As Forrest Gump might say, recruiting interns is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re gonna get. Though our recruiting chops give us a bit of a leg up when it comes to sniffing out talent, hiring interns – who by default don’t have much experience under their belts – is always a gamble. Throw in some last-minute twists and extended travel by our senior team members, and needless to say, we were on the edges of our seats when we set out to hire two interns for the summer of 2026. In the end, we identified two wonderful college students who checked all the boxes: Lyzane Wang and Alessandra “Allie” Panetta.
We couldn’t be happier to report that both Lyzane and Allie turned out to be true assets to our team. Despite a relatively short tenure (we only “officially” had them for eight weeks), both interns hit the ground running, were eager to help out and learn, and ultimately thrived in their roles. Our team is always curious to hear what lessons our proteges take from their experiences with Treehouse Partners. We asked Lyzane and Allie to share a few takeaways from the summer, and this is what they had to say…
5 Recruiting Lessons We’ll Bring With Us When We Enter the Workforce
By Lyzane Wang & Alessandra Panetta
Interviewer: “What’s your biggest weakness?”
Interviewee: “I’m a perfectionist.”
You’re supposed to disguise a strength as a weakness, right? Before our summer internship with Treehouse Partners, this was our go-to response for the infamous interview question. Imagine our surprise when we listened in on our first candidate interview for a high-level sales role, and a seasoned professional stated his weakness as “being a leader.” Immediately, we were perplexed. Surely, a straightforward, honest answer to the classic “what’s your biggest weakness” interview question would cast doubts on his abilities from the recruiter’s end, right?
Wrong – stick around to learn why!
As two interns early in our careers, our internships were filled with tons of light-bulb moments like this. Learning from the best in recruiting over the summer quickly showed us how much there is for us to learn and apply to our own job searches and career journeys. Here are five quick, SPECIFIC notes we each wrote to ourselves and wanted to share with you, too.
Don’t give a fake, covertly positive “weakness” in interviews
We promise you, both of us have done it before. To make sure I (Lyzane here!) landed my ideal internship (Treehouse, FYI), I gave the classic “perfectionist” answer during the first round of interviews. Being an interview newbie, I thought that was the safe way to go. However, after doing more research before the second round, I realized that it was in fact, very cliché. Since then, it’s always been a question in the back of my mind; What IS the “correct answer”? After listening to that interview, I posed the question to Kate, our Founder and CEO, whose response was that being authentic is the key. After all, if the role does not require a certain trait (for example, leadership in a sales role), it won’t be counted against you. If anything, it makes you seem more genuine, which is always a good quality.
Keep a clean Zoom background
For this one, we first want to disclaim that there’s no shame in a messy room. We all lead busy lives, and we’ve all been guilty of a cluttered desk or dresser at some point. That being said, a quick, five-minute cleanup or opting for a blurred background before a Zoom call can go a long way in polishing the first impressions we make! Tidying up virtual backgrounds is a seemingly small, but effective way to establish a professional, organized presence in interviews. A cluttered or chaotic backdrop may not knock you out of the running, but it won’t win you points, either. Of course, there may be times when there’s not much you can do – if you’re taking a meeting from your parked car, for instance. In these cases, blurring your background is a great way to go.
Be a buddy— referrals matter!
Part of our duties included helping out with senior team members’ LinkedIn inboxes. Under the supervision of our candidate relations team, we’d go through messages from candidates we’d contacted about our open roles and craft responses to those who replied. We would frequently come across candidates who were not interested themselves, but had coworkers who had recently been laid off. This frequently led to great referrals, which increased our chances of filling a role. Helping out with these messages taught us that it’s worth responding to recruiters even if we’re not interested in a particular role – plus, referring qualified colleagues or friends increases our chances that someday, these contacts will be willing to do the same for us!
Check recruiting firm websites (like ours!) for job listings
Every young professional knows the feeling of doom that comes from blindly applying to hundreds of roles on popular job sites, only to be ghosted and wonder if any of those were real openings in the first place. Recruiting firms’ and businesses’ websites can be an AMAZING additional resource. On popular platforms like Indeed and LinkedIn, it’s every man for himself – these sites get flooded with applications, which hurts your chances of getting noticed. Furthermore, we learned that posting jobs on LinkedIn and some of the most popular job boards, like Glassdoor and Indeed, can cost a pretty penny, so some companies may not even bother posting all of their open roles on these sites.
At Treehouse Partners, for example, we post a handful of jobs (usually two or three) at a time on LinkedIn Jobs, swapping them out regularly depending on what needs exposure. Sponsoring all of our active roles at once would be a considerable expense for a mom and pop business like ours; plus, a huge chunk of our candidates come from proactive sourcing and outreach. Our active jobs are always posted on the job seekers page on Treehouse Partners’ website (plus social media and a dozen or so other scattered places), but rarely on the big sites. This means there are TONS of jobs you may be missing out on if you’re limiting your search to sites like Indeed and LinkedIn. Keeping tabs on the job hunters/careers pages of recruiting firms (and any specific companies you’d love to work for) – and following them on social media – are great ways to stay in the loop.
Put thought into your LinkedIn profile picture
When sourcing candidates, profile pictures are the first things that catch our eyes. Your profile pic is the first impression you’re giving the recruiters, so it should be taken somewhat seriously. AI-generated headshots make us hesitate and one question immediately pops into our minds – are you real? Photos of anything other than your face are always interesting – arms holding a baby with only the baby’s body showing, trophy fish photos with the fish photoshopped in, and so on. If you can, make sure to get a nice professional headshot that you can use in a professional setting. In the age of smartphones, it’s not too hard to do! That being said, profile pictures are merely first impressions. Recruiters will likely still send you a connection request if you have the right combo of skills, experiences, and education.
All in all, interning this summer at the Treehouse has been a blast. We’ve both “recruited” quite a bit of knowledge along the way and have added plenty of new skills to our resumes. Most importantly, we learned to collaborate with a close-knit team; one that has shown us endless kindness and support and taught us heaps of valuable lessons. Even over the weekends, we always looked forward to heading back to the Treehouse to see the wonderful people there. This experience will stick with us forever – it is difficult to forget the afternoons when we tried to hold in our laughter during a team call or enjoyed lunch together outside of the office. It was a summer we’ll never forget, and we’re grateful for all of the lessons learned along the way!