Third year and still no summer internship

[internshipstruggles2026]

DS does engineering at Imperial and is in his third year with a strong 2:1 performance. He applied for 70+ internships in the last 12 months and had final-round interviews with around 5 companies that included big names like NVIDIA, ARM and small names/start ups, but hasn't been successful in securing an internship. So he is facing a third summer without an internship, and has a final Masters year that will start in October. Last year he volunteered at a start-up (that has since closed down) and has some strong own-projects in his CV. He seems to have lost hope. Any advise?

So hard for them!
dont know anything about engineering sorry but is there a very local firm who might want someone hands on like in a v junior role for a few weeks?

Keep trying, widen his net
my dd has just had a year 2 internship in HR, she wanted finance. Has absolutely hated her HR year!! But the same company has just offered her a graduate role in finance for after her year three.
Sometimes you have to side step your way in!!

It sounds as though your Ds has done amazingly well to get to the last round - there are 1000s of people applying. But also so frustrating.

I'd agree with PP to apply speculatively for local / smaller firms who may suddenly have a vacancy / a summer project wanting completed. Maybe even try doorstepping some firms - I did that - admittedly it was a long time ago when all firms had offices - but it shows initiative and side steps the AI bots.

Has he tried uni research labs (imperial or elsewhere)? - they sometimes take undergrads for internships.

Would doing next year in industry be an option instead? I know it might be a bit late. My DC1 is also doing an intégristes Masters and a couple of his friends have gone down this route after failing to secure an Internship for those Summer.

It is really good news that he got down to the final rounds though. Has he asked for feedback? It sounds as though he may need more work on his interview technique if he’s falling at the last hurdle?

Some engineering companies sponsor dissertations. Would that be a compromise for his final year if no internships forthcoming.

Is he just applying for ones advertised? Or is he cold calling small hedge funds etc?

Dear OP,

I know how hard this is. My daughter applied for so many internships that she actually had a spreadsheet to keep track. She is studying history (year 2) and is due to start an internship with Skanska doing community engagement next week.

Last year she couldn’t do a standard internship because she had surgery in the Summer. She contacted our local councillor who helped her set up a month of work experience with the council’s education team which was terrific. It is definitely worth contacting smaller firms, local councils and other local organisations to see what they can offer.

The other thing worth considering is whether he has any specific characteristics that organisations might be in a position to support : state school educated (93% club), disabled (change 100), BME (10,000 black interns). My daughter was supported by Change 100 to apply for her internship.

I would also encourage him to take every opportunity available through his uni such as student projects, SU/student rep positions etc to be able to demonstrate specific achievements. Careers services can often be very good at highlighting opportunities and helping with the application process.

Good luck to your DS, it is really hard.

Getting to five final rounds is not failure; it suggests the CV is working and the bottleneck may be final interview, fit or timing. I’d make him do a quick post-mortem: which roles reached final, what feedback came back, what interview questions repeated, and whether each rejection was technical, behavioural or “better fit elsewhere”. Then use the summer for one visible engineering project plus targeted smaller-company/speculative approaches rather than another broad 70-application cycle.

Has he asked for feedback from the places where he got to final round? I think he's legally entitled to ask and they have to provide it if he got that far.

It will help him know if there's any gaps in his interview techniques or if its simply a matter of more experienced candidates competing with him, etc.

That must be so frustrating for him. Has he looked at small local companies? I guess it depends what type of engineering. My sone did a few weeks at a small garage that services high end cars. It wasn’t perfectly relevant to his degree but was still useful and enjoyable.

Does he take on other normal summer jobs? My kids didn’t all do interns but found long term coffee shop type jobs were useful when applying.
However this was a few years ago and I do understand the grad job situation has changed.
One of my DC got through to the final partner interview stage at one of the big four with zero work experience other than coffee shop jobs. They had no characteristic that would have helped get them an interview. Good employers know that getting internships is difficult and tends to advantage already advantaged applicants.

Just wanted to address your point about internships going to “already advantaged applicants”.

This is not necessarily the case at all. Internships and work experience recruitment is one of the few (if not the only) time employers can explicitly recruit applicants from disadvantaged groups or groups underrepresented in their workforce and exclude “advantaged applicants”. So as mentioned above, they could run a programme specifically for BAME students.

The old Bristol Tracker company produced a report on internship application outcomes recently for the last applicant cycle which showed that such under represented groups had a much higher success rate in internship applications. (And in that report it showed that girls were more successful than boys - reflecting that there are some STEM type programmes just for girls.)

However, when it comes to applying for full time graduate jobs, the jobs are open to all on an equal basis. So my message is not to be too disheartened if your DS doesn’t get an internship because it doesn’t mean he won’t get a graduate job.

And my only suggestion is to go back to his uni professors and ask if there’s any project he could help out on over the summer - even unpaid. Oh and this company INVESTIN, runs v £ engineering summer programmes for school pupils which have lots of student helpers so if he cld do that he will be able to network with the engineering companies involved.

@internshipstruggles2026 what type of engineering is it?

Also, does he have anything on his CV other than his strong academic history?

thank you everyone. your suggestions and support is really helpful. He applied only for advertised roles.

Can I ask where he was looking? DS used Gradcracker and Indeed but AI did throw up a couple of others that he hadn’t seen before.

@internshipstruggles2026 My son is also a third-year engineering student at Imperial and he secured a six-month internship that he’s currently on by approaching companies directly and thinking a bit more outside the box, rather than only applying to advertised internships. As you can imagine, the advertised schemes attract huge competition, especially from other Imperial students of a very similar calibre, so it can become a numbers game.

The fact that your DS reached final rounds with companies like NVIDIA and ARM is actually very encouraging — it shows he is clearly capable and getting noticed. Sometimes it just comes down to timing, headcount or fit on the day.

A few of my son’s friends on the same course have also managed to secure summer internships very late in the day, even this week, so I really wouldn’t give up yet. It may be worth continuing to apply, contacting smaller firms and startups directly, reaching out to alumni or professors, and looking for project/research opportunities that may not even be formally advertised.

He already has strong projects and previous startup experience on his CV, which genuinely counts for a lot. One setback doesn’t define his future career at all.

Has he considered applying abroad? It might sound daft but my son has got a summer internship in China this year- flights, accommodation and living expenses all paid for. It is a science research post.

That sounds fantastic

He's at a target uni and had final interviews with arguably the two most prestigious companies in the world in their respective fields.

Reassure him he's done very well to get to that stage. It might be a case of interview technique, sometimes small details can swing it one way or another for a candidate.

Are you based near Cambridge? Arm and Nvidia both have sites there. There are lots of other tech companies in the region so keep persevering but widen his net to apply for less competitive firms.

The reality is even though he's been so close, the competition is very high and sometimes there just may be better candidates.

He’s done exceedingly well to get to final rounds with ARM and NVIDIA. His CV must be strong to even get considered for them. I would be suggesting things like working on networking and building his LinkedIn presence if he wasn’t getting interviews - DS found that having a connection at the company helped as they could recommend him - but it sounds like he’s doing well without …. It’s an incredibly disheartening numbers game.

DS was applying for similar roles (but is CS not Engineering). He didn’t manage to get a summer internship at all for any of his summers, but finally got accepted for an internship for this summer - after graduating. The field he’s applied for tends to recruit from internships. But this isn’t true for all fields.

Honestly, no time in a repressive regime is genuinely fantastic.

Your son is doing so well to get to the final round at such impressive organisations. It’s really tough.

My DD is also studying engineering and secured a summer internship by sending about 20 cold emails to small engineering firms in our area. She offered to work for free, but she is being paid minimum wage. It will also satisfy a requirement to do at least 6 weeks of related work experience before being able to move onto an integrated masters.

It is an 80 minute commute, and it might not be the area of engineering that she fancies, but it’s exciting to have an internship at all, and hopefully it’s a first step in the right direction. We are very grateful that the SME is giving her the opportunity.

My ds applied for a similar number of internships. He did get one, but friends have got graduate jobs without one. I would just do something to go on the CV - paid or not. Amazon driver with own car is decently paid. Charity shops always need volunteers as well.

Op, he should still continue to apply for internships . Does he have a profile on LinkedIn ?
He may be fortunate enough to get an internship at the last minute

ds2 and his friendship group had very good success rate. Admittedly computer science where more are available but all got either an internship or a placement year.

Lessons learnt.

Get your CV ready early in year 2. His university actually had them do this as part of a group work coursework.
Apply to smaller companies as well as the more well known players as there will be less applicants.
If you are sent any online tests do them quickly rather than waiting till deadlines.
Use your university careers service for checking your CV and / or interview advice or mock interviews. ds2 did the later and found it really helpful.