Hello People!
So you’ve been thinking about Startup Internships- you might even have approached a few or been approached by startups or agencies. In most likely cases, they are often ‘unpaid internships’ and you’ve been swayed by the founders' view on how awesome the opportunity is. In some cases by agencies that charge you $$$ for internship placements.
How do you know whether a startup internship is worth it or a waste of your time or a lot of labour hours (in some cases is not legal- atleast in Australia).
Here are our 5 tips to keep in mind when looking out for internships at a Startup.
Ensure that the Startup is a valid company or a business ( a person with an idea with no business registration is NOT a startup). You can find this by doing an ABN search.
Check for any news about them on the internet. Any bad press about the startup or the founder/s- is a REDFLAG!
See who else is already working in the startup and if you can connect with them on linkedIn to understand what it is like to work/intern at that startup. Glassdoor reviews or google reviews can work for larger companies but do not work for young startups.
Use a trusted source to find internship placements. This could be your University Career Page or Startup Groups that have large following or VC firms or startup orientated organisations like Illume Foundation. AVOID agencies that ‘promise you the world’ if something doesn’t sound right- it probably isn’t.
Make sure you have a candid conversation with the founder/ recruiter regarding the tasks, hours and ways of working (remote/hybrid/offline) before committing to the internship. It’s your RIGHT to know this!
What’s happening at Illume?
We’ve wrapped up our Aug-Sept 2022 Cohort and Applications are now Open for Summer Startup Internship Program.
We’ve 2 cohorts for Summer- Cohort 1: Starting end of Oct 2022 to mid Dec and Cohort 2: Mid Jan 2023- Feb 2023.
OR share this opportunity with others to have the opportunity to work with upcoming startups in the ecosystem.
2 of our Illume Fellows, Saleha and Rosalind enjoying their startup internship :)
Upcoming Events
Startup Internship Info Session- Online Event
When: 3rd October 2022, Monday, 6:00pm to 7pm
Topic: Hear all about Startup Internships and how you could secure one
Job Opportunities
Paid Roles:
Graduate Data Analyst for Energytech Startup (full time)
Graduate DevOps for Energytech Startup (full time)
Marketing Role- part time
Internships: Marketing, Design, Business, Data Science, finance available for course credit and non course credit internships.
Startup Ecosystem Update
Everyone’s talking about the Figma deal ($20b acquisition by Adobe) Did you know that Figma was founded by two computer science students at Brown University? In 2012, Dylan Field (Founder) received a Thiel Fellowship—a $100,000 grant conditioned on his leaving school to begin working full-time on the company. 10 years, and $20 billion valuation- not a bad deal !!!
So it’s never too early to work on that idea that you’ve been thinking about!
That’s all for now- CIAO!