaking to further).
She also said there were too many students who didn’t research the company and were very unprepared to talk to the recruiters. Even basic macro level questions about “why a job in manufacturing” couldn’t be answered. I think this also translates to making sure students have a cover letter that isn’t generic when applying for positions online.
Lastly, D pointed out that one of the tough things for people in the job market is that many companies post openings that they are actually filling internally. My D’s ELDP program is posted but they 100% fill those slots with students from their own co-op feeder program. Similarly, the co-op is also posted but they fill them completely by in person, on campus recruiting. My H’s company does the same thing. Unfortunately, I don’t think their companies are unique in that practice.
My opinion after 30+ years in corporate recruiting is that shotgunning and Indeed are both poor investments for a student looking for an internship.
Handshake is one thing- companies can target specific colleges that they want to appeal to. Indeed is a big ogre filled with god knows what.
A better use of time- and something most college students never think of- is to show up at office hours of your current and former professors. Plop yourself down in the nice comfy chair and ask “I’m looking for an internship this summer, do you have any ideas for me?” Professors consult; professors answer questions for former students so they know who is working where; professors apply for patents and research grants so they know which technologies are close to being commercialized and which companies are in the process of licensing those technologies for actual products. Professors go to conferences and stand in lines holding a glass of wine shaking hands with CTO’s and CEO’s and VC’s and Hedge fund investors and heads of product development and take business cards which they shove in their back pocket.
Be prepared with a resume; be prepared to answer “Why I loved your class so much and this is why it inspired me to work in XYZ”.
But don’t compete with tens of thousands of other students for internships that are being blitzed out online. Compete with the one or two students who realized that the faculty of their own college is a really strong and under utilized resource for who is hiring.
Hmmmmm….shot gunning on indeed works. My son - who had 19 interviews and 5 offers by xmas (jobs), my daughter who got a job with the state in summer and 7 offers ( 5 paid) for fall internships - all indeed.
I’ve gotten at least 10 notes on here from parents thanking me - their kids got a job.
Many of the jobs that come through handshake are also on indeed btw. The beauty if indeed is that it’s all geographies and feeds you daily. They have the listing b4 handshake.
I’m not saying apply to every job.
If 20 come on today’s feed, maybe only 1-3 are worth a hoot. For many of those jobs, thousands of kids aren’t competing - due to location or they don’t know about them. They’re relying on the school. If you get into a regimen of 2-3 apps, the quantity adds up quickly. You’re just looking for one. But unless you know the one it will be, you’ve got to try many. The student is a salesperson. The product is the student. Just like when I was in outside sales, my boss said the #1,2, and 3 most important thing was activity. #4 - knowing the product and #5 knowing the competition so you could find holes. She was right.
As I said it’s inefficient but effective and not just my kids. Other CC’ers have had their kids do the same because they pm to thank me.
But for internships they need experience so opening that geographic bent is critical.
Good luck to the poster but I truly think their worry is months premature - as another poster also noted.
I’m pointing out that the environment- TODAY is different from a year ago, and VERY different from 5 or 6 years ago. Last hiring cycle had companies cancelling internships, delaying start dates of fulltime hires, offering to pay for “sabbaticals” for employees who hadn’t even shown up yet. So THIS year’s hiring targets- interns, full time, early career (i.e. 2-5 years experience) reflect the “bulge” that had to work its way through. I know companies where the new hires who thought they were starting August 2023 have JUST completed their onboarding- 14 months after they thought they’d be employed.
To any kid who has the time to shotgun/apply randomly- go for it. But the reduced hiring targets across several industries suggests that a more thoughtful and strategic approach might be in order.
You do you. But the macro environment can’t be ignored. It’s like putting your beautiful house in Tampa on the market this week and wondering why you didn’t get anyone at your broker’s open house yesterday…
Just a thought, even in this kind of market, the teacher shortage is persistent. I wonder how many job seekers would consider teaching. There’s never enough math teachers or CS teachers.
Yes, thanks so much to you and everyone else for weighing in with all your expertise. I knew I’d get good advice for him here.
And yes, these boom-to-bust hiring cycles are precisely WHY I’m now increasingly nervous about him getting an internship. My understanding is that in engineering, an internship is ‘necessary but not sufficient’ for a eventual permanent position. (Although I know, I know: it’s not the end of the world if he doesn’t get one this summer.) I tried to talk him into a more recession-proof branch of engineering (i.e., civil), but he was NOT having it. He loves ME.
Different industries and perhaps it’s different where you work. But there are thousands upon thousands of employers and companies move slowly - they haven’t all changed. My son was a year ago, internship three years ago. Daughter a year ago for DC internships. Yes the market is tighter as her boyfriend experienced but going full time, he was rightfully pickier.
The student wants an internship and I’m sharing the way it’s worked for many. Mind you, they still collect resumes but you also need to fill in the online job apps. So presenting yourself well on paper and in person is paramount.
I am not talking years ago. Yes the market is tighter but those who bust tail the most may have the most success. Again, this is not one industry - a MECHE can work in most any industry and in adjacent fields like supply chain.
You may disagree and that’s fine but please don’t dismiss something that has recently worked for many parents right here on the cc. As I said it’s not efficient but it has been productive for many kids - as you only need one offer.