I've been looking for a full-time paid summer internship, but was rejected to every single company I applied to. What did I do wrong that I can fix next time?
My situation:
- I'm 21 years old and in my senior year at a top public U.S. university (such as UMD, UVA, Penn State). I'll graduate in December 2019, which is 1 semester early.
- My major is a B.S. in Information Systems, and my minor is in Business.
- My GPA is 3.4. The average at my university is 2.9.
- Since middle school I've been learning about computers and already knew half the material in my college classes.
- I've started two real companies with actual investors and applied my IT and business skills in the real world. One was a bitcoin mining warehouse, and the other startup was a hardware device. They both went bankrupt.
- I'm a natural citizen with full work authorization. I'm not a foreign student or anything like that.
- I'm not a people person, but I've improved my communication skills enough to interview well (according to my parents and friends). I'm not an overly academic and studious person.
The application process
- I applied to 45 summer internship positions. All of them were in central New Jersey in the suburbs within 45 minutes away. Half of them were big companies, the other half were small/medium companies.
- They were all paid full-time positions with a wage of $15-$20/hour.
- My resumé looked like this. I decided to make a pretty one rather than use Times New Roman font like most people. It was 1.25 pages long. I had my parents review my resumé, but didn't use my college career center or anybody else. My dad warned against making it too artistic, but I didn't listen.
- I used online application websites for 90% of them, and personal relative/family member connections for 10% of them.
- I wrote a customized cover letter to every single company explaining how my experience applies to the role. It highlighted my business ventures and how I knew both business and IT well. My parents used to work at some of them, and I mentioned that.
- I started the process in January and finished submitting all of them in March.
- The roles were 'business analyst', 'software programmer', 'business process intern', 'helpdesk technician', and other similar business & IT internships.
The results
- 15 of them sent rejection e-mails after 1-2 months. 5 of them were sent by a real person saying I was very qualified, but they had to deny me because they had really good applicants this year.
- 2 companies invited me for a phone interview. I think I did at least average. One of them invited me to the next round of interviews, but later said they had canceled the position and hired a full-time worker to do it. The other interviewer seemed impressed, but he later sent a rejection letter in 2 weeks.
- 3 companies canceled or deleted their internship positions.
- The rest of the companies didn't even respond.
I'm scratching my head wondering what I did wrong. I don't have any friends who applied for internships, so I can't compare my results.
My explanations:
- 1: Even though I'm really qualified, the kind of students who applied for these internships were even better than me. They were the president of a school club, had a 4.0 GPA, or were studying at an Ivy League college. Or they were graduate students.
- 2: Most companies hire their own employee's kids through connections rather than hiring off of the online applications they get.
- 3: My resumé was too unconventional and was very hard to read, or it had too much information. They only spend 15 seconds looking at each one, and recruiters are used to times new roman font. So they didn't look at mine. I ignored my father's advice.
- 4: The positions were all in the suburbs. Every college kid wants them since they don't have to commute for an hour. I should've applied to the big cities like NYC (90 min away) and Philly (60 min away). Those internships are easier to get, even though the commute is rough.
- 5: A rejection rate of 90%+ is simply normal for new grads or students who have no real job experience yet. I should have applied to 100-150.
- 6: I just randomly got unlucky and should have been offered more interviews. I did nothing wrong but had bad luck this year.
Which of these reasons do you think is most likely? I'm guessing it's mostly #3 and #5. Any ideas?
Also, if I don't finish an internship before I graduate, am I screwed when it comes to getting a full-time job? Will I even have to get an internship in the spring after graduation and work for $15/hour for a few months, and then get a full-time job?
I don't want to do that. I really want to start working and get out of my parent's house ASAP, and earn $60k a year. Payscale.com says my market value in Philly is $63k/year.
Another idea I have is to get a part-time retail Walmart job for $12/hour during the summer, just to gain some kind of experience. Would this raise my chances of getting the $60k professional job later?
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