How to get an internship at a big tech company

The large technology companies hire thousands of interns a year and reject a far larger number before anyone reads past the first screen. Most of those rejections are avoidable. This is what the process looks like from the inside and what to do about it.

How the process runs

1. The posting. Most summer internship roles open between September and January, often one posting per office or per team. Many close when the pile is big enough, not on the date shown.
2. The screen. A recruiter or a system checks the basics: graduation date in the right window, a degree in a related field or equivalent, the right to work or sponsorship where offered, and a CV that shows real coding or relevant work.
3. The assessment. For engineering roles, an online coding test, usually timed, usually data structures and algorithms. For other roles, a task or a short case.
4. The interviews. One to three rounds, technical and behavioural. Interviewers fill a scorecard per round and a committee or hiring manager decides.
5. Team matching. At some companies an offer comes first and a team later, at others the team is in the interview.

What they screen for

At intern level, nobody expects experience. They expect evidence. Three things carry most CVs through the first screen:

• A project you can explain. Something you built, with a link, with a decision you made in it. A course project counts if you can talk about it for ten minutes.
• Fundamentals. Data structures, algorithms, a language you are fluent in. The coding assessment tests this and there is no way around practising it.
• Clarity. A one-page CV where the project, the degree and the skills are visible in seconds. Recruiters at these companies read hundreds a day.

The mistakes that end most applications

Applying late. The single biggest one. The posting from September has thousands of applicants by November.

A generic CV. The same document to a backend role, a data role and a product role. Reorder it for each. The skills a backend posting asks for should be in the first lines, not the last.

Skipping the assessment practice. Students who are good programmers fail timed coding tests they could have passed with three weeks of practice. Treat it as an exam, because it is one.

Ignoring the smaller offices. The headquarters role gets the most applicants. The same company's office in Dublin, Munich, Warsaw or Lisbon posts the same internship with a fraction of the competition.

Not applying because of the university. Large tech companies hire from hundreds of universities every year. The screen is on evidence, not the name.

A realistic plan

• September: CV to one page, best project first, link that works. Start assessment practice, an hour a day.
• September to November: apply to every role that fits the week it opens, with the CV reordered per role. Keep a list of what you sent where.
• December to January: keep applying to the later openers, do the assessments as they come, practise the behavioural questions out loud.
• February onward: late postings and smaller offices, and the mid-sized companies that pay as well and hire with less noise.

Letting the search run while you study

The postings open on weekday mornings during term. Watching every careers page by hand is not realistic, and missing the first week costs more than any CV mistake. IdealJob's Career Agent watches the careers pages, scores each new internship against your CV, and emails you the ones that fit the morning they appear, with a CV version for the role ready to review. Students get two months of Premium free with a university email, which is the whole autumn season.

The companies are large, the process is structured, and the odds for a well-prepared early applicant are far better than the rejection numbers suggest. Be early, be specific, and practise the test.