I finally ended up somewhere! (English)
TLDR: After 5 months of internship hunting, I finally secured a Software Engineering intern on Ads MSP team at TikTok, based in San Jose.
My first internship application was made around September 2026, but looking back, I wasn’t doing enough—or at least, I wasn’t being smart enough—during my fall semester. I submitted around 100 job applications with a subpar resume, not realizing I was just spinning my wheels. What’s worse, I applied to many big-name companies several days after the roles were posted, and I never heard back from most of them.
The direct consequence of applying blindly was that I got stuck in a cycle of helplessness and confusion. I didn't understand why I wasn't getting any interviews, even though my background wasn't bad compared to other applicants (I mean in no ways that CMU CS is not strong enough). I spent an entire semester in constant anxiety, constantly comparing myself to my peers and wondering if the problem was my technical ability or something else. I was unwilling to re-examine my application strategy or the information gap I was facing.
To make matters worse, I did very poorly on my second midterm for one of my classes, which caused me to lose a lot of confidence in my abilities. Honestly, I barely did anything during that period. At my lowest point, I didn't go to school for nearly a week. I would wake up at noon, doom scroll, eat junk food, and dodge my friends' texts. I simply didn't want to face the fact that I was being completely crushed by life, academics, and the job hunt. (I’ll probably write a separate post about my experience with "210; this blog will focus on the lessons I learned from the job hunt.)
By the Spring 2026 semester, I finally realized that if I kept this up, I would end up with zero offers because I couldn't even pass the initial resume screening. I finally started to take action. I reached out to seniors for tips and resume revisions. I have no clue why I used to think asking for help was shameful, but it was a genuine struggle for me to step out of my comfort zone. I also asked my mom for help with referrals, as she has a much wider network than I do.
The effect was immediate! I finally started getting interviews. I learned that human help (non-LLM, non-social media) is far more effective. I spent $50 on resume feedback and $40 for a TikTok mock interview. In hindsight, this was a very wise decision. While the resume feedback wasn't 100% professional, it gave me a deeper sense of what recruiters want to see in a SWE candidate and showed me how little I understood industry standards last semester. The mock interview was worth way more than $40. My interviewer had also interned at TikTok, so what he shared was about 80% similar to what I encountered in my real interview. I also shamelessly asked for insider tips about TikTok.
This was a perfect example of the 80/20 rule: I wasted my first five "golden" months on meaningless effort, and the 20% of work that actually mattered happened after February.
Lessons learned:
Utilize your resources wisely.
Be "thick-skinned" when it comes to things that benefit your life.
Chill out about the parts you can't control.
If a method doesn't work for over a month (or less), reflect and pivot immediately. Don't just mindlessly stick to the old way.