The Internship Hunt

In September 2025 I started applying for internships. I wanted something in cyber security, but the roles were not there in the way I expected, so I broadened out into other areas of tech and started sending applications. A few weeks in I opened a HireVue, read the first question, did not understand it, and pressed CMD+Q. That was probably the most honest moment of the whole process.

From there I settled into a rhythm of roughly one application every two weeks. New CV, new cover letter, each time. I was also running a computing society with over 200 members at the same time, so finding the energy to do it properly was harder than it sounds. Most applications went nowhere. A few rejections, mostly silence. By early January I had more or less given up. The majority of roles had closed around Christmas and I had nothing to show for four months of trying.

Then at the end of January I saw National Gas had opened an internship on the Bright Network website. I thought one more application would not hurt, so I applied.

The Interview

Going into the final round I was super anxious. I had prepared as much as I could, practiced with friends, had a few sessions with the university careers team. But beyond the preparation, I prayed. A lot. More than I had for anything in a while. I genuinely believe that without those prayers I would not have got that internship. That is not something I say lightly.

By the time the interview started I had done everything I could do, the preparation and the prayer. I left it knowing I had given my best and that if it was meant to be, it would be.

The Offer

The day after the interview my phone rang. It was the recruiter. She asked how my day was going and I told her we were about to find out.

She offered me the internship.

We were sitting in a study room at the time, Bilal and I, going over how the interview had gone. When the offer came I jumped straight out of my chair punching the air, and Bilal was doing exactly the same. Two people going absolutely crazy in a university study room over a phone call. Four months of applications, rejections, and silence, and it came down to one last application I almost did not send.

What made National Gas different from everything else I had been through was not the role itself, it was how the process made me feel. The communication, the reminders, the advice before the interview, a video from the recruiters early on that actually told you something about who you were about to speak to. Every other application had made me feel like a number moving through a system. National Gas made me feel like a human being.

Alhamdulillah.