How to get a referral for an internship (and reach a real person)

Internships.com is a Chegg service. Where our own tools can help, this guide mentions them.

Key takeaways

• To get a referral for an internship, ask someone who works at the company for a short conversation about their team first, and ask for the referral only after that conversation.
• Being rejected without talking to anyone is common. In Greenhouse's 2026 survey of job seekers, 81% of U.S. candidates said it had happened to them at least once in the past year, and 38% of Gen Z candidates said it happens often or almost always.¹
• A referral is one of the most direct ways to get a person to look at your application. A 2015 study of nine large employers found that referred applicants were more likely to be hired than other applicants with similar qualifications.²
• Employers that recruit interns rate in-person career fairs and on-campus recruiting as their most effective methods, according to NACE's 2025 internship survey, so a two-minute conversation at a fair still counts.³
• Nearly a third of the open internships on Internships.com, more than 14,600 of about 47,000 as of November 9, 2026, take applications through Workday, which usually asks you to create an account on each employer's site.
• An applicant tracking system stores and sorts applications. A rejection that arrives within minutes most likely comes from a screening question or a rule the employer set, not from a person reading your resume.

Why do so many internship applications get no reply?

Most internship applications go into an applicant tracking system, and many never get a reply from a person. Being ignored is common enough that Greenhouse, which makes one of those systems, measured it: 81% of U.S. job seekers in its 2026 survey had been rejected in the past year without speaking to anyone at the company, human or AI. Nearly a third said it happens often or almost always, and among Gen Z candidates that share was 38%.¹

The same survey found that nearly half of U.S. job seekers had asked for a referral to get noticed.¹ That's the right instinct. Most employers still require an online application, but an application with a person behind it gets read differently from one without.

How do you get a referral for an internship?

Find someone at the company who has a reason to talk to you, ask about their work, and ask for the referral at the end of that conversation, not in the first message. A cold "can you refer me?" asks a stranger to vouch for someone they've never spoken to, and most people won't.

1. Pick the role first. A referral attaches to a specific posting. Have the job link and your resume ready before you write to anyone.
2. Find people with a connection to you. Alumni of your school are the strongest starting point, followed by people from your major, your clubs, or a past job.
3. Ask for 15 minutes, not a job. Say why you're writing to them in particular and ask one or two questions about their team. Our networking message templates have wording for LinkedIn and email.
4. Ask for the referral at the end of the call. "Would you be comfortable referring me for the [role] posting?" is enough. Send the job link and your resume right after, so they don't have to look for either.
5. Thank them, and tell them what happened. A short note when you hear back, either way, makes them glad they helped.

Some companies let employees refer anyone, and some only let them refer people they've worked with. If the person says no, ask whether there's someone on the hiring team you could write to instead.

On Internships.com, the Build network tab suggests people at companies in your field, starting with graduates of your school. It drafts a short first message you can edit and send from your own email or LinkedIn. Drafted messages are part of Career membership. Check each person's school on their profile before you mention it in a message, and keep a list of who you've written to, when, and whether they replied, so you know whom to follow up with.

Does an internship referral actually help?

A referral helps you get read, and research suggests it helps you get hired. A 2015 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics used hiring data from nine large firms in call centers, trucking, and high tech. It found that referred applicants were more likely to be hired than non-referred applicants with similar qualifications, and that referred hires stayed longer.² The authors argue that much of the advantage comes from referred people being a better fit for the specific job.

That study covered full-time jobs, not internships, so treat it as a reason to try, not a promise. A referral won't save an application for a role you don't fit. Use referrals for the few roles you want most, not for every posting.

How do you talk to a recruiter at a career fair?

Walk up with one sentence about who you are and which role you're interested in, ask one question you couldn't answer from the company's website, and ask how to follow up. Employers in NACE's 2025 internship survey rated in-person career fairs and on-campus recruiting as their most effective ways to find interns, ahead of virtual fairs, which fewer than a fifth found effective.³

• Look up which companies are coming before the fair and pick five.
• Apply online before the fair when the role is already posted, and say so: "I applied for the summer data analyst internship last week."
• Write down the recruiter's name. A follow-up email that names the conversation is much easier to answer than one that doesn't.
• If the company only takes applications online, ask whether there's a specific posting or referral code to use.

What happens to your application in an applicant tracking system?

An applicant tracking system, or ATS, is the software employers use to collect applications and move candidates through hiring. An ATS stores your resume and answers so a recruiter can review, sort, and search them. Whether it rejects anyone automatically depends on how the employer set it up.

The system you'll meet most is Workday. As of November 9, 2026, the apply links on the roughly 47,000 open internships on Internships.com lead to these systems:

An employer's own careers site can run on one of these systems behind its own web address, so the real share for each system is likely higher than the table shows.

Workday usually asks you to create an account on each employer's site before you can apply. Use the same email address for every Workday account and keep the passwords in a password manager, since you'll make a new one for every company. When the apply link goes to LinkedIn or Indeed, look for the same role on the employer's own careers page, which shows the original posting and usually the deadline.

The fast rejections usually come from screening questions. Questions about work authorization, graduation date, location, or a required certification can be set to reject an application by themselves. If a rejection arrives minutes after you submit, one of these answers is the most likely reason, not a person reading your resume.

What to do about it:

• Answer screening questions accurately. If you don't meet a hard requirement, like graduating by a set date, a referral won't change that.
• Use the posting's own words for skills you actually have. A recruiter searching applications for "SQL" won't find "database querying."
• Skip the tricks. Hidden keywords in white text and pasted job descriptions are visible to anyone who opens your file, and they read as dishonest when a person does.

What should you do about one-way video and AI interviews?

Treat a one-way video interview or an AI interview like a real interview, because a person may review the recording or the results later. Find a quiet spot with plain light, look at the camera rather than your own image, and answer in two or three sentences with one specific example each. Practice once with your phone's camera first, since talking to a screen with a countdown timer feels odd the first time.

Check what's behind you before you start. The reviewer sees everything in the frame, so clear away laundry, dishes, and anything you wouldn't want an employer to see, or sit facing a plain wall. Dress the way you would for an in-person interview with that employer, from head to toe, since you may need to stand up or adjust the camera mid-answer.

If the interview says how the recording will be reviewed, read that before you start. If it doesn't, it's fair to ask the recruiter afterward when you'll hear back.

How long should you wait before following up on an internship application?

Wait about a week after applying, then send one short follow-up to a named person if you can find one, such as the recruiter or someone you spoke with at a career fair. A generic careers inbox is less likely to answer. Our follow-up email templates have wording for after an application and after an interview.

If you still hear nothing after one follow-up, move on and put that time into the next application. Silence isn't always a no, but more nudges after one are more likely to annoy than to help.

Frequently asked questions

Is it OK to ask a stranger for a referral?

Asking a stranger for a conversation is fine, and asking a stranger for a referral in your first message usually isn't. Most people will only refer someone they've talked to, so start with a question about their work.

Should you apply before or after getting a referral?

Ask the person first. Some companies only count a referral when the employee submits it, or when you apply with their referral link, so applying first can mean the referral doesn't attach to your application.

Can you drop off a resume in person instead of applying online?

Most employers will still ask you to apply online. An in-person visit can still help at a small, local business, where the person at the counter may be the person hiring, but at a large company the online application is the only way in.

How do you tell whether an internship posting is still open?

Check the company's own careers page. If the posting is gone there but still shows up elsewhere, it has probably closed. A posting that has been up for months with no changes may already be filled, so a referral or a recruiter's answer is the fastest way to find out.

Footnotes

1. Greenhouse, 6 in 10 job seekers are rethinking how they write to avoid sounding like AI, even as most use it in their search, on the 2026 Future of Hiring Candidate Report, October 20, 2026. Survey of more than 2,800 job seekers in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Germany, and Australia; figures above are for the 1,200 U.S. respondents. ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Stephen V. Burks, Bo Cowgill, Mitchell Hoffman, and Michael Housman, The Value of Hiring through Employee Referrals, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 130, no. 2 (2015). ↩ ↩²

3. NACE, In-person activities more effective than virtual ones for recruiting interns, from the 2025 Internship & Co-op Report, April 21, 2025. ↩ ↩²