It’s Not Too Late to Find a Data Science Intern This Summer
Just as there are still data science jobs available, there are still opportunities for aspiring individuals to find a data science internship.
The road to becoming a data scientist is a long one and internships are an integral part of that journey. Data science requires a mix of problem-solving, hard skills, and soft skills that are difficult to learn online or in the classroom. Internships at hundreds of companies have provided invaluable first-hand experience for that.
Let’s look at the current state of data science internships during the time of COVID-19.
Companies are forced to cancel internships
The unfortunate truth for many summer 2020 internships is that many are being canceled, likely around half of them in fact, with companies citing reasons such as budget concerns, lack of in-person office space, and general logistic difficulties around their work-from-home format. Internships play a pivotal role in the future of many young adults, with more than half of recent grads saying that their internship helped them find a job after graduation.
Cause for concern for companies
The lack of internships doesn’t just affect young adults — it also affects companies looking to secure a talent pipeline for entry-level employees. Many internships provide real-world experience regardless of industry, and employers take their experience seriously, as the projects that young adults walk away with will show they can handle more than just classwork.
What can companies do now?
Just as with permanent jobs, some employers are switching their internships to virtual ones. Much of the work will be the same, just without the in-person aspect. There’s even room for micro-internships, which are less by-the-hour and more like mini-projects and contracting gigs. The result is the same for each party — companies get the help they need, and young adults get the experience on their resume.
We can help connect you with potential candidates and internships
A new initiative for this summer is for us to help companies create internships based on their specific needs and to help internship-seekers gain the experience they need. Regardless of a pandemic or not, there’s still a growing need for data science professionals who can learn the latest trends and to handle the growing amount of data incoming to every organization.
How you can get started
The first thing you need to do is to address the problems you need to solve and the ways that your company can benefit from a virtual intern. Do you need help cleaning data? Want someone to handle visualizations? There’s a lot of room for working with your data!
Secondly, if you need to persuade your boss a bit more, there are plenty of reasons why an intern might be the right decision to make. Things like growing your community, identifying junior data scientists to potentially bring on full-time, and even showing your goodwill and giving back to the community area great reasons why you should find an intern.
Hiring a data science intern can work wonders in many ways, and we want to help you with that. By filling out this form, we can help match you with hungry young data scientists looking to help an organization with their needs and to gain practical experience. We will work with your company directly and make sure that your needs are fulfilled and that we can create a stronger, broader data science community.
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