How I Landed My First Internship in the USA as an International Student After 100+ Rejections

Countless applications, hundreds of rejections, a hungry belly and one big American dream. That passion, that drive and that motivation to someday land a role of your dreams that keeps you glued to your laptop screen as you burn the midnight oil through the nights you lose count of.

Often, you’re lying on your bed with your laptop or sitting long hours by your study table, in your living room or you can be found in the library glued to your screen applying to jobs, picking up new skills and certifications, working on new research and projects. And then there are nights where you lay on your bed, tired and looking at the ceiling wondering if this endless loop of misery will ever end.

Through this journey you sacrifice meals, your hobbies, your love for the gym and spending time with your friends and loved ones as every day brings a gloomy feeling to your heart and soul with the burden of student debt and the time constraint you carry. Often you find yourself lost in your thoughts again wondering if your soul will ever find peace. You wonder if this endless loop of patience, hard work and sacrifice will ever end, if your dreams will ever come true and if you will ever find the job of your dreams.

That is the life of an International Student in the United States who comes to this land of the brave and the free, the land of dreams, opportunities and endless possibilities.

That has been my life too. At one point heartbreaking every day to now with some light and a ray of hope since Early July 2025 when I landed my first Internship as an AI & Growth Innovation Intern for a venture studio, The Resonance owned by this amazing marketing and brand experience company Digital Surgeons.

And today, I’m writing this article with hope that someone who is struggling comes across this article, and my story offers them some comfort, some relief and some hope, even if little or for a short time.

Perspectives and Personal Experiences teach us a lot

I believe the setbacks you face in your journey shape you a lot. They’re learning curves for you to learn a lot from giving you an opportunity to reflect and ask yourself what you could’ve done differently. You have to condition your brain to not feel disheartened by them and keep your head up high.

Often you might notice that you’ve done everything right, from getting referrals, making Linked In connections, having a good GPA, a good degree, lots of certifications, skills and projects but it is still not leading you anywhere.

And that is when you need to understand that often the fault is not with your resume. There are various factors that come into play and you’re either not standing out to the recruiter, the hiring manager or the CEO of the company you’re applying to or there are different perspectives in motion that alter everything you know about how hiring works in the current job market.

Often interacting with people who come from different walks of life in the job market helps give us the perspective we might be looking for. From people who are struggling at different levels in their professional journey to well established and working professionals who are Hiring Managers, CEOs and recruiters gives you a good idea about the job market, the employers and if the problem lies in the presentation, or the company’s hiring practices.

I remember talking to a Product Manager at a well-established multinational company and a hiring manager from an established company in New England. They gave me deeper insights into my resume. Although I’ve had a lot of amazing skills, projects, certifications and good work experience, they told me that it helps a lot when you have different resumes for different job descriptions that match the keywords in the job description and about the work related to the role with your skills, experience, certifications and projects on your resume. That will help you get through the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software used by HRs or make your resume easier to read if they’re screening manually.

You might notice that for many job postings there are hundreds and hundreds of resumes the hiring manager, the recruiter or a startup CEO might receive. And that is when you look at things from the perspective of the hiring manager, recruiter or the CEO and ask the question they might have in mind while going through your impressive resume.

“Why should I hire you when there’s so many great applicants out there like you who have had a great academic career, good work experience, projects, certifications and a strong skillset that I’m looking for? What can you do differently that can be an advantage to my team?”

That is one of many things. Other times there’s little you can do when out of the hundreds of applications the hiring manager comes across, only a few are picked randomly and there’s just a few openings for that position. At times even the job postings are ghost postings that close after some time resulting in no hires, internal hires or end with the least deserving one getting hired because of a strong referral or recommendation, companies where interviews too are just a formality and the candidate is already decided.

I’ve attended interviews where I brought a lot of energy and interest, but the interviewer did not show the same interest in interviewing me, where it often looked like they were just doing it to pass their time.

As an international student, there’s no doubt that a lot of us need a visa sponsorship. And often it is that the company that you’re applying to has budgetary and hiring constraints that might prevent the hiring manager from moving forward in the hiring process if they’re looking for an intern they can potentially convert to a full-time employee.

Understanding this helps you get the clarity you need and strategize better to target employers who might be interested in hiring you.

My Startup Idea Explorations in this journey

Since I’ve always been a visionary and love to come up with innovative ideas and solutions, sometime around April 2025, I decided to explore them and find co-founders and investors who would be interested in them. So, I made an account on Y-Combinator’s Startup School where I came across dozens of startup proposals from other founders and people who were interested in my own ideas as well.

I came across founders who had great ideas but lots of pride, founders who were very hostile when it came to getting feedback from others, founders who were hesitant to innovation and suggestions and therefore faced multiple rejections from Y-Combinator and other Venture Capital firms.

Somewhere along that phase, I also had the opportunity to interview people who showed interest in my Healthcare and Lifestyle focused startup ideas and found out that those people were least interested in the idea and more interested in the title and the money.

Now all these experiences in my journey as an MBA student on an F1 Visa gave me a whole new perspective teaching me what to be and what not to be as a professional who is just starting out in life and that’s when I altered my internship strategy along the way to apply to companies who are truly in need of exceptional talent to help them achieve their goals.

I got rejected by Bun

Around May, I happened to come across a job posting from Bun, the company responsible for the new, fast and innovative all in one Javascript runtime that a lot of Software Developers had been exploring lately. Bun.sh recently became an incredible alternative to Node Package Manager (NPM) that took the community by storm. And the founders at Bun were looking for a potential employee to work in Developer Relations. In the job description, they asked for a demo of something unique that I have created using bun and that’s when I created the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for my Healthcare startup idea called Falia and shared it with the team at Bun.

After weeks of no response and a follow-up email that I sent and one of the founding members, reached out and replied that they were reviewing applications. I didn’t hear back from him again and I realized that maybe the team at Bun finally decided who they’re hiring.

But I didn’t let that shatter my spirit. I really enjoyed using Bun to create the MVP for Falia although it wasn’t as smooth as NPM and buggy, but it was worth my time as I got to learn something new and explore my own idea in the process.

I got hired by Digital Surgeons for The Resonance

Around June 2025, I came across this exceptional job description on LinkedIn that stood out to me. It was a Venture Studio firm by the name The Resonance which was a subsidiary of this branding experience company Digital Surgeons looking to hire a curious mind who can blend Business and Tech to help with AI experiments, build Artificial Intelligence powered applications and MVPs, help in the Growth Strategy, Product Strategy and Product Management for those products and shadow the CEO and Founder Peter Sena to learn a lot from him about Business, Strategy, Tech and Branding.

He wanted anybody applying for the job to come up with a 2 Minute pitch on Loom about an interesting idea they’ve had so far or a product that they might have built.

Since I had recently built Falia, I pitched the idea of Falia to him in a 2-minute video showcasing the demo of the app.

Now that impressed Pete enough to invite me to the first Round of the interview with him personally to talk more about my professional journey, this internship, Pete and the company. As excited as it made me feel to get that opportunity, I didn’t hold back. I transformed my portfolio website into a full-fledged blog Faraz Syed Live on which you are possibly reading this article. I built the whole thing in a week using Next.Js, Tailwind CSS and Decap CMS hosting the website on Netlify after buying my domain names www.farazsyedlive.com and www.farazsyed.live from Namecheap and using Github as the database syncing everything with my Netlify frontend.

I loved interacting with Pete and showing him my newest creation and talking about why branding means a lot to me and how this is one way I’m branding myself with the Faraz Syed brand and the Faraz Syed Live username everywhere to stand out. I remember discussing the opportunity with him and telling him. “My motto in life about work is simple. Why work on something when you can’t make money off it. When you can’t profit from it. That’s my understanding that I wouldn’t put an effort to waste my time on doing something I can’t profit from.” And I remember telling him how I believe an innovation is not an innovation unless it solves the problem someone is facing and that was something that always interested me and keeps me motivated to explore my ideas.

And a week later I was informed that I will be moving to the second round for which I have to work on a small project and come up with innovative features I can add to the product but first I need to create a Product pitch and talk more about the features I can add to it and what my Product Strategy would look like. I remember staying up all night and creating a pitch deck and a video presentation explaining the amazing features I could come up with for that product, my product strategy and also talked about my growth strategy for that product.

And that’s when I was approved to work on it and I was informed that there is only one person that they were looking to hire and if I’m successful and they like my work, I will be hired. I didn’t let that demotivate me and I worked on that project over the Independence Day weekend and submitted it along with a demo video.

I remember how worried I was after completing that project wondering whether I will be selected. And my mom told me this one thing “What is destined for you will come to you, and if it’s meant for you, you will get it!”

I remember the nights I spent in prayer on my prayer mat praying to get this internship because this job and the work I’d be doing during this internship was something I was really passionate about. Because this opportunity would open doors for me to learn a lot from the work I’ll be doing and the amazing people at that company which can help me grow in my career.

And one week later, I received an email from Pete that I was hired.

And to this day I still can’t believe my own eyes that I’m working at this amazing position, getting to build amazing products that matter and learning a lot along the way.

I want to make a positive difference

Who would’ve thought that a boy who lost his father at 17, struggling to make ends meet still by the time he was 24 despite an amazing academic career would ever make it to the US to pursue an MBA and land an internship despite all odds?

I live every day hoping that someday I can inspire people who are struggling to never give up on their dreams, and to find peace in knowing that I made a positive difference in their lives.

And this is why I often find myself making YouTube videos and writing Blog posts sharing my story, my views and my journey with those who might come across them.

And if my story today has inspired you, made you happy, motivated you or in some way offered you some comfort, all I ask is that you share this with those who might need to read this or might need to watch my YouTube videos.

Thank you so much for reading, never give up on your dreams, keep trying to find reasons to smile and keep going in life no matter how tough it gets.

And remember the name…….

Faraz Syed

Here's the complete YouTube Video