SF Summer Intern Program: Kick Off Event Re-Cap

For a long time, students participating in summer internships have asked us for ways to meet other students. We know that one of the key goals summer interns have is to meet as many people as they can with similar interests. Passionate about helping interns in every step of their blooming professional journey, we created the SF Summer Intern Program to connect interns like never before.

This past Saturday WayUp kicked off the first event. As a first of its kind for us, the event proved to be a huge success! Over 40 interns and visitors from around the Bay took over our headquarters to watch the Euro Cup, eat their hearts out in pizza, and above all, make valuable connections between the places and people they are interning with in the city.

We’re excited to have had such a success with our first event. Here are some of the insights we took from this weekend:

All Mingling, No Soccer

Being that this was our first event of the summer, we learned a lot about what students are interested in. For one thing, despite the event initially being built around the Euro Cup, it turned into a non-stop “internmingle” (thanks Aki from Path for the word). Despite the lack of rivalry between Czech Republic and Poland, it still surprised us that conversation between students filled the room more than hooligan soccer chants from the game. Chats ranged from problems interns were solving at their office, to TechCrunch news, to local foodie joints.

Big and Small Companies Alike!

We owe a giant thanks to everyone who came out (shout out to Klout for showing up in big numbers). One of the most interesting results of the event was the spectrum of companies who were represented. We knew students at smaller companies who often crave a wider network of connections and opportunities, would be excited by such events. What we didn’t expect was to see as many interns as we did from bigger companies like Google and Zynga who already have large intern classes and robust event schedules — clearly students want to not only meet other interns, but interns from a range of companies.

A Great Time

The ultimate goal of this event was to have fun and it was certainly accomplished! We enjoyed hosting an awesome group of interns and watching new friendships build in front of us. And yes, everyone eventually got into the Euro Cup match! Some rooted and some groaned as Czech Republic took the lead over Poland. No matter the team affiliation, it was easy to see that every intern walked away from our headquarters a winner with fresh connections, new friends with common interests, and a belly full of hot pizza. With events coming up as part of our SF Summer Intern Program, we have a hunch you’ll all be BFFs by the end of the summer!

If you missed out on Saturday, keep your eyes peeled on your inbox for upcoming SF Summer Intern Program events! Here are some pics we snapped. Check out the rest on our Facebook page.

SF Summer Program: Euro Cup Kick Off Event

This Saturday kicks off the first event of WayUp SF Summer Intern Program!

Our very own office in SoMa will be taken over by interns from across the Bay area to watch a screening of the 2012 Euro Cup: Czech Republic v. Poland while munching on free pizza and sparking some good ol’ fashion mingling.

Did you know soccer is the most popular and fastest growing sport in the world? This year’s 2012 Euro Cup will feature 16 of the most talented European nations going face to face in a month-long soccer tournament. Over 3 billion people will tune in and root for their favorite team. (Viva España!)

3 Summer Internships You Don’t Wanna Miss

Summer internship season is just kicking off! Are you tired of hearing your friends and family ask about you summer job plans? Well don’t panic if you haven’t found your perfect internship yet, because there are still plenty of awesome companies recruiting for their summer internship programs.

Below are a few that you don’t want to miss.

Top Hat Monocle – Campus Business Development Associate

Top Hat Monocle is a web-based classroom response system that’s revolutionizing the way students and professors communicate with each other in class. They’re looking for a few awesome students to expand their real time mobile app across college campuses. This position is perfect for a student staying on campus and taking classes for the summer!

The perks aren’t bad either: sales commission, work remotely, weekly video conferencing with top-notch Silicon Valley thought leaders, an awesome letter of recommendation and the opportunity for a full-time position for the right candidate. Apply

MyGengo – Marketing Internship & Project Management Internship

As technology makes the world feel closer, our need to communicate with each other becomes that much more important. MyGengo provides high-volume language translation services for businesses to reach global customers. Their business isn’t the only thing that’s global, so are their internship! Students can choose from Marketing or Project Management Internships in their San Mateo, California or Tokyo, Japan offices.

Perks: Paid, get your foot in the door at a growing start up and the chance to learn from an awesome team, compensation, housing stipend (Tokyo) and the opportunity to take ownership of projects and ideas. Apply

Twilio – Community and Marketing Content Intern

Twilio is a well-funded (Bessemer Venture Partners, Union Square Ventures, 500 Startups, Mitch Kapor & more) San Francisco-based startup with a pay-as-you-go service that empowers developers to build voice and SMS apps. They’re looking to hire a budding social media guru as an intern on their Marketing team. The ideal candidate is a great writer, knows a thing or two about APIs, comfortable with HTML, social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Quora) and has a blog of their own to prove it.

Perks: Paid, an Amazon Kindle on your first day, catered lunches, commuter benefits and awesome equipment to work on (Apple hardware) – just to name a few! Apply

No Fog in Sight: My First Week as an Intern in SF

There is an art to moving to a new city. Whether it’s for a season or for the foreseeable future for a full-time job, the amount of time it takes to settle in can vary greatly depending on the way you approach the move. In your first week, focus not on the events themselves, but how you face these events. Having a bright and optimistic attitude will go far in getting you connected with some really fascinating people – and trust me, there are a lot here!

Last Tuesday, I landed in SFO to start a new internship with not only two mammoth suitcases, but an air of pure exhilaration – an air much more pleasant than the blazing, sticky summers I’m used to in North Carolina. All I could think of were my firsts: my first time away from home for an entire summer, my first time in San Francisco, and most importantly, my very first internship – a giant step towards creating my future career. I quickly realized it was essential to take any anxiety or hesitancy and tweak it into a positive outlook on all that this summer has to offer. A sense of “emotional entrepreneurship” if you will – transforming nervous jitters into adrenaline and excitement for growth.

After all, what can I complain about? I’m in San Francisco! A city that thrives off innovation, fresh thinking, and talks of brand development over happy hour – all thumbs up in my book. Each morning, as I take the BART to downtown San Francisco and walk 0.5 miles to the office (thanks GoogleMaps!), I observe the crowd of people that surround me. I love the feeling of having so many beautiful things to look at on my walk to work that my eyes can’t scan them fast enough or that my mouth can’t form the right words to describe them quickly enough.

One thing I certainly see everywhere – interns! Just like me! But who are they? More than a venti chai latte to snap me out of my morning fog, I crave conversation with these students – I crave friendship.

“Where are you from?” “So…how’d you end up here?” “What do you want to check out in the city this summer?”

Call them as cheesy as your mom’s mac and cheese casserole, but these easy kind of questions can spark some truly worthwhile connections. In just one week I’ve met an amazing amount of people with really interesting stories. Walking down 2nd Street I met Marvin, a young entrepreneur making the exciting move into a new office space for his new startup Out of Milk – a grocery list Android app. Then there’s Samantha, a graphic designer who right off the bat was able to share my affinity for deep-fried southern concoctions after having studied at Savannah College of Art and Design.

One night over a plate of spiced lamb ragu, I listened to the lovely Gokce tell me of her journey across the globe from Turkey to San Francisco where she is now a marketing intern at Udemy. When I asked her for what should be on my must-do list this summer, she said, “There is so much in this city. Find your passion and then do and see everything that’s related to it,” – my favorite piece of advice so far. Last but not least there’s Kiwi, Udemy’s adorable pup who jingles around our shared office space with big fluffy ears looking, well, as sweet as a kiwi!

I owe a h-u-g-e thanks to all of the wonderful folks I’ve connected with this week. The internship scene in San Francisco is already shaping up to be an exquisite setting, full of the country’s coolest interns who are super willing to help out in whichever way they can, whether it’s directing you to the right BART station, offering advice on which neighborhood to find summer housing in, or inviting you to a game of FIFA during your office lunch break.

After all, it’s not always about where you are but who you’re with that makes any experience worthwhile. As interns, we work hard to demonstrate our most awesome skills in the office and in turn, we don’t want our free time to fall flat in a playground of a city like San Francisco. So next time you recognize the intern “look” on someone (big bag, cool shoes, headphones, cup of coffee, workings of a rockstar), stir up a conversation and ask them what their story is. You’ll both walk away with smiles, contact info and new weekend plans to check out that cool taco truck you’ve read about online!

3 Questions To Ask When Deciding Between Multiple Internship Offers

Congratulations! You blew people away during your interviews and got an offer from every company you interviewed at! It’s a dream come true, except — how do you choose between them?

Back in April, I was fortunate enough to be in this position. I had received two summer internship offers and was stressing out about which one to pick. After talking to friends, losing sleep, and spending plenty of time flip-flopping back and forth, answering these three questions helped me decide:

1) What’s my end game?

Just like in chess, you do better in life if you think five steps ahead. An internship after all is a means to an end, where the ultimate goal is to put yourself in a position to land your dream job once you graduate. If you are a sophomore and still trying to discover yourself, choose the internship that you are most passionate about. If you are a junior looking to convert an internship into a post-graduation job you will want to consider how likely the company is to offer you a full time position, as some companies hire straight from their intern pool (in fact companies like Deloitte make offers to over 90% of their intern class).

Since I was graduating this year, I really needed a full time offer as soon as possible in order to avoid moving back home. The other company that I was considering had just finished hiring a new round of employees and the founder I interviewed with told me that he was not looking to hire for a while. InternMatch on the other hand, only had 7 employees and Nathan the CMO had told me in my interview that they were looking to expand the team soon. It was pretty obvious which internship was going give me the best chance of getting a full time job afterwards.

2) Will I learn something new?

An internship should not just play to your strengths, but also shore up your weaknesses. When considering offers, ask yourself which internship will let you do something that you have never done before? Companies in general have different approaches to how much they train, and teach their interns, meaning the amount you grow during a summer can vary tremendously. Look for the internship that will grow your skill set and make you more competitive for a wider range of internships and jobs going forward.

While considering my own two offers, I saw that the work at both companies would help me grow. At the other company, I was told that I would be working extensively on Facebook ads which was great and something that I was really interested in. However, Facebook ads were something that I already had a little experience in. At InternMatch, Nathan told me that I would be working on a marketing funnel targeting corporations. I had never worked on the business to business side before, so this was another area where InternMatch won me over.

3) Does the workplace culture fit me?

Loving your internship is going to be hard if you hate the place where you work at. When looking at your multiple offers, consider if the company culture fits you. Think about things like whether or not you are you going to be wearing a suit all day? Are directions strictly followed? Is the hierarchy really strict?

Both the companies I received offers from were startups, so there were lot culture similarities but there was one big difference. InternMatch only had seven people and this included the founders, while the other company had 35 employees. In addition, the other company was hiring a larger number of interns. In a 35 person company and as part of a larger intern pool, I feared that I would not get as much attention or time from the founders as I would if I was at InternMatch. For the third time, I decided InternMatch was the better fit for me.

Last Piece of Advice

In the end, your situation may not be as black and white as mine, and that is fine. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, tells us “with hard decisions in life look to minimize regret.” Whatever internship you choose, embrace and make the best of it and you will be sure to learn a lot.

Pinchit: An Internship for Tastemakers

Do you know where to find the best used bookstores in your city or which sushi spot makes the best spider roll? What about food trucks: got tips on the best chicken tikka masala on this side of the Pacific?

Then check out Pinchit – a new city-discovery site that ranks your favorite spots around town (like, the best sliders in the city) — because they need a few tastemakers to join their team for an editorial or copywriting Internship.

Students interested in either of these jobs should be excited about discovering the city of San Francisco, comfortable working independently, and have stellar grammar and editorial skills (bonus points if you’re enthusiastic about social media and startups). Hopefully you have a good appetite and a trusty pair of walking shoes because the typical day for an intern might include checking out San Fran’s hottest thrift stores, taste testing burritos, or writing and publishing articles for the web.

Influencers click here to apply!

Take Over the World of Home Improvement with BrightNest

BrightNest is a hot, new Denver-based startup taking over the world of home improvement by delivering engaging content and recommendations to homeowners across the country. Fresh out of 500 Startups’ (InternMatch, Kissmetrics, Twilio, Udemy) incubator program, they’re looking for a junior Ruby on Rails developer to join their team for a 3-month paid internship.

Students selected for this internship will have the opportunity to help the lead developer tackle large-scale projects and test out new features. You should be fluent in programming languages and platforms like HAML, Sass, JQuery, CoffeeScript, Rspec and Hosting with Heroku – just to name a few. In exchange for your hard work, BrightNest promises a young, hip work environment and the chance to work on exciting projects with a Silicon Valley-funded startup! Apply here to join this awesome team of home and technology experts.

PS: Make sure to check out their awesome blog before turning in your app!

Spend the Summer at a Startup in Boston

Do you have a knack for numbers and APIs? If so, then spend the summer in Boston working for Jana – an awesome startup that helps global companies connect with the more than 2billion consumers in emerging markets.

Jana has developed a new form of market research that focuses on underserved and understudied communities in growing markets (like India, Brazil and Nigeria) and they’re looking for a few rock star interns to help them get the job done!

Fast learners experienced with large data sets, programming and design are encouraged to apply for one of Jana’s Statistics or Web Development Internships.

Currently earning revenue in over 50 countries, Jana is backed by investors like Spark Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, the Blackberry Fund and Esther Dyson. Jana is lead by an impressive team who has worked on and built apps for some of the world’s most cutting edge technology like Windows, Android, YouTube and iPad.

Apply.

Win the Ultimate Paid Summer Internship With about.me’s Internship Challenge

We know that finding the perfect summer internship can be frustrating, which is why we’re excited to help promote about.me’s Internship Challenge! Starting today you can enter to win the summer of your dreams and one of five paid internships at the Huffington Post, AOL Video, AOL Events, Tech Crunch or about.me.

Long gone are the days where you have to choose between paper pushing, faxing or filing. These paid internships offer real world experience and awesome perks — like spending a summer in New York or San Francisco, a $1k housing stipend and the opportunity to meet industry leaders like Arianna Huffington, AOL’s CEO, Tim Armstrong, or technology leaders like Ryan Freitas and Tony Conrad.

About the Internships:

Huffington Post (New York)

Spend your summer as a paid Intern at the Huffington Post, sharing the newsroom floor with the best journalists, social media managers and editors in the publishing industry.

AOL Video (New York)

Think you have what it takes to find the cutest cat videos on the web? Then get paid to help influence millions of viewers as an Intern at AOL Video.

AOL Events (New York)

Are people still raving about the party you planned for spring rush? Then join AOL’s Event Planning team and get paid to spend your summer organizing cool events across the country. How’s that for a status update?

TechCrunch (San Francisco)

Maybe you prefer the Redwoods and the high-tech spirit of the West Coast? If you are obsessed with starts and live for a product release, then spend the summer in San Francisco doing marketing and sales at the leading tech publication, TechCrunch.

about.me (San Francisco)

Do you have what it takes to make it at a startup? About.me needs a talented intern to join their Marketing and Community Management team. This internship is all-access! Interns will enjoy invites to exclusive tech events and mentorship from about.Me’s founders: Tony Conrad and Ryan Freitas.

How to Enter:

Entering the contest is simple.

1) Create an about.me profile that demonstrates why you’re the best intern candidate for one of the above positions.

2) Link your existing online profiles (LinkedIn, FB, Twitter, Tumblr, etc…) to your about.me page.

3) Share your about.me page with everyone in your network – every vote counts.

Click here to enter!

Why about.me

An about.me profile is an awesome tool that allows you to create a customized page, linking employers to your important online profiles — all in one place. If you’re a student with a design portfolio, a LinkedIn account, a film reel and a blog, then an about.me page is the perfect way to let employers know exactly what you’re up to and where to find you.

MBA Students: Grow Your Career With NetApp

How does a paid summer in Silicon Valley at a top tech company sound? Voted by Forbes magazine as one of the “Best Places to Work,” NetApp is a global leader in data management and storage — and they’re looking for talented MBA students to join their internship program this summer.

What makes this internship different from others?

Unlike internship programs at other companies, NetApp cares about your professional development! Interns are given meaningful and exciting projects to work on from the beginning, with access to mentors and senior management professionals.

Students will have the opportunity to work with other Fortune 500 companies like Cisco and Intel, while gaining valuable skills in marketing, project management, research and business development.

Check out NeApp’s available positions below and grow your career with a company that cares about your future.

Product Manager

VMware Alliance Project Manager

Cisco Alliance Project Manager

Customer Segmentation

Alliance Solution Connection Project Manager

Corporate Development

Alliance Project Management for Intel

Market Research Intern

Demand Gen & Alliance Marketing Intern

Competitive Researcher Intern