I'm a MSc student who, like many others, is gunning for a faculty position but hoping to get industry experience/connections along the way for a plan B.

I am deciding between two options:

Option 1: "Career break:" Graduate the MSc, then work for a year, then apply to PhD programs.

• I got direct advice that this is what I should do, mostly because the person was trying to dissuade me from academia

Option 2: Do summer internships along the way.

• This could either involve transferring to PhD, or defending my MSc thesis and then applying PhD programs elsewhere.
• The benefit of this that I would keep my academic connections the whole way through, as opposed to slipping into the ether and then trying to come back. My current supervisor is very supportive so I would get easier access to their network/help with applications (as opposed to having to awkwardly email for help during my gap year)

Here is some additional information:

• My field is neuroimaging; I don't have enough computational skills to compete with pure compsci kids (not that there are jobs anyways), nor is my school well-connected. Some of my peers had a 6-month stint of unemployment after graduating. If I break my grad-school experience into MSc/PhD (as opposed to transfering) I would try to switch to a better-connected school for PhD, but obviously that involves a high amount of uncertainty
• I have done informational interviews with ~20 people on LinkedIn so far, who are now in data science, healthcare, alt-ac, government roles. People in my own department who are successful/visible seem to go into biotech and (government) clinical research; no idea where the unsuccessful ones go

Here are my questions:

• Is it true that internships are "easier to get" than actual jobs?
• How should I factor in how long the job search will take? In the "career break" option, I could see myself stuck in my parents' basement applying to jobs for 6 months... maybe it'll be worth it to get the academia->industry rough transition out of the way early in my career when I have no dependents - but also, maybe not.