For those of you who have paid your dues, taken on unpaid internships and finally landed a job thanks to the valuable experience you gained, this one is for you. Now that you’re working a full-time gig, there’s a huge possibility that you will be able to hire interns for your department or use a company intern to help you on a project. Since you’ve been an intern before, it’s important not to lose sight of what it was like to be the lowest and youngest person at the company. If you need more tips on how to help your intern succeed, keep reading!
1. Remember what it’s like to be in an intern’s shoes
You’ve been in your interns’ shoes before and it isn’t easy to be the lowest rank on the company totem poll. Your own experience has taught you how to make the most of an internship, so don’t forget exactly what it took you to get from intern to full-time staffer.
“As someone who works with the interns, I try really hard to be friendly and relatable,” says Rachel Kossman, a 2011 graduate from Northeastern University who works as an associate editor at DAYSPA magazine. “I know how tough it can be as the baby at a company, but I'm only four years out of college, so I remember what it was like to be in that place!”
The more available and understanding you are as a manager, the more comfortable your interns will feel around you and at the company. This provides an environment for interns to feel like they are part of a team and not just an underpaid (or unpaid!) worker.
2. Don’t treat them as a gofer
Your intern is there gain experience that will help them get a full-time job in the future, so don’t make them get your coffee every morning and fetch papers from the printer when you don’t feel like taking the walk. They want to gain real-life experiences that they can put on their resumes, like learning a new set of skills or helping lead on a small project; things they can speak of during important interviews.
It’s kind of a slap in the face to treat your intern as a gofer, and not only is it a reflection of you as a supervisor, but it’s a reflection of the type of company you work for as well. You don’t want your intern to go home and tell their friends how their internship is going only to say that they spend more time at Starbucks than at their desk doing something valuable.
3. Know that you can rely on your interns
We know how busy a day at work can be. The printer is jammed and you really need that presentation deck in your hands rightthissecond. Your coworker just sent you an email with the subject line “URGENT.” Your manager is on you because XYZ need to be looked at and you feel like your head is spinning because the work keeps piling up. Don’t forget that you have an intern! Feel free to call them in for a quick meeting to discuss more work they may be able to take on. Remember that they’re there as a member of your team and though they might be sitting at their desk a little bored because they finished their tasks, they may be too scared to ask for more responsibility.
4. Involve interns in as many projects as possible
Experience is a major reason why undergrads and even college grads take on internships. All full-time and even some part-time jobs require a few years of experience, and internships are a great way to beef up any resume. Interns are there to help in any way possible and they have a drive to prove themselves as a valuable part of the staff. Give them every opportunity to show what they have learned, what they still need to learn and what they can do without any assistance. It will make you feel good as a supervisor and it will make them feel like they’re contributing in a big way.
“Having an intern on your team comes with a lot of responsibility,” says Michael Friedlander, an Information Services Manager at Reckitt Benckiser. “You should make sure that the projects assigned are meaningful to the intern and give them assignments where they can combine what they learned in school with what’s needed in the workforce.”
5. Be honest with feedback
Remember when you were an intern and you wanted to hear how you were doing? You may have been too scared to ask for a meeting or you thought your manager may have been too busy to actually evaluate you. While that might have been the case, as a supervisor to your intern, you owe it to them to set up an evaluation meeting and be honest with your feedback. Will they move on to a full-time staff role at the company? If not, why? What areas should they work on in a future internship, and what tasks are they excelling at? Are they enjoying the work? Answering these questions will give your intern a chance to work on the things they need to improve upon, and ultimately, it’ll show them that you’re looking out for them.
Whether you invite your intern to weekly editorial meetings or make it a point to give them meaningful work day after day, there are tons of different ways you can apply your experience from being an intern to successfully managing your own interns. Don’t forget about the time you put in before you started working full-time; so stay open, understanding, motivating and available—and you and your interns will make a great team!