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?

@internshipstruggles2026 What engineering branch? I don’t recognise the companies. Computer science/engineering? I’d look in your neighbourhood. Make a list of employers and contact them. If nothing materializes, try and volunteer. Do something. Even if it’s helping a small business for nothing.

ARM and NVIDIA are top computer chip designers/manufacturers. The latter is one of the ‘magnificent 7’ and its GPUs are powering the AI revolution (as well as, obviously, high end graphics and other intensive compute applications), and ARM chips are crucial to most smartphones. The OPs DS has been aiming very high and their internships must have been massively competitive.

Can he afford to not be paid?

I agree with contacting smaller places, but what about your local council, most are strapped for cash and an extra pair of hands for a couple of months could be valuable.

It might not be the type of engineering he wants but all experience is valuable.

Good luck to him.

I doubt a local authority would take him as an adhoc unpaid volunteer ... it would potentially breach their "modern slavery" rules.

Our local authority has volunteers working in its libraries, but that's an advertised scheme and oversubscribed by sixth formers doing DofE.

@ErrolTheDragonNot my world! Thank God! Aim lower then!

OP, if he is studying Electronic Engineering, he could try joining the UKESF, which helps match university students to companies for internships. These are usually smaller companies but no less valuable. Some of these do exciting work too.

www.ukesf.org/get-involved/undergraduate-students/

Just to add - maybe ask about work shadowing? My DHs old company has a small It Engineering but they would allow working shadowing. Most professional companies do. Just keep asking.

My daughter took an engineering intercalation at Imperial during Covid. A year later she had to organise something for her two months elective. She had seen too many people have their plans cancelled by new waves of the virus, so she decided to play safe and approach her previous tutor at Imperial who gave her names of people running research projects. She wrote to them all asking if she could volunteer, and one said yes. She found the research world interesting and indeed was invited to contact the team again had she decided she wanted to study for a PhD. (It was the start of the project and she was tasked with reviewing the existing material in the area, which seemed to be a small number of people praising and referencing each other's work, so plenty of scope for fresh research leading to new insights.)

Not exactly an internship, but at least a different experience and something for the CV.

It is also worth asking everyone you can think of. My chance at some local event I met someone who ran a medical engineering firm. He was very knowledgeable and suggested that if DD wanted to pursue medical engineering rather than medicine she should think about Galway which was a fast growing medical tech centre. If asked I am sure that he would have met with her for a coffee and some more detailed suggestions. Another useful contact came from a school reunion and someone saying that her best friend headed a relevant firm. Unfortunately "equality" in recruitment seems to be having the opposite effect. At worst it is thousands of AI written applications then filtered by AI. We are almost back in the game of needing someone who will pass a strong CV on to the right person to bypass the screening.

Having mentioned Ireland it is worth a look. Brits can work there without needing visas and a lot of US firms have European HQ there.

And thinking outside the box. My current favourite example is someone wanting a data science job, who was hired by a betting firm in the midlands. They use a huge amount of sophisticated statistics and that experience then paved the way to a role in a prestigous London organisation.

We are almost back in the game of needing someone who will pass a strong CV on to the right person to bypass the screening.

Surely not.

@LabradorissimoIt’s also about who you know! Just going to events and meeting the right people. Like we all do! This is of course back to square 1 with private school parents and professionals just being in the right place. The local comp kid from a very ordinary background never gets that lucky. Is this how it should be ?

No it shouldn't be like that.

I don't have a subscription but noticed there was an article in the Times (and another in GB News - where again I don't have a subscription) about parents paying five figure sums to consultants to edit their graduate DC CV's to maximise the chances of it getting through AI filters.

The problem is that graduate job vacancies will routinely attract thousands of applicants. You can be good enough, but how do you get seen.

This issue was pretty obvious when 'medic mums' realised that our DC who had applied at the same time and who were finishing Foundation 2 at the same time were all gloomy about getting a job. (Not training - just a routine SHO/F3 job.) Several hundred applicants per position, including experienced and senior overseas applicants willing to start again in an entry level job and applications closing within hours. However slowly one after another got something, though inevitably several in Australia. In part because senior doctors clearly did not want to lose promising young medics so "found" budgets etc. DD got her locum position because she was known in the hospital and recommended by a senior consultant. Not the way it should happen, but in her case four previous locums recruited arms length had not worked out so in desperation they picked the person they knew rather than the best on paper.

The job market is awful, and also not easy for employers facing an avalanche of capable applicants. My impression is 'who you know' is increasingly coming into play.

@Labradorissimo You can see it’s moving that way though.

Many dc have always had a huge amount of competition for jobs. Thousands apply for city law jobs where there might be 100 vacancies. Doctors have had a charmed life until now with very little competition to get a job. The world is changing for many and we know many graduates are really struggling. I would prefer to see someone reading the applications.

Its not about someone reading a CV. It is about scoring the points and passing any personsonality test type screening. (Or somehow bypassung it.)

Certainly for larger employers the key is ensuring that whoever set the filtering criteria has it right. Are they picking up the best potential lawyer, doctor or civil servant or is there some bias in the system.

The problem is then that if line managers dont believe they are getting the right people to interview they may start to bend the rules.

I dont agree that school type matters as much as people think is does. We have seen young people: from Poland, Russia, Slovakua and SE London land amazing jobs. Partly doing well at the right university but also sheer determination, networking and doggedness. For example three years volunteering every weekend to get a foot in the door, rising to a great environmental job that involves travelling the world.

Sadly a good degree is no longer enough. CVs need to be broader, and networks good.

Networking. That’s something people without connections and confidence find really difficult. They have no idea where to start. They are not brought up to even understand what it is. So many young people and families have never done it and it’s a mystery to them. I have DDs who are good at it, one in particular, but many of the dc we know simply have no connections and don’t know how to get them. You cannot really be taught either.

I have no issue with networking and my own DC are very adept at it. It has served them well to date in each of their professional journeys. This is very different from parents doing cartwheels on behalf of their adult children though. The energy and drive needs to come from within.I have one lawyer colleague who has been complaining that their medic child has been unsuccessful in securing a training place despite their own best efforts to ask senior medic friends for advice etc. Turns out said DC didn't actually apply for any specialty training places as they didn't think they would be successful.

@Labradorissimo I have a top performer in the networking stakes and it’s served her very well but so many dc from very unconfident families simply cannot do it. It’s not in their skill set or DNA. Their families don’t want to engage with others to promote themselves or indeed feel they've a need to do it. Many are in state jobs and it’s not obviously done. I actually know people who think you are creeping if you network and believe it’s cheating. I don’t think many people realise how common this attitude is and they wouldn’t work shadow at a company either - they would want paying!

Just to add, make sure he’s on LinkedIn with his work, life experience and he follows all the companies he’d like to work for, if he can start posting now about uni, experiences etc he will be ahead of others and it’s where industry spend their time.

We found most of our juniors that way, they followed us I looked at them followed them back and got to know them.

Off topic, but "Turns out said DC didn't actually apply for any specialty training places as they didn't think they would be successful." is a bit unfair.

Till Streeting changed the rules to give UK medical graduates priority for training the competition was insane. Over 50% of training places were going to applicants from overseas and expensive private colleges in India were offering two year full time courses to prepare for UK specialist training applications whereas Doctors in the UK were slogging through longs and nights as part of their Foundation. Trouble is Streeting did not fully reverse Boris' opening up of the health and care jobs to full international competition. In the past many newly graduates would then take another year, perhaps as a Clinical Teaching Fellow, with regular hours and more access to research to give time to prepare for applications. Now, with no resident priority, these jobs can be hugely competitive, in part because graduates from previous years who did not get onto training are also in the pool and offering more experience.

Back to topic. @rivalsbinge suggestion is a good one. Following industry leaders and companies you are interested in on Twitter will also do no harm. If the firm checks social media, and I assume most will, there will easy evidence of a proactive interest. Part of my current exposure to the brutal jobs market is through one of my tenants who is a bright and well qualified data scientist in an area where employment is shrinking fast. One of her approaches has been to attend as many conferences as possible. Many are keen to have good attendance and indeed some countries keen to expand their financial sectors have been offering free places to overseas attendees, albeit with the cost of travel and an AirBnB. She got one place after standing behind the person chairing it in the coffee queue at another conference. Conferences and talks run by Professional and trade bodies have been another source, and often offer student rates. She has just got to final interview for a job elsewhere in Europe that has followed on from a contact she made a year ago. The year of using her annual leave to go to conferences, will also mean that she is very up to speed on what is going on in her industry.

Again anecdote but I am also hearing that several of DCs peers are very keen to move on from their first graduate jobs but can't because firms are not hiring, so are staying put, therefore clogging the career path for new graduates. And that redundances means that the pool of applicants is growing.

Is MeetMeOnTheCorner's DC a scientist? My observation is that networking does not come easily to many technically skilled but introverted scientists. And that for the roles they want this is fine. The issue is how then do they get past the filters and to interview.

@Sheeppig amazing! congratulations to your son. Where should one look at, to find such positions?

My DH runs a small engineering consultancy. He can’t offer internships to all the people that apply by any means but his advice is always to approach manufacturing companies even ones that aren’t advertising as gaining some knowledge of production processes is really valuable. obviously this depends on the type of engineering (DH is in mechanical/ design) but maybe it can apply in other fields ie is your son applying too narrowly to very prestige companies whereas just a local manufacturer might still provide very useful skills and experience. DH always recommends a year industry as well and pretty much doesn’t interview anyone who doesn’t have that.

Also agree LinkedIn is important to DH and he always looks up profiles of applicants. He also bins any dear sir/ madam letters because a quick look at the company website would tell you who to write to and if you CBA with then you aren’t serious. If people write to him personally with some knowledge about the company he’ll write back personally and give feedback on portfolios etc even if he can’t take someone on himself.

@Shrinkhole My DH ran a larger civil and structural engineering consultancy and the year in industry with just a BEng wasn’t necessarily an advantage. They found great MEng grads and many of them had not done a year out. The defining issue is thinking like an engineer and doing well at their in house tests. They offer internships and do look at DCs during this. A whole year out not doing grad work wasn’t always useful. They would never ever rule out young people who had nor taken the 5 years to do the year out and recognised many dc don’t get a year out because they are very very competitive. Everyone is ruled in!

I don't think it's an unfair comment. You have to apply to have a chance at success. I've had chapter and verse from colleague about how difficult it is to get a training place after foundation years. I do sympathise with that but I have a friend whose DC managed to secure a training place after F2 last year despite the fierce competition. She applied despite long and unsociable hours in demanding foundation training rotations and against the odds it worked out for her.