Internship Search

by Aditi Guhu

Searching for your first internship in the US can be a daunting task whether you’re international or not. Handshake is a great first place to start, and it often clearly states whether employers are international-friendly or not, under “Employer Preferences.” If the work authorization on Handshake doesn’t match your needs, it is important to remember that if you are really interested in working at a certain company, you can take the following steps:

Ask someone at the career center if they know if the company might hire international students

Go to Wesconnect or LinkedIn and get in touch with an alum who works at the company and schedule a conversation with them

Go to myvisajobs.com and search for the company to see if they have hired any international citizens in the past

Unfortunately, if the job description specifically says that they are not hiring international students then it usually means that it wouldn’t make sense for you to apply.

Something that I didn’t realize as a sophomore was how early the internship applications go up for certain industries like finance and consulting. It is important that you are aware of these deadlines, and I would suggest going to the career center even at the beginning of sophomore year just to check in and start figuring out what kinds of opportunities you might be interested in applying to. I created a spreadsheet that tracked my progress in my internship search, and also helped me make sure that I didn’t miss any deadlines. In my sophomore year, I received several rejections, but something important that I learned was to always ask for feedback and note it down so that I didn’t make the same mistakes again while applying in my junior year.

Resources that I used for my internship search:

Job Interview One-Sheeter: Helps prep you for upcoming interviews

WesConnect Alumni Directory: Helps put you in touch with alums who might be doing things that are interesting to you

LinkedIn: It’s important to keep your social media profiles (especially LinkedIn) updated because potential employers often look at your social media presence to gain a better understanding of who you are

Career Center: This was definitely my biggest go-to for questions and extra mock interview help. Schedule meetings as early as possible because as deadlines start to approach, the career center gets super busy!