Finding Good Opportunities

There are millions of job listings. Most of them aren't a match. The role isn't a fit for you, or you aren't a fit for the role.

A lot of the work in applying to roles is in filtering out bad opportunities, so that you spend your time applying to good opportunities.

What's a good opportunity?

Don't waste time applying to bad opportunities.

  • If you would not take the internship if it was offered to you, don't apply.
  • If you are not qualified for the internship, don't apply.

A good industry experience opportunity means:

You are interested

The company and the position are exciting to you.

You are qualified

Your skills make you a good fit. You have most of the skills listed in the job description, and are confident that you can learn the others.

The logistics will work

The role is near your location, or remote.

  • For opportunties in your city: check that you can manage the commute
  • For remote opportunities:
    • Check that your time zone will work, and you can be online when required
    • Check that the company will be able to employ you (many opportunities require specific citizenship or work authorization) You can commit to the role
  • You've read the associated tasks and responsibilities, and expect to succeed
  • You know the number of hours expected, and can commit to them

If you plan to continue with another full-time role or attend a school other than Kibo, do not apply for a full-time internship!

What opportunities qualify for industry experience?

Internships and jobs can have tons of different names: "Junior Developer" or "Quality Assurance Intern" might be roles that qualify, even though they aren't called "software developer intern". "IT Intern" might qualify or not, depending on the organization and the particular duties of the role.

To qualify for academic credit, your job or internship must:

  • Use the technical skills you've learned in your coursework
    • Software development, data science, product management, UI design
  • Be 300 hours of work or more
    • The work may be spread out over any number of weeks (e.g., 30 hours for 10 weeks or 40 hours for 8 weeks)
    • Your industry experience may be longer than the required minimum of 300 hours
  • Occur between April and June 2024
    • Ideally, you should start after March 20 2024 (when the Jan-2024 term ends) and finish by June 16, 2024 (when the Jul-2024 term ends). If your internship will finish later, that is fine. But you must submit the evaluations and report for academic credit by June 16 in order to receive credit.
  • Have a mentor or supervisor who will give you feedback and evaluation

If the qualifications above are met, then the role can qualify for your industry experience. If you aren't sure if a particular position qualifies, ask in Discord or email the course instructors.

Finding Opportunities

There are a few ways to find internships to apply to:

  • Find a role at a company you've already identified
  • Search on job platforms
  • Get a referral from your network
  • Do cold outreach

Finding jobs at a particular company

Make a list at least 10 companies that you were interested in working for, and that are a good fit.

When making this list, be realistic. While it's ok to want to work for Google, Amazon or Microsoft, most of these large companies have established internship programs for learners who are in their penultimate year of university. It is extremely unlikely to get one of these opportunities after year 1. For this first internship, aim for smaller companies where your skills and experiences may be a better match.

To find out if a company has open opportunities, you should:

  • Look on their website (check if there is a 'jobs' or 'careers' link, or a dedicated page for internships)
  • Search on Google for "[company name] internships" or "[company name] jobs"
  • Search on LinkedIn or the job boards below for the company, or "[company name] internship"

If you find an opportunity this way, check if it is a good fit. If it is, move on to the next step: applying.

Search on job platforms

There are many job and internship search platforms. The key is to find a site that has lots of opportunities relevant to you.

The top site for job searching in general is LinkedIn. Not all jobs will be posted there, but it is often the first place companies will post their jobs. Be sure that your profile is set up and you've followed all the guidance in the lesson on setting up your profile.

Other job and internship search sites sometimes have roles that LinkedIn does not.

  • Every week TechCabal shares job opportunities in the African tech ecosystem on its job board.

Google's search results for 'Software Internship [Location]' (e.g. Accra, Lagos, Nairobi) will also often have a result box where you can see specific job details.

Some internship-specific sites are specific to a single country, so check where the roles are based before you start searching.

Often, general job-search sites like Talent.com and Indeed have country-specific sites where you can find roles that are based near you.

  • Talent.com has different sites in Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria.
  • Indeed also has a country-specific site for Nigeria. You can also find listings for virtual internships on other job search sites, like these listings for Computer Science or Data Science from Internships.com.

Tips for searching on job platforms

  • Try different combinations of keywords
    "Software internship" might show different results as "software engineer internship" or "developer intern". Try each of the combinations that might be relevant to you.
  • Use the filtering tools
    Select your city or enter "Remote" for the location to filter for only positions that are near you. Depending on the platform, you can try other filters to only see jobs that are relevant to you.
  • Keep a list
    Keep track of the links of the companies and roles you want to apply to
  • Switch platforms
    If it feels like you have run out of options on one job search platform, you might find different positions on a different platform. Try switching to another tool and trying your luck there.

In the next lesson, we'll review finding opportunities through referrals and cold outreach.