

Ask HN: Should I Accept or not this internship opportunity ? - dreur

I'm doing an internship in a big international company in Europ and they just offered me to do my next internship with them.<p>Knowing that :<p>* I'm in my first year of university in computer science in Canada in a Coop program (4 months internship / 4 months of courses) and that I still have 2 internships left to do<p>* That my parents are in that same country<p>* That it might be difficult to find internships back in Canada due to the difficult economic time.<p>* That I would prefer to find an internship in Ottawa, Canada to be near my girlfriend, to practice my english and to possibly do my internship in a startup (or in that same company if possible - but not as interesting as the work offered in europ)<p>What do you think of my situation ?
What should I answer ?<p>Thanks for your advice
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jchor
Do u go to Waterloo? I'm an alumn there and have been through this many times.

My advice is that your first few jobs are very important. I have done
countless interviews (as an interviewer) myself and when it comes to selecting
students to interview, the coversheet with the companies you worked for and
the titles on them usually count the most. So if you want to be a dev and get
leg up on the competition then make sure that you get a dev job as soon as you
can and this way you can jump ahead of the curve. I have seen a lot of people
take an IT job early in their co-op careers and they paid for that mistake
later. But all said and done, no matter what happens its what you make of it.
Let me know if you want some hints on how to get noticed. There area lot of
things that you can do to stand-out and get noticed.

In principle, here are the basic 3 steps.

1\. Submit kick-ass resume that gets noticed and selected. 2\. Interview for
the job. 3\. Negotiate terms of your offer. This is more-so for FTE, but
interns can negotiate a lot of things too if they choose to do so.

To answer your question though, do you think that this company can help you
learn and explore an area that you are interested in? If so, then go for it.
Co-op is the time to explore and really go out there and try things out with
little risk and to network. My biggest regret from my co-op was not going to
Europe, Japan, and other places for opportunities. I did 5/6 of my internships
in the US and I felt that really hampered the opportunities that I would have
had now if I went further out.

Good Luck!

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frossie
We use Canadian co-ops at our shop. Being offered a second internship at the
same place is a big compliment - we only offer a second term to the best
students. Doing a second co-op in the same company has certain practical
advantages (eg. minimising your moving costs) but also professional
advantages: it allows you to deepen your expertise, and it makes you more
memorable to the people who work there - I am still writing references for co-
ops we had years ago, and one 2-term co-op now has a permanent position with
us.

If your main concern is whether you will be able to secure an internship in
Canada, you should raise this issue with your co-op co-ordinator at your
University - s/he will know whether they are successfully placing all the
students or not.

I have no advice about the girlfriend situation :-)

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tjic
When do you have to decide?

How much looking have you done for an internship in Canada?

~~~
dreur
Will have to decide within a week.

I haven't done any searching yet except sending my cv to that company division
in Canada to be told I have to go through the standard way (sending my cv by
their website) to apply for an internship even if I already worked there.

I still have a little more than 4 months to find an internship.

~~~
tjic
> I haven't done any searching yet except sending my cv to that company
> division in Canada to be told I have to go through the standard way (sending
> my cv by their website) to apply for an internship even if I already worked
> there.

Make your own success.

Find out who approves interns, and reach out to that person. Tell me "You've
got six days to make this happen".

I spent far too much of my life following the rules.

The chutes and ramps are for the cattle.

Most people are cattle, so organizations that want to deal with lots of people
use chutes and ramps.

However, most organizations also are willing to work with a rock star, a rule
breaker, and someone who makes his own luck.

On that note: good luck!

