Creating an Internship Program
Employers establish internship programs with diverse objectives – from nurturing a talent pool to fostering the growth of emerging professionals, and leveraging the fresh perspectives of energetic interns on projects. Regardless of your goals, planning from inception is key to fostering success for your internship initiative. The following steps and resources are tailored to guide you in crafting internships that mutually benefit both your organization and the interns involved.
Develop
Experiential learning opportunities differ from jobs in that they have an intentional focus on student learning and center around clearly defined projects. You’ll want to create goals that will make for a high-impact experience for the students in the internship program.
Most internships span 10 weeks and require 10-20 hours a week in the fall and spring semesters, and up to 40 hours in the summer. In-person and hybrid arrangements are generally more effective for building connections among interns and with your organization, as everyone being together facilitates easier networking and relationship-building. Remote internships can attract students who cannot participate in person, but you should be prepared to invest more time and effort in building and maintaining connections with remote interns.
By offering paid internships, you're expanding and diversifying your pool of potential candidates. Many students can't afford to go without a paycheck, so they won't even consider unpaid opportunities. Paid internships help ensure a more inclusive and varied group of applicants.
Make sure to have a dedicated intern manager to ensure that the program runs smoothly and keeps interns on track. It also gives the interns a specific person to reach out to and connect with. The intern manager will oversee:
Onboarding, training, and establishing goals
Mentorship
Weekly project check-ins
Final performance review
Hire
Create a position description that includes intern responsibilities, any qualification you’d like the intern to have, number of hours per week, location of internship, and compensation rate.
When thinking of a hiring timeline, know what semester you’d like to host interns and work backwards. For the fall semester, you’ll want to start recruiting interns in June. For the spring semester, you’ll want to start recruiting interns in October. For summer, you’ll want to start your recruitment efforts in March.
A strong onboarding plan builds a good foundation for your intern to understand the way your company works, your priorities, and overall expectations. When thinking about onboarding, consider including team introductions, key facts and background about the company, any necessary training for software or processes, and what the intern is expected to accomplish during their time.
Work
Ensuring interns do real, valuable, and challenging work related to their skills and major is crucial for a successful program and intern satisfaction. Hiring managers can guarantee this by reviewing job descriptions, emphasizing its importance during orientations, and maintaining frequent communication with interns.
At the start of the internship, it is best practice to hold an orientation for the interns. This ensures that everyone is on the same page with expectations and clearly defined roles.
Conduct an exit interview at the end of the internship. This is a great way to gather feedback on the student’s experience and assess what, if any, changes need to be made to the program.