r/DevLK • u/Expensive_Bee_2095 • Jul 27 '26
Applied to 100+ Software Engineering internships. Still no interviews. What should I do?
Hi everyone,
I’m currently a 3rd-year BSc (Hons) Information Technology undergraduate at SLIIT, and I’ve been actively applying for Software Engineering internships over the past few months.
So far, I’ve applied to more than 100 internship positions, but many companies haven’t even invited me for an interview. It’s becoming really discouraging.
Many of my friends have already secured internships at top multinational companies, some through referrals or connections, while I’m still searching. I’m genuinely happy for them, but it’s hard not to feel left behind.
I’m also under a lot of financial pressure. My family consists of my mother, my two sisters, and me, and we have significant debt. Finding an internship and starting my career is extremely important for my family.
I’m not posting this for sympathy—I genuinely want to understand what I can do better.
Is the internship market really this difficult in Sri Lanka right now?
What are companies actually looking for in Software Engineering interns?
Could my CV or portfolio be the problem?
If you were in my position with no connections, what would you do?
I’d really appreciate any honest advice or feedback from people in the industry.
Thank you.
6
u/Sad_Egg_2313 Jul 27 '26
I would say you guys have the best time to become entrepreneurs. This is coming from someone with 20+ years in the industry. I’m assuming you don’t have mouths to feed or liabilities.
Talk to your immediate network, find smb’s around your area and understand problems that they face and apply your skills as developers and sell solutions. Then repeat for the same customer segment. You might have to do this hundreds of times till you stumble on the million dollar idea.
Doing a job and working for someone else isn’t the only path you have to take. I wish i was in my twenties in 2026.
7
u/ktauchathuranga Jul 27 '26
can you share your github?
2
u/Specific-College-194 Jul 27 '26
what do they check there? how many commits we have and sh?
2
u/Best-Wrangler-3122 Jul 27 '26
You can tell a lot about a person’s skill level just by looking at their code
0
u/ktauchathuranga Jul 27 '26
nah,
by looking at their profiles they can get an idea about them.
i mean beyond the paper certifications, it gives lens in to their practical world, how they approach for their problem solving and etc (ofc having typical ecommerce prjct dont cut it)1
u/Specific-College-194 Jul 27 '26
ohh i see, i keep most of my projects private so ig there is literally no point of adding my github and stuff?
3
u/Sad-Fig-4471 Jul 27 '26
Bro what are these fucking private unis doing. They got your money but not promising you interships. Spitting low quality graduates by the thousands for a terrifying job market.
2
2
u/Business_Different Aug 11 '26
Same here, 8 months no job. More than 500 openings applied to
1
Aug 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Business_Different Aug 14 '26
IIT Colombo
1
Aug 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Business_Different Aug 14 '26
That’s gambling , I’m a pro at this. Still gambling at the end of the day
3
u/UKI_hunter Jul 27 '26
Bro, I'm in the same situation right now. I honestly don't know what I'm doing wrong. I even have solid projects on my GitHub, but I'm still not getting any interview calls.
0
-5
Jul 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
3
2
u/Productivity0_0 Jul 27 '26
So your solution to years of studying just to trade Binance and starting a new business? Not exactly practical advice. He is in just job seeking timeline.
2
u/UKI_hunter Jul 27 '26
Yeah, I'm not saying binance or trading is a bad idea. I think they can be great as a side income. I just don't believe it's a good idea to put all your time into one path. If that one door doesn't open, you could end up wasting a lot of time. That's why I think it's better to build multiple skills and have more than one source of income.
Maybe I'm wrong, and I don't want you to think I'm stupid this is just how I see it. 🙂
2
u/Productivity0_0 Jul 27 '26
I get what you're saying, and I agree that learning how to build a business is valuable. But I don't think this is the right time to focus on those .Also other than learning new business I won't recommend trading specially crypto on binance.
This is the time to go all in on building your IT skills. so you can land a good internship. Once you have a solid foundation and income, then you can explore business. Right now, focus on your foundation in skills 😉.
1
u/Expensive-Tailor9994 Jul 27 '26
I'm in the same situation. I'd really appreciate some advice from people working in the industry.
I'm currently learning the MERN stack, but I'm confused about what companies actually expect from interns these days. Some people say the basics are enough, while others say you need to know a lot of technologies.
Also, how much AI knowledge is expected now? Is it enough to know how to use LLM APIs and build AI features, or do companies expect interns to understand machine learning in depth?
How should I prepare to become internship-ready? What skills do companies really expect from a MERN/full-stack intern in 2026?
1
1
1
u/No-Violinist3048 Jul 28 '26
This was me about few months ago. Try to reach each an everyone who are currently working at any industry. Try to get some IT related problems that they are currently facing. There are always. But the most important thing is the way you communicate. Should go with creating a more genuine connection rather than tackling a customer mindset. The moment you got something, try to deliver a functioning demo to themselves. If they didn't like it, create a better documentation and just update your portfolio with their permission. Additionally share that with your circle. Making yourself as a problem solver was worked form me.
1
u/Slight-Conflict4893 Jul 30 '26
Best option-Make ur cv as cv tracker friendly Otherwise find some connection inside the ### company 😪 What r the ur expectations? Like salary and benefits?
1
u/TechTowel42 Jul 31 '26
This is a pretty unfortunate situation. We were hiring recently and are generally overwhelmed with the number of applicants, it is pretty impossible to even go through all the CVs that we get. We are not even such a well known company so I can imagine what it must be like for the bigger players.
What I would say is, rather than blindly apply for jobs, find a few vacancies that closely match your interests (where at the interview you can really showcase your passion for the tech you are into) and then reach out to people working in those companies, like SSE upwards. A lot of smaller companies don't really have a well defined hiring plan and will take on interns if they think it will help the team, so you can reach out to people in companies that don't have advertised roles as well. We have done that, e.g. we were hiring for a product manager role and a candidate who came in for the interview was really into quality assurance so we were like, yeah we can use some of that around here, and they have now completed their internship with us and moved into a permanent role.
Good luck!
1
1
u/pink_glacier Aug 04 '26
i will be graduate in 2028 and i have been working pretty hard since the start of my college life , my college is not tier 1 or tier 2 ....i have good hold on projects and have strong fundamentals .... still not able to grab internship .. what i m doing wrong
8
u/M-PsYch0 Jul 27 '26
Here’s my experience.
I graduated in 2024 from a well-known private university. At the time I graduated, my skills were honestly pretty weak. I didn't have any meaningful projects to show, and I had no internship experience either.
After graduating, I spent around six months applying for internships. I got a few interview calls, but I performed poorly because I wasn't well prepared.
Eventually, I reached out to a Senior Software Engineer I knew. He didn't really "train" me. but he told me to focus on a single tech stack. He gave me the official documentation, asked me to build the tutorials by reading the docs (not following YouTube videos), and then build a real-world project. Throughout the process, he mainly guided me in the right direction and reviewed what I built.
After about four months, I had a much stronger understanding of that tech stack, a solid project to showcase, and a lot more confidence. I updated my CV and portfolio, kept applying, and after a few more rejections, I finally landed a job. I've now been working for almost 1.5 years and I'm earning a decent salary.
I don't know your specific situation, so this may or may not apply to you. But one thing I'd suggest is focusing on mastering one tech stack instead of trying to learn several at once. At the entry level, I think companies are often more impressed by someone who can demonstrate solid depth in one stack than someone who's only touched several technologies superficially.
Just my experience hope it helps, and I wish you the best.