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Ask HN: I want to work at your company as an intern. How do I approach you?

1 points by lycidas ↗ HN
Hey Hacker News,

I am a college student in CS looking to work at a startup this summer. I go to a good college, but few startups recruit through our on campus recruiting system (probably due to the fact that they do not need that many interns). If you were a start up, how would you liked to be approached?

I have experience with a few side projects in Rails, Coffeescript, and other web technologies. Right now, when I find a start up that I want to work for, I try to find a friend who has worked / interned there before and get a referral. But the problem is with start ups I know no one at. I usually try to find a human that I can email and then ask them if they are looking for interns and provide some past side projects I have worked on as proof that I can code. But I find this code approach usually a lot less effective. Is there a better way I can be doing this?

Thanks a bunch in advance!

3 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 16.6 ms ] thread
sebg
Make a list of 5 growing startups you would want to work for as an intern. Then make a list of 10 things each of those 5 startup could be doing that would help them that you can do for them that would take you a weekend. Send them the list and offer to do one of them for free next weekend. Start the process over again the following week.

Also - read this => http://charliehoehn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Recession...

lycidas
Providing actual values sounds like a great idea to stand out. I would like to hear if you have tried this yourself or seen it done before. What was the result?
sebg
One way to answer to my earlier comment is to say something along the following:

"sounds good. i'll come up with a list and write to 5 of them this week. i'm excited to see how this works. also - is it okay to share with you the results? (I saw that your email is in your hn profile)."

Another way to answer is is to say something along the following:

"I would like to hear if you have tried this yourself or seen it done before. What was the result?"

Which way do you think would work better and would get you more help?