Waterloo Co-op Series Part 3: Choosing Where to Apply
Don’t wait until the last day to apply to jobs
My friend made this mistake, and then realized he was off by one day. He was
not able to apply to any jobs and had to return to his last co-op.
Maintain a 35/10/5 ratio when applying to the 50 jobs
35 should be low-risk, jobs where you’re pretty confident you could get an
offer
10 should be medium-risk, jobs where you might get an offer, you might not
5 should be high-risk, jobs where you likely won’t get an offer
Don’t apply to any job where you know you won’t accept the offer
Your “safety jobs” should still be somewhere you could see yourself working
Don’t focus too much on the money, but also keep in mind that money is a proxy
for how much they care about their interns. For example, the Social+Capital
portfolio of companies pays their Waterloo interns a lot, and they also have a
great internship program. The founder of Social+Capital is a Waterloo grad.
Don’t save your applications for the second round. Use them all up in the
first round. The jobs are generally better.