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?

No: DD not an introverted scientist but the point is she has personality and gets noticed. It has worked for her. DH networked to make a very successful business. Both my DDs are self employed. Some people just need to network as the world doesn’t just turn up on their doorstep. You have to try everything.

If you are applying to small companies, your ability to get on with everyone is essential, you can’t be difficult in a small company- you’re too hard to carry. We did the people skills interview first - if you couldn’t pass that, it didn’t matter how bright you were, or what uni you went to, or what experience you had - we said no.

OP, this is very frustrating for your DS. Has he applied to any small/niche companies? DS’s girlfriend did a summer internship in her third year with a niche engineering company in New York. They had not employed an overseas student before and I gather there was a lot of admin on both sides - but it was a positive experience overall.
DS took the more conventional Summer internship route, applying at the start of each academic year for the following summer. He was incredibly lucky to get his first choice and stepped off the onerous application process early on in the academic year.
I wish your DS all the best.

What a colossal waste of money.

There are plenty of free resources online explaining how to optimise your CV and if you need a professional CV writer for your CV, it should only cost a few hundred pounds.

Has he tried this

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/careers/jobs-and-experience/exclusive-opportunities/sme-and-white-city-internships/

When my DD1 graduated, several of her school friends used upmarket job agencies who honed cvs and had “contacts”. It’s not new and it was several £ thousands years ago. Usually it was the sociology and anthropology grads that needed the help.