How To Start Preparing For Off-Campus Internships?

Hello Readers,

I am back with my fourth article on How to prepare for off-campus Internships. Off-campus internships are not hard to find but to get your resume shortlisted for off-campus internships one needs to have a good resume and great projects as well! While I applied for my fourth-year off-campus internship from Linkedin I finally landed with two good offers at good startups but, unfortunately, covid happened.

I did my last internship with InnerHour which I got through Linkedin and I have shared my experience Here, do go through it if you like to know!

If you are applying for summer internships 2021, then the right time to send applications through Linkedin or other job portals will be from January 2021 onwards. This is because startups do not conduct hirings one year before as most of the top tech companies and tech gaints do through on-campus intersnhip offers. I started applying for internships from December onwards however, I got reply from the HRs from January onwards.

So, if you want to land good offers for your off-campus internship then go through this article step by step and read it till the end, and don’t skip any of the points.

1. Explore your Interest: Start early and begin raising the bar! use your first year of college to explore which role you want to work in. Roles may be of many types some of the very popular roles which I want to list are a Software Developer (Backend), Full-Stack Developer (Frontend and backend both), Analyst, and many more! knowing your passion and interest is really very important and it will help you to know your skills better and you could prepare for the right role without wasting any time!
2. Prepare a road-map and find a mentor: Now, your next step should be to find a mentor with the same interest in what you want to go on with to guide you to explore your interest and prepare you to step by step to reach your goal and most important guide you to prepare yourself in the limited time period of 2–3 years also, prepare a complete road map and keep small targets for each day which you could complete within the confined time period!
3. Build a good Linkedin profile: Creating a good LinkedIn profile is a must while you are looking to apply for off-campus, I had only this choice to do as our branch is not allowed to sit for on-campus internships during our pre-final year and I was only left out to apply for off-campus internships. Your Linkedin profile helps you to showcase your skills and also make the right connections and also share relevant posts and views with your connections.
4. Build connections and networks: Building connections and having a strong network can get you a good internship much easier as compared to apply for various job portals the reason is that, while you apply from the job portal it takes time for the company to shortlist all the resumes and get back to you, in the meanwhile if they find some suitable candidate better than you then, obviously you will get rejected in initial shortlisting whereas when you share your resume with an HR of the company directly, you have a higher chance of getting your resume shortlisted because again if you have good connections and skills you will be preferred first!
5. Make the first move: Reach out the HR, CEO or the CTO of the company directly through Linkedin, by sending a short message and asking for internship opportunity if available! and be in regular touch for follow ups on your application.
6. Make a good resume: Make your resume look good and according to the job role you are applying for like if it’s technical then make it look like what are the technical projects which you have done, mention your coding profiles at various coding websites, mention your technical skills and main point while applying for technical skills don’t mention much of your extra-curricular participation or work strictly stick to the technical kinds of stuff whereas if you are applying for roles, such as HR, consultant or other roles, make you resume look with less of technical kinds of stuff and more of extra-curricular work or participations which would be a big plus and add value to your resume. So, the main point here is to make your resume look role-specific don’t add all the things which are irrelevant to the role. You may refer this link to create a good resume Here.
7. Add good and relevant projects to your resume: Create some good projects if you are applying for technical internships, projects related to web developments are good to have. Don’t add a lot of projects to your resume add the ones which are really good and are of intermediate level involving latest and trending technologies and if you have created some web development projects, try to make them live using Heroku or any other hosting platforms, Heroku is free and simple to start with so, I would suggest to go with it!
8. Create a good Cover Letter: For applying to off-campus internships you must prepare a good cover letter which would help you to be specific and it also helps the recruiter know your interests and your true passion to work for their organization and your expectations from this internship. You may refer this link to create a good cover letter for yourself Here.
9. Prepare well: Prepare well for the role you have applied and nail the interviews to get an offer, use the online resources well and also read these articles on how to prepare for technical role internships and consultancy role internships

This is how one should apply for off-campus internships and get a good offer from top startups and companies and later work hard to convert this internship into a full-time offer and add value to your resume!

All the very best!

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