{"id":753695,"date":"2026-06-22T14:15:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T14:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/753695\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T14:15:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T14:15:17","slug":"young-tech-hopefuls-are-building-their-own-ai-experience-to-land-internships-as-university-courses-try-to-catch-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/753695\/","title":{"rendered":"Young tech-hopefuls are building their own AI experience to land internships as university courses try to catch up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Queen’s University student Dolev Klein Harari, in Toronto, in June. Mr. Klein Harari is part of a group of young tech hopefuls who are navigating a shifting market for internships.Cole Burston\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

This summer, 19-year-old Dolev Klein Harari will be working at a top consulting firm as an AI data science intern following the only interview he landed after applying for more than 100 positions.<\/p>\n

His leg up? The array of self-directed AI projects he had worked on. <\/p>\n

Mr. Klein Harari has been building his future career since high school. A Grade 11 machine-learning project on predicting earthquake damage took him to the Canada-Wide Science Fair, the country\u2019s largest annual youth science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) event, which he attended again in Grade 12 with a project that used AI for schizophrenia diagnosis and treatment. Then, after two years of working on team projects at Queen\u2019s University\u2019s AI Club, QMIND, he took on a leadership role there and is helping others gain hands-on experience. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeing a very big shift from, we are hiring you for your skill set, and now we\u2019re hiring you for your ability to learn,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Klein Harari is part of a group of young tech-hopefuls who are navigating a shifting market for technology-sector internships. With fewer roles available, candidates must demonstrate they have proven experience using AI tools to solve real-world problems. While universities are pivoting to offer more AI learning opportunities in classrooms, students are developing extra projects independently to fill in the gaps during the curriculum transition. <\/p>\n

High achievers like Mr. Klein Harari are turning to the university\u2019s AI club as a launch pad to gain project experience with practical results to show for it. Through hackathons, technical workshops and team-based projects, clubs are helping members meet their goals. <\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s youth job market fell off sharply after the pandemic and continues to trickle lower. With competition among candidates in the tech internship job market particularly fierce, students are gravitating toward this workaround to meet the expectations of top employers who require them to be ready to rapidly learn. <\/p>\n

Students struggle to land career-boosting summer jobs after opportunities \u2018fell off a cliff\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Toronto-based autonomous vehicle startup Waabi Innovation Inc. is embracing an approach to hiring based on a candidate\u2019s potential. The company, which plans to launch a fleet of robotaxis with Uber,<\/a> welcomes around 50 interns annually and finds a candidate\u2019s real-word project experience more compelling than lines on a r\u00e9sum\u00e9, said head of people, Tricia Mullinax.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of these students have not done the type of work we\u2019re doing at Waabi, and so to assess them just on the pure, expectation of have they done the same thing in the past is not necessarily going to find the right talent for the future,\u201d said Ms. Mullinax. <\/p>\n

Waabi maintains close ties with the academic community. Its founder and chief executive officer, Raquel Urtasun, is a University of Toronto computer science professor. <\/p>\n

Despite the lower level of hiring in the sector, e-commerce giant Shopify Inc. is doubling down on internships, but appears to be refining its approach to talent development. The company said it planned to hire 1,000 new interns<\/a> this year, but has quietly scaled back its Dev Degree pathway<\/a>, a program where young builders can get a computer science degree from one of Shopify\u2019s partner universities while working at the company. Shopify is no longer admitting candidates to its partnership at U.S.-based Dominican University of California. Still, the partnership remains in place at Carleton University and York University. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone thinks AI is killing junior engineering jobs \u2013 it\u2019s not,” Shopify engineering head, Farhan Thawar, said in an X post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Students like Mr. Klein Harari are turning to university AI clubs as a launch pad to gain project experience.Cole Burston\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Twenty-year-old Sonia Vaidya, co-president of The University of Toronto\u2019s student-run AI club, recognizes that employers value hands-on learning more than ever. The club offers technical workshops \u2013 sometimes run by grad students, sometimes by industry leaders \u2013 throughout the academic year and at its annual conference. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a theory-heavy university curriculum, although understandable in an academic setting, often does not introduce machine learning skills until upper years.<\/p>\n

Ms. Vaidya leveraged a computer graphics project she made in an experiential learning course offered in her computer science program to secure an AI and robotics research position with the university this summer. But her journey to the role required some strategy. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is definitely difficult to figure out where you fit into this whole massive tech space,\u201d she said, adding that building a personal brand is a must. Her methods included writing about her work on Substack, utilizing LinkedIn and embracing the networking circuit. <\/p>\n

Wanted: Jobs for teenagers<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s something 19-year-old Nalin Verma learned through trial and error. The University of Waterloo management engineering student said he sent out 350 to 400 applications ahead of this summer. And that doesn\u2019t include the many \u201ccold\u201d e-mails he sent to companies and individuals that were not part of a formal job application.<\/p>\n

Mr. Verma, who is involved with his school\u2019s AI club, did end up landing a remote summer machine-learning internship at a global analytics consulting firm. The international student is a member of Waterloo\u2019s AI club and co-founded a dietitian-backed AI health tool last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone told me first years don\u2019t get a role, so I had nothing to lose,\u201d Mr. Verma said.<\/p>\n

As part of the cohort facing odds that require a healthy dose of ingenuity, the Queen\u2019s AI club leader Mr. Klein Harari said he\u2019s working on building his profile to reverse hiring roles altogether. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you reach out to 100 companies, you\u2019ll have a 1-per-cent success rate, but if you create projects that have impact or have value, people come to you and offer you those positions instead.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Queen’s University student Dolev Klein Harari, in Toronto, in June. Mr. Klein Harari…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,901,276,277,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-753695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-alberta","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}