Summer internships are a great opportunity for future professionals.
They give them a sneak peek into the working world: How it feels to wake up early every day, to be at work for eight hours or more, to meet deadlines, and to engage daily with your colleagues and boss.
This past summer we had an awesome Millennial intern and her name is Paris Fox.
We debated quite a bit about whether to bring interns in, and not because we don’t have a fantastic team who would welcome them with open arms.
Our reluctance came from a different place: We are a virtual organization with a workforce distributed around the globe.
So having a student with no work experience jump straight into a virtual company might bring its challenges.
Or so we thought.
It turned out we were wrong.
Paris proved to be not only willing to learn new things, but also to adapt to this peculiar work environment.
She asked questions, she participated in our staff meetings, she learned quickly, and she delivered before deadlines.
Maybe we were lucky to have Paris with us this summer. Maybe she’s a special Millennial.
Or maybe you just need a good setting to welcome a Millennial intern.
Ensure the Best Experience for an Intern
While some may say we were just lucky to have an awesome intern, and we agree Paris is awesome, for her to have a great internship experience with us meant us working our butts off.
Here is how we did it.
Set Expectations
Just like you need a job description for every new employee, the intern also needs ones.
We created a welcome letter that shared how excited we were to have her on the team and made a statement.
We laid out what she should expect from us, what she would learn, and what she would go back to school being able to talk about.
We also laid out what we expected from her.
What this letter did was not only to set expectations from the very beginning, but also to hold us accountable to her.
That way the intern had a good understanding of what she would learn by the end of the internship.
Explain Everything
It’s called the curse of knowledge.
You know what you know and most of the times you expect others to know it, too.
It may be hard to put yourself in an intern’s shoes. After all it’s been a while since you finished school.
But we took extra steps to explain everything in minute detail.
We did not assume anything.
We explained every single task and the rationale behind it—everything to how to respond to a meeting invite and how to behave when your CEO is in a meeting to how to use our company’s apps and software.
We explained how to write and deliver documents for clients, we explained blogging, social media, and image creation.
And in the process, we busted the myth that says Millennials know everything there is about social media.
Just because your intern is a Millennial does not mean he or she know how to do social media in business.
It’s one thing to play with social channels for fun and personal interest, and a totally different matter to manage social media channels for an organization.
Remember explain everything and the reasoning behind it.
Be Available
As busy as you are with your daily work, when you have an intern in your care, you have a responsibility.
You NEED to make time for him or her to answer questions, to explain things, or to have meetings, sometimes several in a day.
You are responsible of how they see and experience the work world, what they learn.
Don’t take that responsibility lightly.
Manage Workload
It’s so easy to throw stuff for your intern to do.
Don’t be that person!
Have someone in your company manage his or her workload.
You don’t want everyone on your team to throw stuff at him/her.
And, when you do manage an intern’s workload, remember he or she has no work experience, so don’t expect them to deliver as a pro.
Be mindful of how much work you give them in a day.
Celebrate Small and Big Wins
Your intern needs encouragement with every step for everything they do.
Building their confidence is in your hands, so be careful.
Give feedback, guidance, and advice.
Remember to celebrate wins no matter how big or small.
Encouraging someone on the work they have done has amazing results as opposed to the old style —shouting at people.
There you have it, this is our “secret recipe” to create a fantastic internship experience.
Now it’s your turn, what would you add?
image credit: shutterstock
Whoa, this is so spot on, Corina. I had about 12 interns during my eight years in university marketing. On their LinkedIn profiles, I noticed students made up their own titles if they weren’t assigned one. Student Writer was better than Student Worker but not ideal. When I interviewed each of them, I made it clear that they would be an integral part of our marcom team, especially for me as I relied heavily on them when I was planning and writing a 36-page, biannual alumni magazine. Yes, to encouragement! My teaching background was a constant reminder that interns weren’t only there to help and to make below minimum wage, they were there to learn and build a portfolio. Nothing was more satisfying than helping them get a byline in a publication or local paper then tell me later that some of that work helped them land a job. Yay, for taking on interns, Gini! Go, Paris!
Thank you, Amanda. This old-saying and fact that interns should only copy documents and bring you coffee it drives me CRAZY!
Messing with someone’s future is so mean.
Yes, interns help you, but you help them as well. It’s a win-win for everyone.
And it’s awesome to receive a call from one of your interns cause they got a job and you played a role in that.
Perfectly said Corina! And while we were DEFINITELY lucky to have Paris intern for us, she was also very lucky to have us as her team and mentors. Not many teams have the time or patience to ‘school’ an intern and I think we all did a pretty good job of showing her around the business world (and our virtual office…wink!).
That’s true. Being with a team who wants to develop you as a professional is huge.
You’re right, Dawn. It takes willingness to learn and availability to understand new concepts.
That’s why we make such a great team, here at Spin Sucks: We go all for one and one for all (as corny as it sounds, it’s true!)
Such a great overview here Corina. And you did an absolutely amazing job leading Paris and helping her be successful. Things I definitely thought …..”ohhh…we need to add that to our on-boarding process for everyone.”
Thank you so much for your kind words, Laura.
I loved this, Corina. As the parent of a 20 year old (I have a 17 yo too but she has had more experience in the work world at this point), I see a STRONG need among this age group (and not just them – much older people have deficits here too…) for the skills that are non industry specific: initiative, common sense, asking a question when you don’t know, looking for things to do beyond the task you are given, the ability to express yourself in writing and verbally, and probably number one: problem solving. Sounds like Paris demonstrated many of these and I am sure your team helped bring them out by the way your structured her internship and your feedback.
Thank you, Paula.
It’s a shame they don’t teach our youngsters in schools those skills or at least explain to them what’s expected from them in the real world.
Many of them have to learn the hard way, and that’s never a fun way to learn.
However, curiosity for everything is key to one day becoming a successful professional. Questioning everything and wanting to understand and learn how to do this or that, spark the problem-solving skill.
And Paris did learn how to ask questions and how to step up her game, which is amazing for someone so young.
Great tips! We just added a couple fall interns to our team – one being the “PR Intern” who I am to mentor. My first intern! I’m nervous and excited to get her started on the curriculum I created. I’ve had a few drab internships when I was in college, so I want to make sure our interns get the most out of their experience this semester!