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What is meant by a “Quality” paid internship?
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Will I meet, or get to interview my intern, before they start working for me?
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What kinds of tasks, projects and other work assignments will my intern be qualified to do?
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How do I indoctrinate and orient the intern into our corporate culture, and get the most out of the experience for both the intern and the organization?
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How often should the intern’s supervisor make contact with the intern, and what kind of feedback should the supervisor elicit, and provide?
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Can there be any flexibility in the intern’s schedule (ex: number of hours worked per day, flex time, make up for excused absences, etc.)?
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Does the intern have specific goals he/she must achieve during the internship, and should the company have other concurrent goals for the intern?
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What is meant by a “Quality” paid internship?
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A quality paid internship is not the same as a summer job. The main purpose of the quality paid internship is to provide the Academy student with an extended educational experience in the workplace. The internship must seize the opportunity to apply what the intern has learned in his/her Academy classes, in a real-life work environment. Additionally, the intern should be exposed to as many different departments, operations, people, business settings, etc. as possible, to give the student a wide view of the career opportunities within their field of Academy study. The internship needs to be supervised by both a company person, and by the Director of the program. This should include periodic reviews and feedback sessions, as well as a final review and exit interview. The Director must provide a listing of competencies, which the student should learn before the end of the internship period, including certain professional skills, customer service skills, and other “employability” or SCANS skills, as well as specific finance, travel and tourism, and information technology “hard” skills, as directed by the Academy Director (see Appendix _ for a suggested list of Internship Competencies.)
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Will I meet, or get to interview my intern, before they start working for me?
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A little of this depends on the size of the program, the number of interns that need to be placed, the number of open internship positions available from the business community, and the relationship between the Academy Director, the Advisory Board Chair, and the internship provider. Ideally, each student will have an opportunity to interview with two or three companies, and then list their first, second and third choice of internship position. The internship provider companies should also have at least three students available to interview, prior to selecting their first, second and third choice of internship candidates. The Academy Director should then try to “match” the students’ and providers’ choices.
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What kinds of tasks, projects and other work assignments will my intern be qualified to do?
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Interns, just like entry-level new hires, come with a variety of skills. These include technical computer skills, such as word processing, spreadsheets, database, powerpoint, and other computer software usage skills, as well as specific “job related” skills in their particular Academy’s theme (Finance, Travel and Tourism, and Information Technology.) Academy students also have a certain level of knowledge of “employability skills” including working in teams, time management, ethics, communications, presentations, and other “soft skills.” The skill level in each of these areas will vary with the individual, so the tasks, projects and other work assignments should challenge the intern, push them to achieve, and broaden their skills. Projects may get more detailed, and demanding as the term of the internship progresses. In order to keep the intern productive during the entire internship period, the supervisor should consider creating a 6 to 10 week work schedule with the Academy Director, prior to the start of the internship. The supervisor can lay out the various assignments, as best he/she can, and the Director can give some input as to how well the nature of the assignments dovetail with the skill levels of the student intern. Using this process will assure that the intern is being “pushed” to excel, and will also be kept productive during the entire internship period.
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How do I indoctrinate and orient the intern into our corporate culture, and get the most out of the experience for both the intern and the organization?
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The first day or two of the internship may be spent familiarizing the intern with their new surroundings. Appropriate activities might include a tour of the facility, and series of discussions with various members of the department so the intern has a clear understanding of the department’s function, and how that function, fits into the rest of the organization. You might consider asking the intern to sit in a new employee orientation meeting, so the intern begins to understand what a new hire is responsible for in terms of corporate protocol, and culture. Also, assigning a younger person, perhaps someone in their twenties, who works in the same department, as a “buddy” might also be a good step in “acclimating” the intern. You and the intern might also draw up a series of questions about the organization, which, as a first assignment, the intern must go out and answer. These questions should be of the type only answerable by different members of the department, or other departments of the organization, so the intern should be forced to seek out answers from people whom the intern has never met. This will also provide a good learning experience for the intern as they make their way through the interviews of various people in the organization.
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How often should the intern’s supervisor make contact with the intern, and what kind of feedback should the supervisor elicit, and provide?
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As stated earlier, an internship is different than a summer job. It is extremely important that the intern get a “broad view” of the organization, and begin to understand the various career opportunities within the field. This can be achieved through regularly scheduled “mini-reviews” on a weekly basis. A 30 minute session, regularly scheduled for each week the intern is with the organization, helps to keep the intern on track, diffuse any concerns, provide time for constructive feedback about the week’s work, and talk about various other issues that may come up during the week. Of course, this doesn’t substitute for being available on an as-needed basis for answering questions, but does add an important bit of time each week to the interns’ schedule. The work assignments should be of a level equal to or slightly higher than the intern’s skill and knowledge level, thereby requiring the intern to research answers to questions, and apply skills and problem solving ability which “push” the intern to do harder and harder work. Allowing the intern to work with a team of employees on a long-term project, getting short term assignments which contribute to the long term results, can be an especially beneficial experience. Of course, some routine assignments will definitely be in order, but the intern should NOT be assigned to file papers, or answer phones or other menial administrative tasks all week long, all summer long. It is the supervisor’s responsibility to see that the intern receives a quality experience.
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Can there be any flexibility in the intern’s schedule (ex: number of hours worked per day, flex time, make up for excused absences, etc.)?
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This should be discussed with the intern, and with the Academy Director. The intern is serving the company, and the internship supervisor. If the company’s work schedule, or time-off protocol, or flextime protocol allows for these types of things, they should be discussed with the Director, and the intern, and agreed to in writing. If the intern is going to work late hours, say after the “normal” business day, on a regular basis, the Director should notify the parents of the student, and get their approval in writing. Many employers have a set excused absence protocol. This might limit the number of absences to a certain number, with or without excuses, requiring notes from parents, or doctors, etc, if the limits are exceeded. The employer and the Director should agree on this issue, and again, communicate the expectations with the intern.
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Does the intern have specific goals he/she must achieve during the internship, and should the company have other concurrent goals for the intern?
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Yes to both questions. The internship provider should have a list of internship competencies which must be communicated to, and learned by the intern, before the end of the internship experience. This list of competencies is available from the Academy Director. The list should be used as a guide, such that on a weekly basis, the intern and the supervisor can “check off” the competencies learned. Other goals for the intern should be prescribed by the internship provider. Again, the purpose of the internship is to gain a greater understanding of the industry as a whole, how the organization fits into the industry, and what types of career paths are available for the intern. The supervisor may take some of the time in the “weekly review” to discuss such matters, and have the intern record such discussion in a journal. By the end of the internship term, all company concurrent goals should be achieved, as noted and recorded in the journal. By “pushing” the intern to excel beyond their own comfort zone, the internship experience becomes extremely beneficial not only for the intern, but for the provider company as well. Recent academic studies indicate that Academy interns are rated by their employers as highly, or higher, than college-level interns and entry-level workers. So employers should take every advantage of this resource, while they are providing the intern with the experience of a lifetime.
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