Referrals, especially among large tech companies with thousands of employees handing them out, hold less and less weight these days. Everyone and their dog has referrals these days and if you so choose you can even buy them on https://rooftopslushie.com from people with positions that carry much more weight than a step intern. Source: over 2 years ago

4th-year CPEN (Computer Engineering) student, 84% average in last 2 years, 10 months of the internship experience, and yet nothing (got only 2-3 interviews and got rejected at HR rounds because they found another candidate). I am applying to almost 3 jobs/day and getting crickets. Got my resume reviewed by the coop office, senior SWEs at Faang companies, paid rooftopslushie.com to get it reviewed by HR, checked on... Source: about 3 years ago

It might be worthwhile to take a look at dribbble. If you haven't heard of it before, it's like a social network for designers to showcase their latest design work. Particularly useful to you might be their hiring section [1]: designers can opt to mark themselves as available for work. I know of a few designers who've been hired through dribbble and it seems to work well. Also, the person hiring can see the kind... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago