Developing Internships

Carefully plan and write out your internship program and goals. Draft a position description that clearly explains the job duties and includes learning outcomes/goals. Do you want someone for a specific project? What about general support around the workplace? How about giving the intern a taste of everything your company does? Structure the internship ahead of time so that you can be sure to meet your goals and not find yourself floundering partway through. Things to consider:

• How much will you pay the intern?
• Where will you put the intern?
• What sort of academic background and experience do you want in an intern?
• Who will have the primary responsibility for the intern?
• What will the intern be doing?
• Do you want to plan a program beyond the work you give your interns?

How will you find those ideal candidates to fill your internship position(s)? The number one tip from those who have established programs is to get out there early! This cannot be overemphasized to organizations that want the very best interns. Begin searching three to four months before you need a student to begin. Some industries have even more advanced timelines; summer supply chain interns are typically hired by November. Starting early has other advantages: the longer you accept applications, the better your chance of finding the best person for the job. The sooner you get one, the longer you have to form a good working relationship with the intern.

Once you’ve hired a worker, you put them to work, right? That’s true for interns as well as regular employees, but with an intern, you’ll be making an important first impression. The beginning days of the internship program are often its defining days. When you give them their first tasks, you’re signaling what can be expected in the future. If you give them nothing or very little to do, it sends a message that this job will be easy — and boring. Interns don’t want that; of course, neither do employers. The organization of your internship program will probably be the single most important influence on an intern’s
impression of your organization, and thus the chances that he or she will come back. So how do you “plan for success”? Consider the goals of your program. The nature of the program and the activities that you choose to undertake should directly relate to your program goals.

Remember those goals you outlined before? A few weeks after the internship begins, it’s time to see how well you and your intern are meeting those goals. Evaluation processes differ. Yours might be as formal as written evaluations every three weeks or as informal as occasional lunches with the internship coordinator and/or the intern’s mentor. Some companies have the intern evaluate the experience and the company as well. Again, your structure is largely up to your organization’s culture and needs. As an added bonus, these evaluations will be handy later if you decide to interview a former intern for full-time work, or to publicize how successful your program has been. Consider using the NACE Career Readiness Competencies to evaluate your student interns and employees.

Maintaining program popularity will require hard evidence that your organization is getting a return on its investment. Some organizations have adopted a process of formal exit interviews. Through this process they can determine if interns are leaving the company having had a good experience, and it provides valuable feedback to managers for program planning in the following year. In addition to qualitative measures, a number of quantitative measures should be adopted. Some common measures include the number of interns that become full-time employees; repeat requests for interns from managers; and growing numbers of intern applicants. In order to successfully measure your own program outcome, you should return to the stated program goals, and address those outcomes.