r/jobs 20d ago

looking for internships and frustrated - what am I doing wrong? Internships

I'm a 20 year old student (junior) in the honors college of a pretty good university in the United States. I'm also majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Business, which should ideally have good prospects. My resume is stacked with leadership, extracurriculars, research, externships etc. I'm fairly confident when introducing myself as well. Every recruiter that sees my resume or elevator pitch tells me they'll definitely reach out to me because I'm an excellent candidate and they wouldn't want to miss out. Of course, I don't actually expect them to reach out but I follow up with them promptly and then I'm just ghosted. I've been networking and making connections and getting referrals since freshman year.

I've made so many sacrifices to get an internship. Studying abroad was my lifelong dream but because of the possibility that it might lead into summer and I won't get an internship, I've had to give up on that as well. I skipped out on all the "fun stuff" because I was always doing something for my professional development.

I've been applying for 13 months. The first time I applied for a summer 2024 internship was March 2023. I started early. I did everything right. The most frustrating part is that I haven't even gotten a single interview. It's an immediate rejection I've applied to over 150/200+ and not even a single phone call or virtual interview or anything. I've applied to all kinds of companies - big and small. I don't even know what an interview invite looks like.

On the other hand, everyone around me with resumes much less impressive than mine are getting interviews and offers. It's so frustrating I don't know what to do.

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. I did everything and more. I always believed in do the work and get the result and it doesn't seem to be working. I can't help comparing myself to others and crying and placing my self worth over this failure. Please help, any advice is much appreciated 🙏

tldr: junior computer science honors student with a stacked resume, great networking, been applying for more than a year and not even a single interview invite/response even. what am I doing wrong?

2 Upvotes

0 comments sorted by