Internship Search Diaries Ep. 3 | getting an interview and cold emailing over 40 people

because most of the time companies or like startups are very willing to create a role for you. Guys, I just finished with the interview! Good morning everyone! So it is Monday and we're starting off the week with some cold emailing. I'm actually gonna set this timer. I have this really cool Pomodoro like timer that I got from a friend. He made this, like you guys, he made this little Pomodoro timer. There's 25 minutes on the clock and I will just take 25 minutes of just like cold emailing companies this morning and then we will start our day. So let's do this. Okay guys, just finished with 25 minutes of cold outreach. I feel like 25 minutes went by so quickly. Now this timer is saying there is, um, a 4-minute break. There's 2 minutes left. It's super cool. This little Pomodoro timer also came with these like tabs right here, paper tabs where you can pretty much like write your to-do list. And so here I just have cold emails for now, but I'm gonna keep adding it as soon as I do more tasks. Anyways, there's like 2 minutes on the clock. I'll just quickly talk to you guys about what I was doing. So I was pretty much doing cold outreach. One of my— the people that goes to my university and that we follow each other, she actually reached out to me and gave me some super cool advice. How she managed to find a job in San Francisco was pretty much she went on Wellfound, which is like a job board, and she was searching up all these like startups and companies that were actively hiring. And as soon as she found companies that, that seemed interesting to her she went on LinkedIn and searched up those companies there, and she followed people that work at that company, and she would pretty much reach out to employees from that company, and she would ask them if they were hiring interns. She would pretty much state that she's a creative, like, driven jack of all trades, and then she'd give, like, kind of her experience. And that's what I'm doing. I'm doing a very similar thing because she said she managed to find a job like that. So you don't have to look for companies that are hiring interns because most of the time companies or like startups are very willing to create a role for you. I did get a response from someone that works at a company in Toronto. It's not San Francisco, but he told me that he'll reach out to his supervisor and talk to the supervisor on Monday. And so I'll follow up with him today to see kind of if he's had the chance to talk with the team. I'm in the car on the way to school. By the way, we actually got a new car. You guys can't tell if you guys didn't see my previous video, then you wouldn't have known, but the car we had, we got in a car crash, so we had to like change the car completely. So this is the new one and it's super cool. I'm taking a little pause in applications and focusing on reaching out to people instead because I feel much more confident about securing a job through that process. On the ION train today, instead of listening to music, I listened to an audio recording of the most recent coffee chat I had with an employee from a British Columbia investment company. I re-listened to it because I actually have an interview with them this week, so just wanted to take some notes and prep. Hey guys, I'm in the washroom of my favorite work area ever. I'm about to head upstairs to Velocity Digital and start working there. Today's gonna be a productive day. I am planning on doing some psychology studying, and then I have a little meetup with a friend, and after that I'm gonna go and do a gym workout. I started off with some schoolwork just to get that over with. I was working on my organizational psychology course, which has been super interesting so far, learning how people think and act in organizations is useful for me and complements my internship experiences. After that, instead of going to the gym, I actually decided to tag along with some Socratica people to check out some venues for our craziest, most biggest event yet that's happening in winter 2025. Guys, I'm telling you the truth, it's been 6 whole months since I've stepped into an actual gym. I've mostly just been running and doing home workouts, but I've recently been wanting to get back into weightlifting and using gym equipment, mostly since I've been feeling really stagnant with my fitness journey lately and I've been wanting to make some changes. But I also don't have a gym plan that I'm following. I've just been having fun using the different machines, and I think I prefer starting with that rather than a structured gym plan, but we'll see. I think eventually I'll have some sort of routine that I'll stick with. I then went to my classes, which I have been trying to be a little bit more consistent with attending. I do still skip sometimes, but I've only been skipping one class, and my other 3 classes I have been attending regularly, so that's really good news. If I don't make it a habit of attending classes, then I'm definitely going to feel really behind and lost, which I have been feeling bits of already. After going to my first class, I went to the engineering building to study some more before my next class, but I was feeling pretty sick and it was hard for me to focus, so I decided to go home a little earlier today, and I ended up going to bed and sleeping for a few hours. Even though I hate being sick, a part of me also likes how it forces me to rest, which is something that's hard for me to do on my own will. Together, me and you forever. Hey guys, so I slept for like 4 hours. I went to bed at like 1 PM and woke up at 4. So yeah, I got some good rest. I'm gonna go to bed in a bit again, but before that I actually want to go through some of my psychology notes because I have a psychology exam coming up pretty much in a week, and I actually haven't really fully started studying for it. So I want to review all my notes before going to bed. I did also end up reaching out to more people on LinkedIn for cold emails, and a few people responded, but the responses weren't, weren't anything like good. They pretty much just told me they're currently like not hiring for, for marketing, social media, communication roles, just like engineering roles. So that's super unfortunate. This is why I really wish I had the brains to be an engineer, because there's just so many opportunities for that. But anyways, I'm not gonna let that stop me. I'm gonna continue reaching out. Um, I do have an interview on Thursday too, so I should be excited for that. Never know, might be the job I end up getting if I don't find anything else. So yeah, hello guys, it is time to do some more interview prep. I just finished with my walk and I'm now— I'm just gonna kind of take some notes down, um, maybe write down some questions I want to ask in this interview and just gonna like do some final prep. And then we will do some— I have to apply for this hackathon that I want to participate in. And yeah, and I'm also going to use my amazing Pomodoro timer actually Write down things I want to accomplish today, and I'm going to put it right here, and I'm going to click play. This is for 90 minutes because I want to do one like deep focus work. Hey guys, so I just finished filming the LinkedIn video, which actually was giving really great interview advice, which you guys will see on the screen right here. I was sick in bed all day yesterday, but I have an interview that's coming up that I had to prep for, which is happening today. And so I was scrolling through LinkedIn and I found this really great piece of advice I'm going to implement, which is within the first 10 minutes, ask this question: What is the first project I'll be working on in this role? Asking this question is really going to help set the tone of how the whole interview will play out, and you'll really be able to customize customize the answers you give about your life, your skills and experiences to match this first project. And it'll also give the supervisor, whoever's interviewing you, a better understanding and idea of how you'll be like coming into this role. And lastly, it'll just make you a lot more confident with how you formulate your answers. So yeah, I'm going to be using this question. You guys will have to stay tuned for my YouTube video to see how it turns out, and I'm looking forward to updating all of you. So yeah, I'm going to be trying out this advice today, and you guys will stay tuned after the interview to see how it goes. But I have an hour left before my interview starts, and so during this hour I'm just gonna unwind because like I'm kind of like, my head hurts, kind of hurts from like talking so much. But so I'm gonna just unwind for this next hour and just work on my hackathon application, which I haven't started yet and it's due tomorrow. So I just want to get some good progress on that, and, and I'll see you guys in an hour for the interview. Hi, Ru! Hi, Julia! Hey! Ooh, this is a really cool setup. This is the meet room, actually. It's right behind the internal communication spot, so there's about 5 or 6 of us, and we're just behind these doors. That's so sick! Yeah, you can go to water with Yeah, right. Guys, I just finished with the interview. Do you guys see the big smile on my face? It went so well, it was so good, guys. Oh my God, that was so fun. It's crazy to say that I actually enjoy interviews, like they're so fun. Just talking about yourself is so much fun, and just hearing about— I don't know, it's just really cool. I think it went really well. I always voice record my interviews, so right now I'm just gonna send her a follow-up email saying thank you for this interview opportunity. Yeah, but we won't stop there, guys. I'm still searching for other jobs, of course, because you never know, another opportunity may be, may be coming. So yeah, I'm not saying that this is like the job I'm, I'm getting, but I'm gonna say that the interview went super well. Also, yay guys, I just submitted my hackathon application form, so that is finished. And a lot of the things on the to-do list have been completed. Yeah, you guys, I just have two things left, which is go to class, which I'm going to be going at 2:00 right now, and I have to keep adding to mood board for branding for Makers Collective. So yeah, but pretty good progress. I then head to my business class today, which is probably my favorite class this term. Pretty much this class is all about building your own venture, and I've been focusing on building Makers Collective, which is a community me and a few friends are running where you work on one idea for 4 weeks. This business class is also super fun because our prof brings us free dinner, and this week it was a falafel wrap, which I ended up eating after the class ended. Hey guys, I just came to campus and I'm about to head to the event. Lowkey I'm filming in the washroom because it's the only place I feel comfortable filming at. But yeah, I'm about to head out to the event. It doesn't start until, um, like an hour or so, so I still have some time to study psychology notes which I brought in my backpack. So I'm going to do that. And yeah, excited for the event. I'll definitely show you guys some clips of it. By the way, I also filmed a LinkedIn video in this washroom right here. I have I have so many like thoughts and tips and advice on job search like spiraling in my head, I really just want to like record it. So I've been just like literally recording like random LinkedIn videos at any hour of the day, and I've been posting them on LinkedIn. So guys, check them out if you guys want more like job tips and all that, because I've been grinding on there for sure. This now also wraps up episode 3 of my internship search diaries. And here was my progress this week. I cold messaged over 40 people using a new cold emailing tactic introduced by a friend. I completed my first interview call that I think went so well. I started posting more consistently on LinkedIn about job search and interview tips advice. And this week I also took a break from applying through company websites.