Interns, Where are You?

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Posted by ken in Grab Bag at 09:31 | Wednesday, August 22. 2007

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When the PC-Doctor engineering office was in Davis, CA, between 2000 and 2003, we had a steady flow of top-notch software development interns. When we posted for them we could pick from numerous great candidates. The interns worked 15 to 20 hours per week during the year - tough as a CS student, but if you need to work or want great experience, internships are great. Several of our interns became full-time employees. This arrangement was great for everyone. The interns were paid very well ($15+ /hr) to do professional software development. The benefit to students is amazing, as the top differentiator between recent grads in an interview is experience as a professional software development intern. Although the interns had a lot to learn, they were productive and helpful on key projects. We got to Ã¢Â?Â?test driveÃ¢Â?Â? them and had a pool to draw from when we needed full-time employees.

In 2003 PC-Doctor moved to Reno, NV and getting interns has been much harder. A lot has changed since 2000-2003. The job market is much tighter. We are drawing from UNR instead of from UCD. UCD has a bigger and better CS program and, since Davis is a small town, internships are sought-after. On the other hand, PC-Doctor is a bigger fish at UNR and some of my top engineers are UNR alum, so I know top-notch talent comes form UNR. I am puzzled as to why more interns have not applied for our internships and made it through our hiring process. The benefits to all are amazing. We have posted on www.pc-doctor.com and the UNR web site, and we have participated in every career fair since we moved to Reno. Our hiring process is tough but realistic. We understand what students know.

Any ideas on how to get more interns. OR, if you are looking for an internship or know someone who is, let me know.

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In the start of this Summer 2007 I was seriously looking for an internship. But unfortunately I did not hear about PC-DOCTOR Internship. So I personally think trying to make the information reach a wider audience might help.

#1 Suresh on 2007-08-23 01:42

To be perfectly honest you need to analyze who your targeting a bit more. If you want interns from UNR then going to the career fair is a good start, but frankly not enough. I've seen the PC-Doc internship notice on a couple of UNR websites, but there is a lack of info that has kept me from being interested. The UNR scene is pretty nice for an up and coming dev because there are so many choices but they are usually through professors so my suggestion would to sell your internship to a couple of professors, mainly in the CPE dept because besides a certain slot machine company i wont name there is a void of computer engineering work. Personally I am a senior computer engineering student at UNR, i'm currently developing a C# game on the Xbox 360 and my current employment status is Web Developer/Sys Admin doing mainly Ruby on Rails work. Feel free to contact me.

#2 Darren Johnson on 2007-09-19 11:17

PC-Doctor does partake in the UNR Career Fairs as well as posting to the UNR job board. Part of the problem isn't that the professors don't cater to every business that wants an intern; the problem is that students at UNR tend to not take the initiative to go look for internships themselves. As you seem to have found these internship postings, why not take the initiative and investigate further? http://www.pc-doctor.com/ is our company website where it is fully described what we do and what job listings (and descriptions) are posted.

You sound as though you have some good experience. Feel free to send your resume as we're always looking for more engineers! For more job information, please visit http://www.pc-doctor.com/careers.php.

#3 eric on 2007-09-20 10:30

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