1. Dig in LinkedIn.com with "site:linkedin.com Internship"

Using the unknown "site:yoursite.com" function on Google can be a very powerful tool. Most of the search forms will show you limited (or not accurate) results if you don't have the PRO Version. So enjoy Google's algorithms and search for what you need. It could be simply "Internship", "Internship Sydney", or look for the sector you are targeting such as "Logistics Vancouver".

2. Leverage the Twitter Search with Hootsuite

There are a lot of discussions on Twitter about internships and jobs. Search for "Internship AND NYC" for example. Best practice is to read the tweets 15min in the morning and 15min before you go to bed. That way to don't waste your time. I'm sure you will find lots of opportunities. I personally recommend Hootsuite as it's the best twitter client for that.

TIP: Use Hootsuite Mobile and find your internship from wherever you are.

3. Use Google Insights to understand your competition

Click here to see the results. Here we learn that January/February is when students decide to look for an internship, probably for the summer from looking at the stats. We also learn that Google is still where people want to work the most and Kenyans are intensively looking for internships (or maybe one guy is obsessed and searches it 10 000 times per day, who knows?).

4. Use Google Realtime to look in the past

Use Google Realtime to look in the past and find lonely tweets that didn't get any responses. Let's say you were on vacation when all the HR people decided to tweet about their internships, or if you're kind of last minute (should never happen) and you need to check what everyone was offering 2 months ago. No problem. Maybe someone gave up looking for an intern: you have a chance here.

TIP: Looking at the charts, you will also understand what are the periods of the day/month/year when people tweet the most about your field. Interesting isn't?

5. Find Groups and People To Talk To on LinkedIn.com

LinkedIn Groups can be very powerful, a lot of them are very active and most of the time the discussion thread will be sent to the members mailbox.

1. Join Groups 2. Start a Discussion 3. Interact with people.

One more thing... Help the HR People and Be easy to find

Try to make HR people's life easier. Create a single web page with all your contact information and refer to it everywhere you go. I personally use about.me/alextoul and find it pretty awesome.

CONCLUSION: I hope you find this useful. Please add your ideas/reactions in the comments and share this article with the people who might be looking for an internship in the future.

PS: I think we can say thanks to the people behind Google, Twitter, Linkedin and Hootsuite for making our lifes much easier.