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> MOST ANNOYING THING A weekend is plenty. You're an intern: there are many, many more of you to choose from. As you pointed out, nobody wants to waste time. T

> MOST ANNOYING THING A weekend is plenty. You're an intern: there are many, many more of you to choose from. As you pointed out, nobody wants to waste time. The person that offered you the placement wants someone who wants to be there, not someone looking for an backup offer.

asafira 13y ago
I am going to respectfully disagree. Just because the company can do it doesn't mean a weekend is plenty. You are given a weekend to decide where you might spend months of your life, potentially in a place you've never been. On top of that, who knows if that weekend was going to be extremely busy for you? Just because you take one week to decide on an offer doesn't mean you don't want to be there. It's also not at all an industry standard to give such a short timespan for the decision; if anything, it's a reflection of how little the company will care about the intern when he/she is there. All in all, a weekend is certainly not "plenty". I sympathize with crazypyro.
- crazypyro 13y ago
  Just to re-iterate how quick the turn around was, I interviewed on Thursday, got offered on Friday while I was at an interview for a different internship and then had to accept by that Monday.
- scrumper 13y ago
  Thank you for the respectful disagreement (vs. 'smug'.) You make good points and I have some sympathy too - I understand that it's not easy being forced to make a quick and major decision. That being said, you don't always get to set the pace, and being confident in making decisions on the basis of imperfect or incomplete information is a valuable life skill. I can think of no better time to make a low-risk, snap decision about where to spend a few months than in the middle of college. With regards to the decision around where you might spend months of your life, it's not like the location of the internship was a secret before crazypyro interviewed. The question about whether the company will treat the intern well is more nuanced, and you'd have to go with your gut. Given the competitive nature of the market for CS interns and the quick decisions needed, the Secretary Problem might offer a good solution for crazypyro and others in that situation.
- _pmf_ 13y ago
  > You are given a weekend to decide where you might spend months of your life, potentially in a place you've never been. Well, I tend to think a bit about these matters before applying.
ampersandy 13y ago
The most annoying thing about internships are smug comments like this about interns.
crazypyro 13y ago
I don't know if you haven't been on an internship search lately, but I'd say CS interns, especially ones that that are going to be seniors and with prior experience, are in high demand. Even with my less than stellar resume, I got a high offer rate from everywhere I interviewed.
mwfunk 13y ago
This is actually true, nothing smug about it. It's an internship, and a lot of companies look for people who might be interested in working for the company after school's over. If someone has that much to think about that they would need more time, then they clearly have no interest in the company itself- they're just looking to get the most money, regardless of who it's coming from. The differences in compensation aren't that huge, and it's just a summer, and the interns themselves are usually still living off of their parents. So, usually anyone that's agonizing over nickel and dime stuff that early in their career likely has no enthusiasm for what they would be working on (which by itself is reason enough for not taking an intern), and might be super entitled on top of that, also not a good thing. Because, again, we're talking about mostly CS undergrads here. A very small number of them might have a big impact over the course of a summer, but for the majority of them it is practically charity for these companies to take them on- they're not getting anything out of it other than giving a potential future employee some hand-on experience. And, it's an employer's market- there are plenty of equally qualified interns to choose from in many cases, as well as a small window of time in which they either have to pick an intern or not get one at all. If they gave everyone weeks to make a decision, they could easily end up taking so long to even find an intern that they would run out of time in which to do it.
- fecak 13y ago
  Actually, the differences in compensation can be much more substantial than one might think. I spoke to a few interns last year who were entering the job market, and compensation ranged from fully paid housing and nearly 100K (annualized) to numbers less than half that in the same geography. For college students, the difference between earning 10K or 20K in a summer is likely a decision that could require more than a weekend if the 10K comes with external upside.
- Taylorious 13y ago
  That's simply not true. CS internships vary widely in compensation and often approach entry level wages. I know interns making 7500 a month at Palantir, 4800 at Intel, 6500 at Amazon,and others. All of them have different relocation, housing, and other benefits on top of salary. None of these interns are from where they are interning, they all are flying out to live in a different state off of their own dime. Some of them even had to fly in to interview (as a freaken intern!). The CS job market is weird right now.
Taylorious 13y ago
There aren't necessarily "many, many more" quality interns to chose from for these companies. There is labor shortage in the tech industry right now and some interns are quite capable of contributing real work. That makes them valuable and gives them leverage. It is not unheard of for interns to pit big companies against each other for a better offer these days.

asafira 13y ago

I am going to respectfully disagree. Just because the company can do it doesn't mean a weekend is plenty. You are given a weekend to decide where you might spend months of your life, potentially in a place you've never been. On top of that, who knows if that weekend was going to be extremely busy for you? Just because you take one week to decide on an offer doesn't mean you don't want to be there. It's also not at all an industry standard to give such a short timespan for the decision; if anything, it's a reflection of how little the company will care about the intern when he/she is there. All in all, a weekend is certainly not "plenty". I sympathize with crazypyro.

crazypyro 13y ago
Just to re-iterate how quick the turn around was, I interviewed on Thursday, got offered on Friday while I was at an interview for a different internship and then had to accept by that Monday.
scrumper 13y ago
Thank you for the respectful disagreement (vs. 'smug'.) You make good points and I have some sympathy too - I understand that it's not easy being forced to make a quick and major decision. That being said, you don't always get to set the pace, and being confident in making decisions on the basis of imperfect or incomplete information is a valuable life skill. I can think of no better time to make a low-risk, snap decision about where to spend a few months than in the middle of college. With regards to the decision around where you might spend months of your life, it's not like the location of the internship was a secret before crazypyro interviewed. The question about whether the company will treat the intern well is more nuanced, and you'd have to go with your gut. Given the competitive nature of the market for CS interns and the quick decisions needed, the Secretary Problem might offer a good solution for crazypyro and others in that situation.
_pmf_ 13y ago
> You are given a weekend to decide where you might spend months of your life, potentially in a place you've never been. Well, I tend to think a bit about these matters before applying.

ampersandy 13y ago

The most annoying thing about internships are smug comments like this about interns.

crazypyro 13y ago

I don't know if you haven't been on an internship search lately, but I'd say CS interns, especially ones that that are going to be seniors and with prior experience, are in high demand. Even with my less than stellar resume, I got a high offer rate from everywhere I interviewed.

mwfunk 13y ago

This is actually true, nothing smug about it. It's an internship, and a lot of companies look for people who might be interested in working for the company after school's over. If someone has that much to think about that they would need more time, then they clearly have no interest in the company itself- they're just looking to get the most money, regardless of who it's coming from. The differences in compensation aren't that huge, and it's just a summer, and the interns themselves are usually still living off of their parents. So, usually anyone that's agonizing over nickel and dime stuff that early in their career likely has no enthusiasm for what they would be working on (which by itself is reason enough for not taking an intern), and might be super entitled on top of that, also not a good thing. Because, again, we're talking about mostly CS undergrads here. A very small number of them might have a big impact over the course of a summer, but for the majority of them it is practically charity for these companies to take them on- they're not getting anything out of it other than giving a potential future employee some hand-on experience. And, it's an employer's market- there are plenty of equally qualified interns to choose from in many cases, as well as a small window of time in which they either have to pick an intern or not get one at all. If they gave everyone weeks to make a decision, they could easily end up taking so long to even find an intern that they would run out of time in which to do it.

fecak 13y ago
Actually, the differences in compensation can be much more substantial than one might think. I spoke to a few interns last year who were entering the job market, and compensation ranged from fully paid housing and nearly 100K (annualized) to numbers less than half that in the same geography. For college students, the difference between earning 10K or 20K in a summer is likely a decision that could require more than a weekend if the 10K comes with external upside.
Taylorious 13y ago
That's simply not true. CS internships vary widely in compensation and often approach entry level wages. I know interns making 7500 a month at Palantir, 4800 at Intel, 6500 at Amazon,and others. All of them have different relocation, housing, and other benefits on top of salary. None of these interns are from where they are interning, they all are flying out to live in a different state off of their own dime. Some of them even had to fly in to interview (as a freaken intern!). The CS job market is weird right now.

Taylorious 13y ago

There aren't necessarily "many, many more" quality interns to chose from for these companies. There is labor shortage in the tech industry right now and some interns are quite capable of contributing real work. That makes them valuable and gives them leverage. It is not unheard of for interns to pit big companies against each other for a better offer these days.