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Small companies, still skittish about hiring new employees, increasingly are turning to interns to pick up the slack. But be careful! Despite the relatively dismal job market, recent college grads will come to every internship — paid or unpaid — with the “expectation of experience and opportunity,” says Cari Sommer, co-founder of Manhattan-based Urban Interns, a website that connects small companies with interns and part-timers. Follow these five tips to make internships a great experience for all concerned:
- Teach interns about your company. Young workers want to know how they fit into the big picture, so step back and give them some historical perspective and explain what you’re trying to achieve. “You can’t just bring them in and expect them to do a task without context,” Sommer says. With that context, the scut work that’s part of most internships becomes more tolerable.
- Match interns with mentors. “After they’re hired, each intern is interviewed about their interests so we can understand what they want to get out of the experience,” says Darren Paul, co-founder of Night Agency, a New York-based interactive advertising agency that hires 30 or so interns every year. “Then we pair them with a mentor so they can learn specific skill sets.” And consider that mentors may also learn a thing or two from interns, especially when it comes to new technology and social networking.
- Keep interns accountable. Because they have so little work experience, too much freedom can be daunting and counter-productive. “You have to set up a check-in mechanism to track progress,” Sommer says. “Structure is important.” Break long-term projects into smaller bits, and offer guidance and encouragement along the way.
- Establish rules for communication.Do you want your intern asking questions as they come up, or do you prefer scheduling a time to talk? Is it best to reach you by text, phone, or email? Make sure your interns know how and when to reach out, and who the appropriate point of contact is for each issue that may arise.
- Reward good performance with new opportunities. “If they’re doing a great job, hold up your end of the bargain” and offer them an opportunity to work on higher visibility and more exciting projects, Sommer suggests. If you give an intern a chance to shine, you may just find your next valuable employee. “We give our interns access and responsibilities, and in return we get great insights and ideas,” says Paul, adding that six interns have become full-time staffers.
Do you hire interns at your company? Share your intern-management tips — or your cautionary tales!
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Comments
03.15.10
I wonder how our interns at Brazen would rate us based on this post...
03.15.10
All good points, especially numbers 2 and 5. I've hired a number of interns over the years and found buddying them up with another member of the team to be invaluable in making them quickly get into the day-to-day workflow. The other key thing is to make sure they get interesting and valued work to do, just having an intern do the grunt work nobody else wants to do will quickly lose them for you. I've hired 3 of my interns back into the company after they graduated and they all went on to great careers, and part of that was the good grounding we gave them when they first arrived.
04.04.10
Thank you Donna for giving organizations these five simple rules that will increase the value of an internship for both parties! Having done internships in a range of organizations in diverse areas and of different size, I have seen a lot of different ways of dealing with interns.
Assigning a mentor to your intern is something most organizations do. However, in my experience, most mentors are appointed after the internship is set up with the senior managers and they therefore miss out on the discussions about the core of the intern-assignment. During the internship this can lead to tensions as mentors – who often double as advisor – have a different vision of the internship.
I definitely agree with rules 3 and 5. The whole goal of an internship is to get some valuable work-experience, this includes being accountable for your actions and being rewarded for good performance. This is the one thing that students do not get from case studies at university and make the internship-experience truly valuable. My view on interns is that they should basically be treated the same way as you would with new junior managers in the organization. Of course this does depend on the length and goal of the internship.
A thing that is often forgotten by the organization providing the internship is the fact that universities send out their students with an assignment and a set of guidelines of their own. Especially regarding reporting the views of an organization and university are often quite different. The balancing act between these two views can be hard, but is also a valuable skill for all future teamwork situations.
For me, internships are always a way to learn more about a specific organization and now, being in another country, to see how organizations operate abroad. I like to be part of the team I am working with and join their meetings to just get an idea about how things work there. I also see it as a valuable opportunity to expand your network and yes it does increase your changes of getting a job in that organization!
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