Below is a guide written by Matthew Whyte, 2022 Summer Marketing Intern at HubSpot. Through interviews with HubSpot interns, this guide provides college students with information about internships and tips for success in the recruiting process.

HubSpot offers Marketing, Sales, People Operations, Engineering, and Associate Product Management (APM) internships. While these tips come from HubSpot interns, they could apply to interview processes at other tech companies.

Marketing - Aliza Mayer, Josh Blyskal, and Matthew Whyte

• Economics, Advertising, Public Relations, Finance

What does your day-to-day look like?

• “It changes a lot. Some days it is spent in Looker creating dashboards with internal data. On other days it is meeting heavy.” - Aliza Mayer

In college, what activities prepared you for the internship?

• “There isn’t a specific list of activities that need to be done. You need to understand why you are interested in what you are and why you want to get into the field that you want to get into. For example, I found that being President of the Economics Society at school helped me to develop strong leadership skills and my interest in Data Analytics.” - Aliza Mayer
• “I would recommend involving yourself in different activities to expand your perspective. I found that involving myself heavily in one advertising and one business organization helped me learn about two different industries well.” - Matthew Whyte
• “Working at an ad agency really prepared me for this role because I learned how to think critically about issues.” - Josh Blyskal

• “I have been intellectually challenged while also having an incredible support system behind me at HubSpot.” - Aliza Mayer
• “HubSpot is a big company, but there is a huge emphasis on autonomy. You have autonomy and individuality as an intern, which is pretty rare at other companies.” - Josh Blyskal
• “The people are really awesome! Everyone has been so supportive and willing to help out along the way.” - Matthew Whyte

• Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Healthcare Administration

• “I spent my first month in training and just started on the sales floor in July. I now am helping out customers who chat in by assisting them with anything they might need. Being an Inbound Success Coach is the front line since you are learning the product and learning the product/selling parts of it.” - Bob Ranalli

• “I took a management course called International Business Management. It was a class that taught me perspective and opened my mind to information. I learned how to question everything. It also helped me gain perspective on how to understand culture on where people come from.” - Husayani Sultani
• “I participated in venture pitch competitions and took coursework for an entrepreneurship minor. From these activities, I learned more business skills.” - Bob Ranalli 

• “I revamped my resume to be sales oriented. You should have a different resume for every type of position you are applying for. I also interviewed other people who were successful in sales.” - Husayani Sultani
• “Mentorship. If it weren’t for my mentor, I wouldn’t have been drawn to apply for a sales position.” - Bob Ranalli 

• “I love the culture of inclusion and equality. Everyone is playing on an equal playing field. I have never had a job encouraging people to take time off for themselves.” - Husayani Sultani
• “Everyone is super friendly and willing to give advice. I feel like people really care about the company and each other.” - Bob Ranalli

Backend Engineering Interns - Ivory Tang, Sebastian Wakefield, Arian Omidi, and Axel Visan

• Computer Science, Math

• “I have so much flexibility. My team is in Dublin, so we have a very asynchronous style. During the day, I work on projects, send ideas to my team lead, and usually have around 1 meeting per day.” - Arian Omidi

• “Two classes that were very interview geared were called introduction to programming and a basic algorithms class that really showed me how to pass the interview.” - Ivory Tang 
• “Use Glassdoor to get past interview questions. You’ll probably get one of those questions. You also want to research leet code, learn the culture, and prepare for behavioral questions using the STAR method.” - Sebastian Wakefield
• “I practiced easy to medium LeetCode questions beforehand to prepare. Often in interviews, they will give you the topic area, for example, a systems design question.” - Axel Visan

• “I wish I spent more time on personal coding projects. I feel like I learned more than lectures by practicing coding. It felt like a more hands-on approach.” - Ivory Tang
• “Try different things. I’d recommend doing full stack development so you can see how the whole project comes together.” - Sebastian Wakefield 

• “A big part of it is having background experience in other internships and classes. You need to show that you are a good fit for the company. I also grinded LeetCode and practiced algorithms for the coding part of it.” - Ivory Tang
• “I searched what HubSpot is about and got really interested in the company. The recruiter also guided me throughout the process. Everything was super laid out, so I knew exactly what I needed to do. Compared to other interviews, it was pretty relaxed.” - Sebastian Wakefield

• “I like my team. The team is great and helping me grow. The culture is also awesome!” - Sebastian Wakefield
• “I want to say my favorite part was the office culture. Coming into the office and being around other interns and people has been super exciting.” - Axel Visan 

• “Learning the massive code base at HubSpot has been really difficult. Asking questions helped me a lot with learning. Don’t keep asking people the same questions. You want to ask different people questions.” - Axel Visan

APM Interns - Aanchal Sheth and Michelle Nguyen 

• Data Science, Business, Computer Science 

• “I get an opportunity to shadow my manager and learn a lot. I tend to have daily check-ups with my manager. For projects, I am working on a competitive research project where I get to understand a feature and  how it relates to the customer.” - Michelle Nguyen 

• “I explored consulting organizations and realized I enjoyed working with teams and solving different problems. I also joined a Product Management club that also taught me a lot.” - Michelle Nguyen
• “One important thing I did is network with people at my favorite companies and learn more about PM. I was basically doing a PM job while looking for the role. I also read the book Cracking the PM Interview, Decode and Conquer and used www.apmlist.com.” - Aanchal Sheth

• “I like working with cross-functional teams and looking for different ways to solve for solutions.” - Michelle Nguyen
• “I don’t know where a project is going to take me. I like the ambiguity in it where it is whatever I want to prioritize.” - Aanchal Sheth

• “My team is based in Dublin, so all of my meetings are in the morning. It is difficult to communicate with my manager and team because of different time zones.” - Michelle Nguyen
• "The biggest challenge has probably been the fact that I was given such a huge problem - that touched so many aspects of HubSpot with only two months to learn everything about it. But also, this is probably the most exciting part too."- Aanchal Sheth

Frontend Engineering Interns - Ben Demers and Jenny Wang

• Networked and Social Systems, Computer Science

• “Working on an internship long project and working on related UI tickets that can be anything from adding features, fixing bugs, and maintenance for deprecated code.” - Ben Demers

• “My team maintains infrastructure platforms for engineers, fixing bugs or implementing new features for internal tools.” - Jenny Wang 

• “I am in an organization at school where I do full stack web development for non-profits. I was able to learn how the front end and back end work together. These taught me important skills that have helped me in my internship, especially working with stakeholders.” - Ben Demers
• “Doing hands-on projects really helped me out compared to coursework. Hackathons were super helpful for me or courses that demand teamwork.” - Jenny Wang

• “Both my interview questions were on Glassdoor. I also interviewed at HubSpot last year, but I got in on my 2nd try. LeetCode practice also helped.”- Ben Demers

• “The amount of autonomy I have as an intern. I am working on projects that will be used and maintained even after my internship. I feel like what I am working on has an impact and value to the company.” - Ben Demers
• “I really like HubSpot’s work culture. People are so willing to help me out.” - Jenny Wang 

• “I had more experience in the front end. My first internship was in front end.” - Jenny Wang

• “It is more visual. It is more exciting to me.” - Jenny Wang

People Operations - Zak Zaid and Ellie Kominiarek

• Industrial Psychology, Political Science, Economics

• “I am working on the EMEA recruiting where I focus on: Sourcing - Going on LinkedIn to find good candidates seeing if they are interested in new sales positions. Employer Branding - Reaching out to new employees to get their testimonials about how they got to HubSpot (videos, quotes, etc.)” - Zak Zaid
• “I am on the Recruiting Analytics team, where I have been analyzing recruiter ramp by looking at variables that may impact the time it takes for a recruiter to extend their first offer, and I have been working on revamping the candidate experience survey and drawing actionable insights from data we already have. I spend lots of time spent in Excel and in meetings but also lots of time for 1:1's and making connections with amazing people!” - Ellie Kominiarek

• “I found that general research on HubSpot and looking through the culture code helped me the most throughout the interview process.” - Zak Zaid
• “Networking is really key. You want to get to know people in the field so you can learn more about the position. Be very intentional about the role you are passionate about. Think about what you would get out of the role.” - Ellie Kominiarek

• “The remote environment has been challenging with being unable to be in a physical office. Being able to sit down and knock down all of my work is difficult at times due to some distractions.” - Zak Zaid

• “The creativity that I can bring to problem-solving, we are dealing with different people with different backgrounds.”  - Zak Zaid
• “I like that I get to use the analytical background I have developed through studying Economics and having the chance to work on meaningful projects that will actually have an impact here at HubSpot.” - Ellie Kominiarek