I see a lot of people wonder on Quora if there are any startups that are hiring. And I’ve had engineers (even from IITs) ask these questions – how to get internship, how to get job in your dream company. Or how to find out what one should do? The problem stays same for both freshers and experienced folks – year after year.
The problem is both wide and deep. We are taught engineering, but never taught how to earn a living. Nevertheless, people come out of colleges, try to carve their own path and figure stuff on the way. Then they look back and bitch about the system. The easy way out, perhaps. While I do that too, I thought it may help if I can change something somewhere, at least for a few students who are looking to go beyond the basics and want to know stuff.
Here’s an example of a student who reached out to me (I don’t have a clue why, and how’d they find me… and it doesn’t matter!) :)
Student: Hello Sir, I am pursuing my engineering degree in CS from …XYZ… college, wish to get training from a company outside of the college so that we can understand the actual working style. What should I do for that?
My Answer:
I am happy to see that you are already taking steps to reach out and find opportunities. Good. The first thing you’d have to understand is that companies need awesome people, as much as people need awesome companies. With that understanding you’d need is to think from a company’s perspective why should they give you some time/opportunity/training.
How can YOU help them? If you are from computer science you better be good at something related to it – coding/finding-issues-with-code/mathematical-or-statistical-analysis/problem-solving/designing/identifying-patterns-in-data. I would believe from your background that you may not be able to truly understand anything I mentioned, after the first one – coding. So, assuming that coding is what you are good at, you need some proof in your kitty to show that you are actually good at it.
How? How’d you ascertain if someone is a good painter? or a writer for instance. Wouldn’t you ask them to show their paintings? So it is logical that a good coder codes. Codes for the love of it. Easy stuff – learn some PHP/Ruby-on-rails on the web and create some websites. Or learn some Android development and create an App or two. What app/website? Anything. A simple thing that solves a simple problem.
Now, what if you are NOT good at the only expected thing you should be good at? Well, then you’d need to find out what you are good at, or what you think you’d want to do in future. E.g. sports/music/events/ marketing/ sales – if you think you can do something well you should DO IT often.
Either it will give you confidence and motivation to do it more often or the option to look for something better.
So keep trying new stuff and keep doing what you love to do.
Don’t wait for someone to ask you to do it. E.g. if you like identifying problems with something or if you are good at bringing in new ideas – take a product. any software product – an app (may be). Think Gmail/ Facebook/ Ola /Uber/ CouponDunia/ Signeasy/ Bookmybattery. Do you think you can improve them? If yes, how? Observe, analyse, jot down your ideas, create a report. Send your work to those guys. They are always listening. That is your way of telling them how useful you are.
That was just one example – I’d leave it to your imagination on how you’d come up with your worth, your story, doing what you really love to do. Once you have that in your kitty, reach out to these people. Most of them have career pages, write to people on LinkedIn, on twitter. Tell them how you need a chance to help them. Don’t drop in your Resume, write a letter to them and you may attach a resume if you like. Be true and candid. Do it more often, for anyone and everyone you think you can help. Do it because you love doing it. They’d love to have you onboard.
I am sure you were not expecting such a big chunk of gyaan and I could have shared some links like internshala.com, letsintern, hellointern, twenty19, inturn where you can find internship opportunities.
But, I thought it will help you in the long run. I hope it does.
Let me know if now you think you can help me.
Hint: Start by leaving a comment and sharing this post on facebook/linkedin.
Best luck!
Update: Found this nice example of how Anand did it for Zomato.
If you have reached this far you should totally leave a comment about how you liked it and share this post with others.
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