Choose interest over experience
October 2020
Aaron Chen
The vast majority of software-related internships should weigh meaningful interest over technical experience.
If an applicant can effectively display qualified interest through a well-thought and value-aligned argument, then they deserve that spot over those who don’t display that initiative. Even if there are others that seem more technically qualified.
In a world of hiring, meritocracy reigns supreme [1]. And for good reason. The most effective individuals are the most skilled. A for-profit company’s essential and primary goal is to make money. To do that, a company needs to provide a product or service at a certain level of quality and form. At the base level, it’s simple: to create the best product, hire the best engineers. But these open positions inherently have a certain expectation of performance granted upon them. Internships on the other hand are fundamentally different.
One primary difference is that they’re learning-focused [2]. Companies hire full-time engineers with the expectation that they’ll be able to produce, and not primarily to learn [3]. On the other hand, interns are hired so they’ll learn the product and company. At its center internships are used to test candidates in a real world environment [4]. Hiring full-time engineers are based on the presumption that these individuals know how to perform in or at least navigate a real company environment already [5]. And for that reason, they should be treated differently. Meritocracy need not be the highest measure for hiring an intern. When present, well-intentioned and meaningful interest should be given precedence over experience.
I say this acknowledging that there should still be some minimum standard of technicality that the candidate has. They should be interested in programming after all! Deciding that minimum standard is a little up in the air though. What if the standards are too low? How do we differentiate between applicants at scale? First, well that’s already a problem with recruiting. Scaling to large numbers is incredibly difficult, and being able to do so currently, like your Google’s and Amazon’s often entail an already very frustrating and hated interviewing process. Second, your technical standards work in tandem with the entire application itself––I almost want to guarantee you that the amount of individuals who are willing to put in that effort to write a thoughtful, and cohesive letter are few to none in comparison to the bulk of applications [6].
So I think those standards shouldn’t be set high.
Say you’re hiring for a frontend internship position. This position entails working on a server-side web framework––let’s use Ruby on Rails. As a hiring manager (lead talent guy or whatnot), you have to pick between two people: an individual who’s just submitted a resume that has 1 - 2 years of experience in Ruby on Rails, passes whatever technical examination you give him/her with high marks, and seems to be a smart and amiable individual on phone. And then there’s the applicant who’s had experience in Java for two years, a bit of JS/CSS/HTML for personal sites, and does a little below average on the technical portion [7]. But they also submit an extensive 1.5 page cover letter, detailing why they wanted to work at Company X, and also describes why they believe they’ll be a right fit [8]. This applicant, like the other, appears to be a good person, and displays similar levels of enthusiasm as in the letter on phone [9].
If I were in that position of making the choice, I’d pick the latter.
I’d do so knowing that this applicant isn’t as technically qualified as the former. But, I’d also make this decision knowing this candidate displayed genuine interest, logically and persuasively argued his/her case in a manner that showed critical thinking and enthusiasm, and had the baselines for a programmer to adequately navigate the dynamics of software. The other candidate’s application was just a resume. And while they were technically qualified and adequately amalgable with the company, they just didn’t have the initiative or spark in their application. I think those sparks can make or break a company culture.
You want people that want to work at your company. The other candidate may have been a fine full-time too. But I think that spark goes a long way: you can rest assured knowing they have that demonstrated interest in learning the technology, product, and company. With that demonstrated interest, they’ll learn with minimal personal friction, they’ll enjoy being at your company, and the fact that you gave them a chance while they were under-qualified sure does give them even more appreciation and willingness to go above and beyond. We should keep in mind: this is an internship position. They are there to learn and to be tested. Interest should be paramount to these types of positions. In our situation, one candidate displayed that initiative more so than the other.
Take a chance on these types of applicants I say. They’ll exceed your expectations.
Disclaimer: I’ve been in this situation before. To be left with a simple 3 sentence email rejection after writing extensive cover letters, with no acknowledgement whatsoever of what I wrote hurts quite a bit. Of course, I never knew if they hired someone else after me because they seemed to be more skilled, but I think it can be easily assumed they did (provided they still had space! Which, if you have a job opening on Lever, then that should be the case).
Perhaps, this comes off as a salty rant, or maybe it has some substance. Who knows. I’d love to hear any critique or thoughts on this area either way.
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[1] We don’t acknowledge any role if any that diversity may play within this process. I think that discussion should be reserved for a later time.
[2] Other differences include the time-span (months compared to however long a FTE stays on with the company) and mentorship (the type and the extent of it).
[3] Given a specific time span after hiring. Of course, incoming engineers learn some way or another. But not necessarily with the same focus as say an intern.
[4] Real world environment as in there is revenue tied in, one way or another, to the product/feature at hand and so the company places real value in it. There are internships that don’t do this, and instead use dummy projects interns work on. I’m not going to address those types (much less encourage that strategy either!).
[5] I use full-time hires as a word for engineers who aren’t interns but rather your “typical” engineer at a company. Obviously though, many internships are full-time too. But you know what I mean.
[6] Differentiating between varying levels of interest (between a letter, conversation, etc.) is definitely a good thing to wonder about. If you’re at the point where you have to do that though, I’d have to give you props! Sadly, I don’t have a very thought-out answer for it right now. But, I bet there are very few individuals who’ll have to deal with that. Barely any applicants are that interested in the companies they apply to, sadly. The game itself is spray and pray (sample size: 1 college student).
[7] For simplicity’s sake, a technical portion that measures general programming paradigms and concepts.
[8] Of course, a not-so-well written cover letter really isn’t going to go well. But, if you have an individual who’s willing to take that extra step and write an extensive letter like such, you’re probably not going to encounter a poorly written one.
[9] At this point, you’ve gauged the company fit for these individuals on the phone. But, we should also acknowledge there are many individuals you’ll miss if you’re analyzing the individuals you did talk to on the phone.