Hello!!! For this blog, I wanted to divert my focus from OSU and classes to the job market and the job search. In this wild world of computer science, finding an internship this year has been as hard as finding a needle in a haystack. The job market has been at an all-time low, especially for the interns.
Over the past year, I have applied to more than 100 internships, and most of the time, I have been ghosted even when my resume matches perfectly with the job. The only ones I hear back from are the ones that send me the auto Online Assessment that tests my leetcode abilities. If that is passed, then comes the multiple rounds of interviews with the team that one has to go through to get an intern position.
The market has become so saturated that it has been hard to find anything as all the companies expect students to fully know everything before starting their first day at work. The room for learning has grown to be extremely low. Also, this job market has become a battleground for CS majors as there are only a handful of internships but so many students. And on top of that, sometimes students get preference because they have connections and references. All in all, it has been a tough battle.
While searching for an internship, the word “Rejection” has become part of my vocabulary as I have been swamped with hundreds of auto-rejections by companies that don’t even try to add a hint of personality to the letter. But I do think that this rejection has taught me to be more resilient and keep pushing forward. If one company doesn’t want me, then there has to be another that would happily accept me.
During this search, I consulted many of my friends, who talked about how their experience has been the same, if not worse, regarding internships this year. They have been constantly applying and getting to the last round of interviews (of which there are many) and being rejected over the smallest mistake they might’ve made. As I said, the benchmark to make errors is extremely low, regardless of the starting title.
Even though this experience has been quite disheartening, it has taught me and all my friends to keep applying and waiting for this extremely bad market to improve. At the end of the day, it will get better, and someone will see the talent that each one of us holds. Thus, we should all just embrace the journey and learn from our experiences for the future.
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