Interns are valuable assets to any company, and in the process, they gain essential skills for preparing for the workplace. The benefits to developing an internship program within your company are a two-way street. Interns learn the values of a company and how the industry they may be interested in functions; companies reap the benefits of enthusiastic teammates and get to pick fresh minds for innovative ideas.
Successful internships for all parties involved really boil down to three essential factors: Culture, Education and Curiosity.
Culture
Young people have become the self-entrepreneurs of their own brands, and this is an important component when searching for an internship. Don’t feel uncomfortable in first finding a culture that makes you happy, and then seek out those companies that fall in line with your values. Alternatively, don’t be afraid to go in blind IN SEARCH of a culture that fosters your own personal growth. Either way, it’s important to know your worth.
For companies, the selection pool when it comes to picking interns can be competitive, with cover letters and carefully formatted resumes flying in from eager students and recent graduates. So, how do you go about narrowing your selections? Bring it all back around to your culture. Have two or three rounds of interviews, introduce the candidates to your team and closely watch them interact. Are they enthusiastic? Do they add something to your team that perhaps you didn’t even realize was lacking?
Education
As an intern, you can look forward to being able to observe meetings and brainstorm sessions that will later be beneficial to your professional career. But, this by no means should be all that you walk away knowing how to do. Whether you’ve already accepted a position or you’re knee-deep in the search, seek out opportunities that make it clear that you are expected and invited to learn as much as possible from as many people as possible.
As for employers, encourage the interns you invite to the team to do some exploration and make keen observations of how your industry works. Your interns may not be perfect, and they certainly have a lot to learn, but they want to be there contributing and gaining experience. If you don’t feel as though you have the time to dedicate to answering questions and making sure your interns haven’t been lost in the surplus of information, it may be worth reconsidering offering a program for the time being.
Curiosity
Interns: Ask questions. About everything. Brush away the fears that you’ll come across as not knowing what you are doing. Everyone realizes that you more than likely don’t because that’s the point of an internship: to deepen your understanding. That’s the beautiful thing about this time in life; you get to free-fall into as many experiences as possible and simply learn.
Intern managers, ask questions of your charges. Start in the interview process with questions that require thought and creativity on the spot. It may take a while for some candidates to escape the interview expectations often learned in school, so work them a bit until you can get the curious human. Find out if they’ve done their research. Does your industry truly interest them?
A successful internship experience distinguishes itself when all parties involved walk away with their heads held high, full of knowledge and new ideas. At the end of this time of exploration, be it difficult or easy, both manager and intern should be able to turn to one another with a gracious “thank you” for the experiences gained through the collaboration. The tools and experiences gained will be invaluable in the next steps of each intern, helping them navigate through their journeys into the professional landscape.
Bio:
Audrey Zipperer is a junior at the University of Florida majoring in advertising. She is currently interning at Gainesville-based Parisleaf, A Branding and Digital Agency.