While most college students know internships are a great way to gain experience, what you might not think about is the opportunity for that internship to turn into a full-time job. At Yelp, we love it when we can offer a job to an intern who has shown great potential.
Why intern at Yelp? We look for the best of the best and our interns learn it all. We have internships that exist in all areas of the company, from engineering to marketing, design to legal, and our interns get to see what makes Yelp tick.
Yelp has internships year-round, inviting students and curious minds to help us work and improve our company, as well as learn what it’s like working in tech. Projects range within each department, spanning from coding, reporting, social media management, event planning, business outreach, blog writing… the list is endless. We want to prepare you for the real world, challenge you, surprise you, and ultimately, make you fall in love with Yelp.
Not surprisingly, many Yelp interns have gone on to become full-time employees after graduation. We’ve reached out to some of those former interns to tell you all about their climb from interns to full-time employees. Take their advice to get the most out of an internship at Yelp.
Describe your experience as a Yelp intern.
“My experience as an intern was one of the most inspirational times in my life. At the time, no one I knew was working for such a progressive company. Most of my friends were graduating college and going straight into corporate America. I felt like Yelp was this whole new frontier and the trajectory of what a “career” should look like totally changed for me. I loved that every single day was a different learning experience and I was adding more to my resume through this internship than most people would a few years into their careers.“ – Cindy Galea: Former Marketing Intern, now Community Director in Cincinnati
“When I was interning here, I was given the opportunity to decide the direction of my project. I was working on a framework to visualize and analyze our Yelp Knowledge Feeds. The project was delivered and a blog post was published.” – Arthur Jen: Former Software Engineering Intern, now Software Engineer
“I worked on the SeatMe team, now Yelp Reservations. My first project ever was something called a “Cover Flow,” which is a printable report of the traffic that restaurants expect to get in a given day. I knew nothing about restaurants and felt extremely under-qualified to work on something like this, but with a lot of research and some help from my mentor, I made something that is still in the Yelp Reservations product today! The engineering intern experience is pretty amazing. Yelp’s program is famously good, both with respect to preparing interns for the full-time workplace and encouraging interns to do fun things in and out of the office. Bowling, baseball games, fancy dinner parties … the list goes on and on. So many of my buddies today are fellow interns who I met in my first month at Yelp, the kinds of people I wanted to hang out with after work, to go camping and adventuring with on the weekends. They’re so much more than just coworkers: they’re companions, confidants, and friends.” – Timothy Plummer: Former Design Intern, now Product Designer
“I was an intern in August 2015. The company was not too different from what it’s like now! The teams are definitely a lot bigger and we now have our own designer. I worked on adding viewing consumer uploaded videos to the Desktop site, adding a new friend social badge, and creating different ghost texts for each review category!” – Tiffany Ko: Former Associate Product Manager Intern, now Associate Product Manager
As a former public relations intern myself, I managed to capture the attention of my colleagues and “put myself out there” enough to secure a spot the second there was a full-time opening on my team. Honestly though, I attribute most of my drive during my internship to the inspirational culture and energy present at Yelp. Each new employee I met had their own experiences and successes, and their words only helped me want to do more and be more within the company.
Best advice for incoming interns?
“Soak it all in. Push yourself outside your comfort zone and make the most of every opportunity you are given. Immerse yourself in the experience by going to that event, even if you are tired. Witness the behind the scenes set up in the newsroom, sit in on that early morning meeting, speak in front of a crowd. This job is so fast paced, the more you give of yourself, the more you will learn, and walk away feeling satisfied.” – Cindy
“You will be working on interesting and impactful projects. Enjoy the process!” – Arthur
“Go to meetings! Get involved with as many meaty projects as you can, and use each one as an opportunity to learn things you won’t in school. Ask people questions and get them to explain things to you, because people want you to succeed and grow. That’s what internships are all about.” – Timothy
“Talk to as many people as you can! As an intern you do tend to be a little more free than you will be full-time, so it’s a great opportunity to really acquaint yourself with the people in your org.” – Tiffany
And finally, as a former Yelp intern myself, my advice is this: Never think that you aren’t capable of sharing your thoughts and ideas, or asking for big projects you might be interested in just because you are an intern. Yelp is very supportive and encouraging in creativity and collaboration. Asking for more just reads to some of our values: be tenacious, authentic and unboring!
So, are you looking for a great internship? We know just the place. We invite any bright, curious and innovative minds to explore our seasonal and long-term internship opportunities all over Northern America: Apply today.
