Close the gap between you and the right internship

How Skill Builder works

We look at every published internship for the skills and tools employers actually ask for. Skill Builder lines that up against your resume and turns the difference into a plan.

• Find the gap for youWe compare your resume to the roles you're looking for and suggest courses for the skills they're asking for that you don't have yet.
• Rank what mattersWe'll sort missing skills by how often real postings demand them, so you start with the one that unlocks the most roles.
• Generate a short pathWe'll suggest focused videos and courses — minutes each — for you to take, instead of a semester-long detour.
• Put it on your resumeThe courses you complete are added to your resume, so the skills you built show up where recruiters look.

How to figure out which skills an internship needs

You can do a rough version of this before the tool does it for you. Pull up five or six postings for the role you want and read them like a checklist.

1. 1

   Collect the repeats. Open several postings for the same kind of role and note every skill and tool named. The ones that show up again and again are the real requirements, not the wish list.

2. 2

   Split must-haves from nice-to-haves. Skills in the title or the first few bullets are what you're screened on. Skills buried under "bonus" or "a plus" can wait.

3. 3

   Separate hard skills from transferable ones. A tool like Excel or Figma you can learn quickly and prove with a project. Unlike judgment, communication, and teamwork, which you need to show through what you've done, not a course.

4. 4

   Be honest about the gap. Mark each required skill as: have it, sort of, or missing. The "sort of" pile is usually where a short course moves you from filtered out to competitive.

5. 5

   Learn it, then prove it. A skill only counts on a resume when you can point to something you did with it — a project, a deliverable, a number. Build the skill, then build the evidence.

Building skills with no experience

Starting from zero is normal, and it's actually the easiest place to make fast progress, where the gap is wide and obvious. A little effort goes a long way. Pick the skill most in demand and learn enough to use it, not just name it.

Turn each new skill into a small project you can put on your resume: a dashboard for a data role, a mock campaign for marketing, a working demo for engineering. Short courses close the knowledge gap while a project can close the credibility gap. Do that two or three times and you've gone from "no experience" to a resume with concrete, relevant proof.

When you're ready, run your resume through the Resume Optimizer or browse open internships to see what the roles you're looking for are asking for next.

Common questions