7 Ways to stand out as an Intern

My learnings from a failed internship at Amazon, and managing 4 interns in my career

When I was an intern, I failed miserably. I was not able to ramp up fast and was definitely a below average intern. The performance was reflected in my review as well and I did not get a return offer.

From my university, 12 people interned at Amazon from my batch and only one of them did not get an offer. No points for guessing !

Bonus : I also added a picture of my internship at the end

But as Nelson Mandela said

Do not judge me by my successes; judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.

Over my career of 6 years, I got an opportunity to manage and mentor 4 interns, all of them were able to get exceeds ratings. I learned from them during the process and made a note of things I missed in my internship.

Bookkeeping: If you see this email go to the promotions tab in gmail then move it to Primary

Learn Important Stuff Before Hand

• Learn skills like Git, working on IDE, understanding the agile processes if the company uses it so you don’t waste time on these things which can be learnt before your internship starts.

• Get an idea from your mentor or manager what programming language or tools you will be working with. Get a good understanding of these so you are all set to focus on the most impactful things.

Ask Questions and seek help

• Don’t let feeling overwhelmed stop you from seeking clarification. Get a good understanding of your project, company culture, performance evaluation in your first week. Always ask questions in first few weeks.

• Avoid making costly mistakes by asking for guidance. Time box yourself when trying to debug or find an answer. If you are not able to make progress, ask your peers or mentor and get unblocked.

Be Proactive

• Always go one step above and beyond. Show initiative and take on new challenges. You want to come up as a passionate learner who is jack of all trades.

• Suggest new projects or ways to improve existing processes. If you faced any issue in onboarding, documentation etc, share it with them and suggest how it can be better.

Do not repeat same mistakes

• As an intern, you will make many mistakes - code quality, problem solving, breaking prod etc. All this is part of your growth journey. But make sure you are always making new mistakes.

• Repeating same mistakes in code reviews and not improving even after a constructive feedback can be seen as a hige red flag.

Always Overcommunicate

• Always take the lead in keeping your manager or mentor updated on your work, any issues, or doubts you have. Don't be shy to ask for assistance if needed.

• Share your work and make it visible. If you hit a milestone in your project, make a post or give a demo to team members. Make your team a part of your internship journey and get their feedback.

Keep Track of your work

• Keep a brag document about things which you feel you learnt or accomplished. You can share highlights from the document with your team every week.

• The same document can then be translated into your self review which you write at the end of internship. You don’t need to revisit from the start and remember things at end.

Ask for Feedback

• Always ask for more feedback, especially from your manager and mentor. Get signals from them how well you are performing and whether you are on track or not.

• Work on the feedback they provide and show growth. Everyone loves an intern who has shown growth. This makes the company feel that you can always learn and improve.

Here is a picture from my internship in 2017

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Any idea what should I write about ? Reach out : hemant.pandey17@gmail.com

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