Internship Insider: How to Land a Top College Internship
With the new school year comes new opportunities. Discover your next internship from the list below, whether its a summer internship in 2025 or a part-time internship opportunity.
This list contains internship opportunities in the U.S. across various industries and functions.
For a thorough insight into how you can land a coveted internship, check out the guide below!
How to Successfully Gain an Internship Opportunity.
Internships are great way to gain skills and experiences, as well as network to secure employment opportunities after graduating from college. It is vital that college students get a hands on experience outside of school to make themselves marketable to employers after graduation. Yet securing a internship position has become incredible difficult with increasing competition and unpredictable economic cycles. Some coveted internship programs are known to receive thousands of applications each year, placed at renowned FAANG companies like Google, Amazon, Meta, or Apple.
With 2025 summer internships beginning to open with the approach of the new school year, we put together some tips on what you can do to improve your odds of getting a call back from a recruiter to get closer to landing your next internship.
Research Your Interested Field And Industry
First thing to do is research your interested field and industry. After discovering your career goal, research the type of roles and industries that you are interested in entering. Discover what kind of people are working in the industry, what they studied in college, and what kind of roles they took on before landing in that industry or field. You should also study the companies and the latest trends within the industry.
You can do some research on LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Cruchbase, TechCrunch, or major publications like the Wall Street Journal.
Your research will help you communicate your passion for the industry to the recruiter or the hiring manager, and stand out from the rest. Many hiring managers love to see your passion in the field and are always looking to learn the latest trends from interns that are not aware of.
Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
Even as a college student, it is vital that you establish your brand and voice early on LinkedIn to distinguish yourself from the rest and showcase your passion in the intended role or field. Begin your optimization by:
- Crafting your about section. Explain your passion, work or student organization experiences, and what kind of value you intend to bring to your next role.
- Listing your work experience or student organization involvements. For each experience, make sure to provide details about your impact using numerical details, such as “increased X% in sign-ups”
- Make sure to use action verbs in your explanations, using some of the words recommended by the Harvard Law School showcased below.
- Lastly, repost, share and comment on posts on Linkedin to voice your opinion on a matter that you are familiar with or have strong interest. Recruiter’s love to see passionate and well-spoken individuals on LinkedIn.
Optimize Your Resume
Before you apply to any internships, it is important to remember that
- Companies receive hundreds of resumes for each internship role, thousands if it is a popular program at a prestigious company.
- Companies deploy a tool known as Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to automatically sift through all the resumes to narrow down to a handful of resumes for review and consideration.
Therefore, it is vital that you
- Create a standout resume that follows best practices to make your resume “readable” to the ATS, a.k.a, “ATS Freindly”
- Tailor your resume closely to each role.
Making Your Resume ATS Friendly
Creating a “readable” resume and that’s ATS friendly starts with creating a perfectly formatted resume. There is
According to FAANG recruiters, it is best practice to order the resume by
- Summary
- Education
- Relevant Courses
- Honors & Awards (if any)
- Experiences
- Leadership & Volunteering (if any)
- Skills
The resume should have the basic information in the header that makes it easy for a recruiter to reach out to you, such as
- Location
- email (hyperlinked)
- phone number xxx-xxx-xxxx
- LinkedIn profile (hyperlinked)
Other details that you should consider incorporating into your resume include
- Using Ariel, Times New Roman, Helvetica
- CAPITALIZING the position, Italicizing the company, and Bolding both
Tailoring Your Resume to Each Role
So when you find an internship program or role that you are interested in applying, go through your resume to tailor these crucial items:
- Go back to your summary section and adjust your objective to fit the type of role and industry. Talk about your experiences and tied them together at the end in a way that communicates that you’ve been working to get into the selected field and industry.
- Adjust your explanations about your experiences to suit the role, and include keywords included in the job description, but do not falsify your experiences.
- Include descriptions about collaborating with different people, leading teams, and owning projects or initiatives.
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After your resume, your cover letter is going to be the most important material you are going to provide. It is also another opportunity to communicate your passion and experiences. It is vital that to tailor your cover letter to each internship program. Besides communicating your skills and experiences, tell a story on how you got to the point of applying to the internship.
The key to a great cover letter is having four big paragraphs.
- Opening Paragraph – State the exact role or program that you are interested in, and explain who you are (School you attend, major, year) and what brought you to apply (career goal, inspiration for going into the field).
- Second Paragraph – Provide details on your past experiences, regarding what you’ve done, what you accomplished, and what kind of impact you had on team and project. It can be experiences from past internship roles, part-time job, or student organizations.
- Third Paragraph – Provide details on your skills and expertise, and use them as evidence as to why you feel you are right for the internship role or program. You can talk about particular tools that you know how to use, a process that you are familiar with, or relevant courses.
- Concluding Paragraph – Restate your interested in the role, citing the experiences and coursework that you listed as reason, and indicate that you are confident that you are the perfect candidate for the role.
After writing the cover letter, make sure to review or have your peers critique it to remove any errors or gain new ideas on how you can improve your writing.
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Reach Out to Company Insiders & Network
Reach out to those already working at the company and network to have your resume sent to the right people. You can strategically use your alumni network and reach out to people that went to the same school or someone you connected with during a career fair, networking events, or simply on LinkedIn.
Sample LinkedIn Message that you can a to someone at the company
Hi [Name],
I wanted to connect because I’m interested in the [Intern position] at your company and would appreciate any help to let me get in touch with the right contact. Thank you!
Reaching out to an alumni on LinkedIn and having them share insights or refer you to the right person, or even provide a referral, can significantly improve your chances of getting that internship.
Sample LinkedIn Message that you can send to an alumni
As a fellow [school mascot], I am reaching out since I’m interested in interning at [Company] and would appreciate any tips or help to let me get in touch with the right contact. Thank you!
It is important to be direct with your message. After they connect with you, do the following:
- Start to establish a relationship and ask about their career path and how they got to their position.
- Communicate your goal, and talk about what kind of field you want to enter and what kind of things you want to do
- Ask for a referral after you built enough relationship, and thank them for any help or assistance.
Studies have shown that getting a referral can boost your chances of a call back by 4 times, compared to simply handing in your application online.
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Try the Insider Connections for FREEStay Up to Date With Latest Openings
It is important more than ever to be one of the first to apply to any internship openings. Internship opportunities are opening earlier than ever, with few summer internships for 2025 already opening in August of 2024. And many programs have application quotas, meaning once they get a set number of applications, the position will close. Therefore, it is vital that you keep your eyes peeled and use any resources to stay up to date with the latest internship openings in your interested field.
With intensifying competition, it is harder than ever to get any internship, whether its a full time or part time, paid or unpaid. But with the increasingly unpredictable economy, it is more vital than ever that you have an internship lined up so that you can develop your skills and have some experiences to make yourself competitive after college for an entry level position.
That’s why we made sure you are aware of the latest job openings with the comprehensive internship list at the top.
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