How to find an internship in Singapore
Start looking three to six months before you want to begin. Look in four places: your school's career portal, the boards companies post on directly, company career pages, and the people you already know. Then apply to more roles than feels comfortable, because the first few rarely reply.
That is the short version. The rest of this guide is the detail that makes it work, drawn from the internships companies have posted on Worksider since 2020.
When to start
Your school decides most of this. If your course has a fixed internship term, that window is when companies expect you, and our guide to internship periods lists them school by school.
Then work backwards. Banks, consulting firms and large tech companies hire for the May to August holiday months early: their applications typically open between July and October of the year before. Smaller companies and startups, which post most of the internships on Worksider, usually hire a month or two before they need someone.
On Worksider, more internships have been posted in July than in any other month, and June to October is the busiest stretch. April and December are the quietest. If you are aiming for a holiday internship, the time to be watching is the term before it.
Where internships are actually posted
- Your school's career portal. NUS TalentConnect, NTU CareerAxis, SMU OnTRAC, SUTD's GEMS, SIT ReadyTalent, the SUSS Career Portal. Companies that want students from your school post here first, and some roles appear nowhere else. Check it weekly, not once. Polytechnics match most final year internships through the school, so start with your internship coordinator.
- Boards companies post on directly. Worksider's internships are posted by the companies themselves and read by a person before they go up. You can filter by field and by how many hours you have, and new roles go out on the Telegram channel every day. MyCareersFuture, the government's job portal, is worth a look too, though it leans towards full-time roles.
- Company career pages. If there are five companies you would most like to work at, check their careers pages directly. Large employers run their own application systems and only advertise their programmes there.
- People. Seniors who interned last year, lecturers who consult, your CCA's alumni. A short message asking "is your team taking interns this summer?" gets answered more often than you would expect, and plenty of internships at small companies are filled this way before they are ever advertised.
Reading a listing properly
Before you apply, check four things.
- The allowance. About two in three internships on Worksider state one. The typical figure has been S$1,000 a month, and our pay page breaks it down by field, so you can tell whether an offer is fair.
- The length and the start date. Most internships here run three or six months. Make sure the dates fit your term, not just your plans.
- What you would actually do. A good listing describes the work: "run our Instagram and report on what performs" tells you more than "assist the marketing team".
- Warning signs. A real employer never asks you to pay a fee or a deposit, and does not run the whole hiring process over a chat app. "Internships" paid by commission alone are sales roles. If a listing on Worksider looks wrong, report it and we take it down.
Applying so that people reply
- Apply early in a listing's life. A company reads the first applications most carefully and often stops reading once it has a shortlist.
- Change the top of your CV for each role. The first few lines are what get read. Put the project, module or experience closest to this job there. Our CV guide goes through the rest.
- Say when you are free. "Available 12 May to 8 August" answers the first question a company has, before it has to ask.
- Write two lines, not a letter. Who you are, and why this role. A short, specific note beats a long generic one.
- Keep a list. Company, role, date applied, and a reminder to follow up after a week if you have heard nothing. One polite follow-up is normal; three is not.
If nothing is working
Widen the field before you lower the bar. Marketing, business development and operations have the most internships on Worksider, and the skills carry over to almost anything. A short paid project or part-time role also counts as experience, and makes the next application easier.