# How to get a Mechanical Engineering Internship

There are basically two options:
* Work at a big company
* Work at a small company

Lets go over what skill it takes to get into each, and the strategy one might use in order to apply well.

## How to get into a big company

Working at a big company is simple, you apply through the regular channels:
* LinkedIn
* Indeed.com
* Company website career pages
* Meet a recruiter at some campus event and speak w/ them

But what are big companies looking for in terms of skills, from mech interns?


### So what are the steps then?

1. Make a clean resume, reviewed by Namra that outlines your skills (formal or informal), well
2. If you get the feeling that the skills required by the bigger companies are out of your scope, see if its possible to get those skills in some formal fashion within 1-2 months, if not, its fine, you'll just have to work for some smaller company for now (a win if you ask me, big companies do nothing)
3. Apply to a shit ton of places using the channels listed above, you should aim for 50-500 applications depending on how bad you want this
4. If you get any interviews, prep for them by reviewing Mechanical Engineering interview videos on YouTube, but always remember to be honest in them. A recruiter is just an adult who needs to fill a skill gap in their company, they want to know, "can he do the job I need him to?" mainly, but also some vibe check type stuff as well—no need to BS

## Intermission

But, what if I don't have the formal skills/experience that is required by these larger companies, what then?

Just apply to smaller companies. The difference between the two is basically that smaller companies need to do actual work in order to survive, so they need genuinely skilled interns (if any interns at all). The larger companies have cash from 10+ years of being in business, so they're mostly just trying to fill some sort of corporate internship quota, hiring "diverse" and "qualified on paper" students rather than those with actual skill.

## How to get into a small company

The simple answer is (1) be skilled (2) send emails to the top people at the small company, but lets go through the steps.

1. Make a clean resume, reviewed by Namra that outlines your skills (formal or informal), well. You can talk more about your informal skills on a resume that a small company is going to see, they'll be more open to hearing "I did X, Y, and Z on my motorcycle last summer" than Boeing will be.
2. Learn how to use https://www.streak.com/, set it up with your Gmail and use the "Job Applications" template
3. Find companies you'd want to work at by:
* Going on the websites of Venture Capital firms (the firms that fund small companies), look at their portfolios, find companies in those portfolios that look like they might need mechanical engineering help
* Here is an example: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?industry=Industrials
* Let me know if you struggle to find more
* Find that company on LinkedIn
* Find a leader at that company that you think it makes sense to email, perhaps a hiring manager, or if the company is small enough, then the CEO or CTO
* Copy paste their name into https://rocketreach.co/
* This thing costs a bit of money, but this is how I got two jobs so maybe it'll be worth it for you too?
* The above website will give you their email(s), pick the most relevant one, take it to your Streak on Gmail, send them an email
* Basically tell them who you are: name, school, experience, why you're emailing them, and attach your resume
* Here is an example from my 2nd year. Basically, if you find a company you *actually* think is SICK, be honest and tell them what you think is sick about them, if you find one that seems decent but you dunno much about them, just tell them your general interests like I did below:

* Track these emails using Streak, follow up on them if you don't get a response in 1.5 weeks from send date like I did below:

* But wait, what skills do small companies look for?
* These are formal skills, but of course you should talk about your informal experience with fixing shit and mechanical stuff **if** it is relevant.

## Conclusion

That's all! The process is cumbersome, but your first internship will open doors for the next ones. Personally, I recommend doing the small company strategy early in the year (Nov-Dec), if it doesn't work at all (no replies, even after following up), then start using the big company strategy in December.

Keep me updated with how its going, if you're struggling somewhere, tell me early on, this stuff can be time sensitive so its best if we sort out issues early on.