I started applying to Software Engineering internships in August 2024 for Summer 2025 and recently wrapped up my recruiting season for Fall 2025. During this time, I've made 20+ iterations of my resume, recreated my personal portfolio twice and min-maxed every word, line and centimetre of space on my resume. It's gone through multiple resume reviews from upper-year CS students to new grads to senior software engineers and managers. This following comments is what helped me land my first internship.

Sankey Chart

I'll talk about how I built my resume, found jobs, networking, application processes and interview preparation for those still looking for their first. Take my advice with a grain of salt as I'm still far from complete. I have so much experience still to gain and things to learn.

1. Resume

1.1. Jake's resume

If you were like me when I first started, you probably used some resume template on Google Docs and had your resume over 2 pages. First things first, a resume should be one page, recruiters won't have the time to scroll down if they're receiving thousands and tens of thousands of applications per job listing. Keep it to one page.

Because it needs to be one page, you need to maximize the space on that one page to show your technical and soft skills. Hence if you haven't heard of Jake's resume, I'd highly recommend you to use it – it's also on Overleaf, so you'll need to learn a bit of LaTeX to put your information on, though it's pretty straightforward. It's just a tried and true template that looks professional and generally has all the sections that you need in a software engineering resume. This leads me to my next point.

1.2. Essential sections

The next information applies solely to if you're looking for software internships –as that's where my knowledge is– you will have to tailor highlighting certain parts of your application depending on your experiences.

1.2.1. Education

• Add GPA (4.0 scale) if it's 3.5+
• Add in relevant coursework, and up to you to keep it to one line or more
  • If you're just starting out, put beginner topics such as: Object-Oriented Programming, Data Structures & Algorithms, Computer Systems/Architecture, etc.
  • If you're more advanced and have taken "specialty courses", feel free to replace them with: Distributed Programming, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, etc.
• Add in any current and past student involvements - this is up to you, some recruiters like it when you're active outside of career, personal projects and school so IMO it's never a negative
  • Student clubs, brotherhoods, volunteering, research, teaching assistant
• Add scholarships or awards if you've done anything impressive or note-worthy, especially in the computer science industry
  • Research awards, scholarship for x class, top x in faculty, dean's honour list
• ALWAYS ADD EXPECTED GRADUATION DATE
  • In my experience, I found that a lot of recruiters love targeting 3+ years, regardless of how advanced your experience is and it's probably due to them looking for students willing to return as new grads.

1.2.2. Technical Skills Some people add a bunch of skills to hit all the keywords for the ATS. One time, I got feedback from a recruiter that despite me having Python in my technical skills section, he didn't see it at all through my resume because I hadn't built anything. Moral of the story: Keep your skills languages focused on what is displayed on your resume.

Also if you get more advanced/specialized, it's more than okay to focus on the skills you know in depth (e.g. testing libraries for QA, deployment tools for DevOps, etc.). Don't worry about this if you're starting this out.

1.2.3. Experiences Relevant experience/paid experience includes any experiences that is directly relevant (e.g. SWE Intern, Data Intern, etc) and any that is paid.

It's important to distinguish this from your volunteer experience such as web developer for a student club and any other leadership roles since it diminishes your impact in those "real" and relevant experiences.

You don't have to add a section on extracurricular experience if you don't have any, adding more projects is a good alternative.

Depending on the prestige of your companies and the position of your roles, it might be better to put the company at the title if you have good companies eh-relevant positions or the position at the title if you have relevant positions but unknown/small start-up companies. If both are good, it doesn't matter what you put.

Bold key words, use quantitative measurements as much as you can and follow RATS-style statements (get ChatGPT to help you if you need). If you really want to min-max the space on your resume, play around with the sentencing structure to make sure it's exactly 1 line, or 1.5-2 lines per resume point.

1.2.4. Projects In general, to land your first internship, you should include 1-3 (or more if you're lacking work experience) projects that display a vast variety of skills, different technologies such as cloud, databases and frameworks.

• 1st bullet point should ALWAYS be a one-liner description of the project and some general technologies you used to build it.
• Other bullet points should highlight one aspect (e.g. WebSockets, caching, JWT, etc.) of the project
• Again bold key words, use quantitative measurements and follow RATS (although sometimes you won't have a result which is fine)

Where possible, include:

• Any accomplishments (e.g. if you've won a hackathon, raised funding, have x users in x months, etc.)
• GitHub links
• Live demo links

Some people say that dates for a project is quite important, although I don't necessarily see the need to add it, maybe it's to see how relevant it is and how long ago it was made.

1.2.5. Formatting Depending on what you want to highlight, put it on the top.

• If you lack experience, put projects or technical skills at the top.
• If you go to a target school, put education first.
• If you're graduated, education doesn't matter as much and can be moved down.

A general flow should look like: Education -> Work Experience -> Extracurricular Experience (optional) -> Projects -> Technical Skills

Additional notes:

• Make sure everything is consistent, if you use dates, either do full months names or just the first 3 letters.
• Location is almost always City, State
• Add periods at the end of your resume bullet points so the ATS can scrape it correctly.

Last tip: Get lots of feedback from other people, constantly. Your resume should always change as you build, add more projects, and gain more experience. You want to make sure it's tip-top shape especially when recruiting season comes.

2. Where I applied

Spray and pray. I like to use this strategy since it worked for me.

• Follow LinkedIn influencers/popular recruiters/newsletters
  • zero2sudo on Instagram
    • Senior SWE that just has a massive student community on recruitment
  • InternInsider
  • Literally anyone else but the others are enough TBH
• GitHub - check everyday and apply ASAP for the best chance since there are so many applicants
  • Vanshb03
  • Simplify
  • Canadian Tech Internships
• Tech Career North
  • Canadian Discord server that scrapes information online
• LinkedIn 24 hours
  • Go to LinkedIn, search up your job title (e.g. software), click on Jobs, and last 24 hours (add a location preference if you have one)
  • Go through the list everyday

3. Application Pipeline

First, whenever you get an interview, document EVERYTHING. The JD, dates of when they reached out, any information they give you.

3.1. Mark43

The first interview I received which came out of cold-emailing and was for Summer 2025 in the Software Engineering pipeline. Funny enough, they first replied to my cold-email if I was interested in the iOS role and I wasn't since I was interested in SWE. A few weeks later they got back to me to start the SWE pipeline. I related their company mission to my experience staffing as a cadet in the Department of National Defense.

Below are the rounds and dates of each:

• Dec 10, 2024 - Application
• Dec 11, 2024 - Cold Email
  • Replied and forwarded to the SWE pipeline
• Jan 2, 2025 - Round 1
  • Technical: Algorithms
  • 45-minutes LC-easy
• Jan 13, 2025 - Round 2
  • Technical: Frontend
  • 45-minutes Design a React slide-show
• Jan 21, 2025 - Round 3
  • Virtual Onsite
  • 1-hour behavioural
    • How do you have work-life balance while working remotely?
  • 1-hour Java debugging
• Jan 27, 2025 - Final
  • Hiring Manager
  • 30-minutes talk about your resume
• Mar 31, 2025 - Rejection
  • Apparently delayed due to budgeting issues and they ended up going with another candidate instead :(

Pay was $35 CAD/hour for 4 months in the summer and was remote. They create software for law-enforcement including emergency call dispatch and a database platform service for incidents.

3.2. De Havilland Aircraft

The second interview I got, once again through cold-email shortly after finishing my Mark43 interviews. I heavily related to company mission to my air cadet background.

• Feb 19, 2025 - Application
• Feb 19, 2025 - Cold Email
• Feb 25, 2025 - Round 1
  • Phone Screen
  • 30-minutes, behavioural + trivia questions about PowerBI, dashboards
• Mar 4, 2025 - Final
  • Final with two interviewers
  • 45-minutes, behavioural + trivia questions
• Mar 11, 2025 - Rejection
  • Asked for feedback from one of the interviewers. Interviewer said not to change anything since I was a good candidate and they gave the position to an internal transfer?

Pay was $25 CAD/hour for 4 months in the summer and was in Calgary. They create software for in-house assembled specialized aircraft models.

3.3. Circuit Stream

This was not really a software engineer position but more of a teaching assistant/summer camp counselor that I decided to do just to make some money and get some work experience. Regardless I was forwarded to the Vancouver pipeline despite originally applying for Calgary –to which the Vancouver position had way better responsibilities than the Calgary one. I think the Calgary position taught maybe like 2 courses per intake and most courses were geared towards elementary students while the Vancouver had an older demographic and more advanced courses like AI/ML and Raspberry Pi.

• Apr 17, 2025 - Application
• Apr 17, 2025 - Cold Email
• Apr 29, 2025 - Round 1
  • Behavioural
  • 45-minutes, behavioural with the recruiter
• May 7, 2025 - Final
  • Final with scenario demo + two interviewers
  • 45-minutes, behavioural + teaching demo
• May 8, 2025 - Offer

I took this offer while taking 3 summer courses, Business Communications, Relational Databases and Software Engineering and it was honestly worth it since I got to make some money while achieving pretty good grades in the courses I took. Would recommend as a side hustle.

Pay was $19 CAD/hour for 6-weeks and was Vancouver. They create boot camp and upskilling courses for adults and students.

3.4. TD Securities

Crazy story, wasn't even applying for roles outside of Vancouver and Calgary but for some reason I applied to this job? Ended up getting the offer day of.

• Apr 29, 2025 - Application
• Apr 29, 2025 - Cold Email
• May 8, 2025 - Round 1
  • Phone Screen
  • 30-minutes, behavioural + walk me through your resume
• Jun 5, 2025 - Final
  • 30-minutes, behavioural + trivia with hiring manager
• Jun 5, 2025 - Offer

Pay was $29 CAD/hour for 4 months in the fall and was in Toronto. No relocation bonuses and apparently could negotiate salary. I ended up taking this offer over Planview and the team that I was forward deployed to, created an internal trading tool to help quantitative traders view intraday risk.

3.5. Planview - Hub Team

Planview hires by team, similar to Tesla and TikTok where each team has their own application. I applied both regularly and through the co-op portal and this was the only interview process that I received and wrote a cover letter for. Also got the offer day-of.

• May 15, 2025 - Application
• Jun 9, 2025 - Final Interview
  • 60-minutes, behavioural, trivia, LC-easy
  • Grilled my resume and every bullet point I put on there
  • State time and space complexity before they even ask, impressed them
• Jun 9, 2025 - Offer

Pay was $21 CAD/hour for 8 months in the fall and was in Vancouver. I decided to take TD over Planview despite Planview being a software company (they make project management software) because I wanted to grow in a new city and 4 months provided a lot more flexibility than 8. Pay did play a bit of a factor as I tried to negotiate with Planview to match my TD offer, which apparently you are not allowed to do according to the co-op guidelines. I wasn't aware of it and negotiating probably severed the relationship. I also tried moving the start dates to after TD ended but they weren't open to that either. Moral of the story: read your co-op guidelines. I didn't read it because I didn't think I would get an offer LOL.

Final Thoughts

Anyways I hope this helps. I decided to document my journey to help other people land their first internship. Remember to ask for lots of help from people with more experience. I've had countless mentors spend hours mocking me and preparing me for these interviews and eventually "your success will be inevitable." Don't take every rejection to heart.

Some doors won't open but it doesn't mean the other doors down the hall won't open as well. You just have to keep walking.