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① The Full Playbook ② Find Companies ③ Get Emails ④ Cold Mail ⑤ Interview Flow ✨ Resume Builder
🎓 By a BITSian, For a BITSian · The No-Portal Playbook

Land Your First Internship at a Startup

The complete playbook — from finding the right companies, to cold mailing founders, cracking interviews, and building your resume. No campus placements. No referrals. No portal fees.

✅ Verified — Gets Replies
RV
Rajay Vardhan Rai
2024A2PS1255P · BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus · +91-9266134679
"I built this after 3 weeks figuring out what nobody told me. These exact templates landed me internships at Evolve, Indumaa, HappyProut & more — with founder replies."
✅ Verified
CB
Chirag Bajaj
2025B5PS1320P · BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus · +91-7428526305
"Built the engine behind InternHunt — backend, deployment, and product improvements — to make internship outreach simpler for every student."
① Read the Playbook ✉️ Draft Cold Mail 📄 Build Resume
0%
Cold mail response rate with right targeting
3–5
Weeks from first mail to offer letter
₹0
Cost — zero portals, zero fees
Step-by-step

The Full Internship Playbook

Here's exactly how the process works — from zero to offer letter. Follow these steps in order.

Click any step to expand details

1

Find the Right Companies to Target ▼

Hunt for startups with recent Seed–Series B funding or new product verticals. Less bureaucracy, accessible founders, and open roles.

🎯 New funding = open roles + responsive founders

Avoid applying to Google, Zomato, Swiggy as a fresher — they get 50,000+ applications. Your edge is in the 30–200 person company that just raised.

Where to find them:

  • Tracxn + Crunchbase: filter "India", "last 6 months", "Seed to Series B"
  • Inc42 weekly funding newsletter — bookmark it
  • YC Startup Directory — filter by India + stage
  • LinkedIn News: "Series A" + "hiring" + "engineering"
  • Product Hunt: sort by newest, find Indian teams

Target 20 companies per week. Build a spreadsheet: Company | Founder Name | LinkedIn | Funding Stage | Email (TBD) | Status.

2

Find the Founder or HoD's Email ▼

Use ContactOut or Apollo.ai Chrome extensions to extract verified work emails directly from LinkedIn profiles.

🔍 Tools: ContactOut + Apollo.ai Chrome Extensions

The goal is to reach the decision-maker, not the HR inbox. For companies under 50 people, email the Founder or Co-Founder. For 50–200, email the Head of Engineering / Product / Design.

  • ContactOut: 40 free emails/month — enough for a strong weekly batch
  • Apollo.io: 50 free exports/month + richer company context
  • Hunter.io: great for finding email formats if the others miss
  • Email format guesser: firstname@company.com is correct 70% of the time
  • Never email info@, hello@, or careers@ — these are black holes
3

Write a Killer Cold Mail ▼

Your cold mail has one job: get a reply. Under 180 words, hyper-personalized, ends with a low-friction ask.

✉️ Formula: Intro → Research → Value → Solution → CTA

The difference between 0% and 15% reply rate is specificity. Generic openers get deleted. A mail that names their product, spots a real gap, and proposes a concrete fix gets a reply.

  • Subject line: "CS Undergrad @ BITS — Quick idea for [specific product]"
  • Line 1–2: Who you are + how you found them (specific trigger)
  • Line 3–4: One specific observation about their product/company
  • Line 5–6: Why you + why now (matching your skills to their stack)
  • Line 7–8: Concrete offer — a spec, a prototype idea, a doc
  • CTA: Ask for a 20-min call OR offer to send the spec. Give two paths.
  • Sign off with: name, BITS + branch + year, GitHub, phone
4

Navigate the Interview Pipeline ▼

Three rounds: HR culture fit → Technical deep-dive with HoD → Final HR + salary. Knowing the flow means you never get blindsided.

🧭 Know the pipeline before it starts

Most startup internship pipelines follow this exact structure. The timeline from first reply to offer letter is typically 2–3 weeks.

  • Round 1 (HR — 15–30 min): communication, culture fit, availability, stipend ballpark
  • Round 2 (HoD — 60–90 min): 1–2 LeetCode mediums, system design, deep project dive
  • Round 3 (Final HR — 30 min): offer discussion, negotiation, logistics
  • Preparation: re-read your cold mail — they will reference it
  • Negotiate: always counter. First offer is never the final offer.
5

Build a Clean ATS-Friendly Resume ▼

Use the AI resume builder below. Generates LaTeX code → paste into Overleaf → compile → PDF in 2 minutes.

📄 LaTeX via Overleaf — ATS parsable, recruiter approved

Recruiters spend 6–8 seconds on your resume. It needs to be clean, scannable, and honest. LaTeX gives you pixel-perfect formatting that Word cannot match.

  • Use strong action verbs: Built, Reduced, Shipped, Designed, Led, Optimized
  • Every bullet must have a metric: "Reduced latency by 40%", "Handled 10K+ requests/day"
  • Projects section > Experience section if you have no internship yet
  • CGPA < 7.5? Lead with projects. CGPA ≥ 8.0? Lead with education.
  • Keep to 1 page — even seniors. Recruiters hate scrolling.
Phase 1

Finding the Right Companies

The secret is targeting companies in the right growth phase. Freshers get noticed at startups that are scaling — not at MNCs processing 10,000 applications.

💰

Recently Funded Startups

Series A–B startups in the last 6 months. New funding means new engineering hires, new product features, and founders who are reachable and building fast.

🚀

Companies Launching New Verticals

Companies expanding to new geographies or products. They need fast-moving interns who can ship. Founders are hands-on and accessible.

🔬

Deep Tech & AI-First

YC-backed and research-to-product companies. If you have relevant project experience, your cold mail will stand out dramatically.

🌱

Seed-Stage Consumer Apps

Pre-product-market-fit startups building consumer apps in health, finance, or edtech. The founders still answer emails and hire interns they personally like.

🏭

B2B SaaS Going Enterprise

Startups transitioning from SMB to enterprise customers. They need product, engineering, and growth interns immediately.

🤖

AI Tooling & Infrastructure

LLM wrappers, developer tools, and AI-native startups. These teams are tiny and desperately need technically strong students who understand the AI landscape.

💡 Pro Tip: Go to LinkedIn → search site:linkedin.com/company + "Series A" + "hiring". Or use Inc42's funding tracker to get a fresh list every week. Target 20 companies per week.

📊 Company Target Tracker

Saved in your browser
No companies yet. Add your first target above ↑
Where to Hunt
🔎
Tracxn
Startup intelligence + funding data
↗
💼
Crunchbase
Company profiles + funding rounds
↗
📰
Inc42 Funding Alerts
Weekly Indian startup funding news
↗
🚀
YC India Companies
Y Combinator-backed Indian startups
↗
🐱
Product Hunt
Newest products — find founding teams
↗
😇
Wellfound (AngelList)
Startup job board — direct to founders
↗
Phase 2

Finding the Founder's Email

The most important step. You need the decision-maker's direct email — not the generic info@company.com black hole.

ContactOut

chrome extension
1
Install ContactOut from Chrome Web Store — free plan gives 40 emails/month
2
Open the founder's LinkedIn profile in your browser
3
Click the ContactOut extension icon — it pops up beside the profile
4
Verified email appears instantly. Copy it. Done.
🔌 Install ContactOut ↗ Chrome Web Store ↗
AK
Aman Kapoor
Co-Founder & CEO at FinTech Startup · Bangalore
aman@fintechco.in
a.kapoor@gmail.com
✓ Verified Work Email

Apollo.io

chrome extension + platform
1
Sign up at Apollo.io (free — 50 exports/month) and install their Chrome extension
2
Use Apollo's People search — filter by Company + Job Title
3
On LinkedIn, the extension overlays email + phone directly on the profile page
4
Bonus: Apollo also shows past companies, tech stack, and funding info
🔌 Install Apollo.io ↗ Chrome Web Store ↗
APOLLO SEARCH FILTERS
Job Title: Head of Engineering Company Size: 11–50 Funding: Seed Country: India
🎯 Who to email: For a startup with under 50 people, email the Founder directly. For 50–200 people, target the HoD of the vertical you want. Emailing HR as a first contact is a waste — they're screeners, not decision-makers.
Phase 3

Writing the Perfect Cold Mail

Your cold mail is your first impression. Under 180 words, hyper-personalized, and end with a clear ask. Here's the exact anatomy:

✅ Real Mail. Real Founder Replies.

This exact format gets replies — screenshot proof below

These are Rajay's actual application screenshots sent to Good Monk (children's nutrition startup). Study the structure — 3 scrolls, one ask, real results.

Cold mail page 1 — intro and work experience
① INTRO + EXPERIENCE — who you are & what you've built
Cold mail page 2 — why this company
② WHY THIS COMPANY — specific insight about their product
Cold mail page 3 — closing and CTA
③ CLOSING + CLEAR ASK — low-friction CTA that works
3+
Internships landed
with this method
~15%
Reply rate when
properly targeted
<180w
Max email length
that gets read
₹0
Referrals or
connections needed
Subject: CS Undergrad @ BITS Pilani — Quick idea for your [specific product/feature]
❌

Never say: "I am a passionate learner who wants to gain experience at your esteemed organization." This goes straight to trash.

✅

Always mention: A specific product, feature, blog post, or funding news. Prove you spent 20 minutes on their product before emailing.

📎

Attach a spec/doc: Spending 2 hours on a concrete proposal beats 20 generic applications. Founders remember effort.

⏱️

Follow up once: If no reply in 5 days, send one short follow-up: "Following up on my email — still happy to share the spec if useful."

Phase 4

The Interview Pipeline

Once you get a reply, here's exactly how the process unfolds — typically 2–3 weeks from first reply to offer letter.

Click any stage to see exactly what happens

✉️

Cold Mail

Day 1

→
🤝

Founder → HR

Day 2–5

→
📞

HR Screening

Day 6–10

→
💻

Technical Round

Day 12–16

→
💰

Offer + Negotiation

Day 18–22

● HR Screening (Round 1)

  • Tell me about yourself — your 60-second pitch
  • Why this company specifically (use your cold mail research)
  • What do you know about our product?
  • Availability, location, stipend expectations
  • Basic communication and energy check

● Technical Round with HoD (Round 2)

  • DSA: 1–2 medium LeetCode questions (arrays, strings, graphs)
  • System design basics — how you'd design a feature
  • Your projects — expect deep dives on every line
  • Domain questions (ML, backend, mobile based on role)
  • Your concrete proposal/spec if you sent one

● Final HR + Salary (Round 3)

  • Culture fit — do you align with company values?
  • Salary range: For first-year BITSians, expect ₹15K–₹40K/month
  • Negotiate: "I have another offer at X — can you match?"
  • Ask about mentorship, tech stack, and what project you'll own
  • Get everything in writing — offer letter with stipend confirmed
💡 Salary Negotiation Script: "Thank you for the offer — I'm very excited about this role. Based on my research and a competing offer I have, I was hoping for ₹X. Is there any flexibility on that?" — Always counter. The first number is never the final number.
💬 Salary Negotiation Script — Use this word-for-word
HR
"We'd like to offer you a stipend of ₹20,000/month for the 2-month internship. How does that sound?"
You
"Thank you — I'm genuinely excited about this role and the team. I did want to mention that I have another offer at ₹28,000/month. Given what I can bring to the [specific project they mentioned], is there any flexibility to get closer to that? I'm very committed to joining here if we can make it work."
Why this works: You thanked them, anchored with a competing number, referenced the specific role, and gave them a face-saving out. Always negotiate.
HR
"We can stretch to ₹24,000. That's our max for this role."
You
"I appreciate that. Can we also confirm that the offer letter will specify the project I'll be working on and the tech stack involved? That's important to me from a learning perspective."
Even if they don't move on stipend: Ask for project clarity, mentorship access, return offer consideration, or a letter of recommendation.
Your 4-Week Action Plan
📋
WEEK 1
Build Your Target List
Identify 20 startups using Tracxn + Inc42. Fill your spreadsheet: company, founder name, LinkedIn profile, funding stage. Set up ContactOut and Apollo.io extensions.
✉️
WEEK 2
Send Your First Batch of Cold Mails
Find emails for all 20 founders/HoDs. Write personalised mails for each. Spend 30 min per mail at first — it gets faster. Send all 20 by end of week.
🔄
WEEK 3
Follow Up + Repeat Batch
Send one follow-up to non-responders from Week 2. Start second batch of 20 new targets. Update tracker statuses.
🎯
WEEK 4
Interviews + Offers
By now, 3–6 companies should be in conversation. Run the interview pipeline. Negotiate offers. Continue sending new batches in parallel.
Build your resume

Generate Your LaTeX Resume

Fill in your details below. Claude will generate a complete, recruiter-ready LaTeX resume you can paste into Overleaf and download as PDF in seconds.

Resume Generator

Powered by AI — Built on the BITSian Template
LaTeX → Overleaf Ready
Personal Information
Education
Skills
Projects
Internship / Experience (if any)
Certifications & Extracurriculars
📄

Fill in your details and click Generate — your LaTeX resume code will appear here instantly.

Copy the code → paste into Overleaf → compile → download PDF

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