The intern selection process highlights longstanding inequities in Silicon Valley recruiting and hiring. Layoffs and cutbacks at major tech companies this year have only reduced internship opportunities, students say, exacerbating socioeconomic disparities. In response to a call from The New York Times, nearly 300 people — students, recent graduates, and software engineers — shared their experiences applying for internships and tech jobs, with some describing the process as “brutal,” “unfair,” or “daunting.” “. ”
To try to compete, dozens of students spent hours applying for more than 100 internships, practicing for internship coding tests or working on personal coding projects to try to impress recruiters, they said. More than half of those surveyed said they had never received a response from the companies where they had applied for positions.
Some students at lesser-known public universities said they felt disadvantaged compared to their peers at computing powerhouses like Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley. Some students said they had given up part-time jobs or neglected their coursework to apply for tech internships, only to receive no offers.
Some college students in higher-ranking computer programs reported more successful results. Kien Pham, a student at the University of Minnesota, said she spent much of the summer and fall intensively applying for more than 300 internships.
That included preparing for an interview with Amazon, he said, spending the better part of two weeks writing episodes from his life that align with the company’s guiding values, known internally as leadership principles. He later accepted a software engineering internship offer from Amazon for this summer.
Some students noted socioeconomic disparities throughout the application process.
Tech companies like Microsoft and Google have internal reference systems where employees can recommend candidates. Those references can help distinguish certain students from tens of thousands of applicants. But students at lesser-known schools often lack the kind of industry, family, or elite university connections that can lead to employee referrals.
Farmer said another concern is that the intern selection process may overlook or underestimate college students who have jobs.
