The biggest mistake devs make when looking for an internship or apprenticeship

With the current health crisis and the growing popularity of bootcamps for becoming a developer in one year, the job market for juniors has been completely turned upside down.

We now find ourselves with a much higher number of inexperienced developers and with companies that are even more afraid of taking risks.

Finding an internship has never been as easy as snapping your fingers, but today some developers send up to several hundred applications just to be able to validate their diploma.

And for work-study programs (alternance), the journey is often even harder, despite state support.

Nevertheless, in all the internship and work-study searches I see every day on social media and in my inbox, there's one mistake that 90% of devs make!

That mistake is... not treating their internship or work-study search as a real job search.

What does that mean?

This means that many devs keep a student posture, someone who needs help, rather than adopting the posture of a developer who knows how to do things and who brings value.

The messages I see emphasize the need to find an internship or work-study position quickly, rather than highlighting their skills, their aspirations, and their motivations.

Many even forget that an internship or work-study position is an investment for a company, and even if the pay is more advantageous, it requires more supervision and support from colleagues, and therefore more man-hours.

And in a company, time is money.

As with any investment, you need to succeed in minimizing the risk so that the company takes the leap, and that's your job:

You need to prove skills, what you know how to do, what you've already done with projects, code, and screenshots.

You need to show a mindset, motivation, a thirst for learning, a capacity to learn, and soft skills.

You need to know how to create an attractive LinkedIn profile, a resume that builds confidence, and a cover letter that makes people want to hire you!

In short: in 2021, to find an internship or work-study position as a dev, you need nothing less than knowing how to sell yourself, just like finding a job.