The Top Floor Flat

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the internships I had when I was younger that allowed me to develop my career and get a great idea of what kind of job I actually wanted, and trying to apply that thinking to what sorts of internships I’d like to run myself. Here’s a list of the top level takeaways that I think really made a difference to me when someone was considering my internship application and that I want to bring to the table for internships I run.

Select interns with the same rigour as hiring a new member of staff.

Because internships in the UK are unpaid, and very low pay in the US, it’s easy to make excuses for great (or not so great) internship candidates that you’d never make for potential full time employees. Just because these interns aren’t taking a salary doesn’t mean that they should be any less of a fit for the company. I’m not talking about experience – if they had that they’d be applying for the full time job. This is more about company fit, drive to succeed, skills like the ability to work independently or learn quickly (or whatever is relevant for that particular internship role), and ability to be successful in the particular internship for which they are applying. These are people who will be sitting in the office, interacting with the entire team, working on important projects and contributing at a significant level – their bad attitude could bring the entire team down. There can be internship vacancies which never get filled – or take months to find the best candidate. While it does mean that a company may be short-handed for longer than anticipated, it also means that when they select an intern, it’s the right person who can really make an impact. A related point to this – the best interns often make the best employees. On the other hand….

Be clear up front about whether or not a job is available at the end.

One of the things I wanted to hear up front during the interview process is whether or not there is any possibility of a job at the end of the internship. In some cases, a company may be looking to transition an exceptional intern into a full time staff member – and are aware of that at the beginning of the process. Unless that is the case, talk about the experience you can provide, the skills an intern will learn and the success of past interns but never make false promises about the likelihood of further work within the company. This is a make-or-break point for some candidates if there is no job available, and a powerful driver for interns when there is.

Have a clear daily, weekly and monthly timeline for interns before even posting a vacancy

I think with marketing internships, especially when the team is growing quickly, it is easy to feel the need to bring in a spare set of hands to help with the general day to day work. This can be standard in a start up where there is so much work to be done that getting a skilled, excited intern through the door can seem like the perfect all-rounder solution to pick up the slack. Inevitably interns are then involved in a variety of great projects around but sometimes it can take a couple of weeks to find out which of those activities were best suited to the intern in question. What’s much more efficient is to define specific tasks and roles – even going so far as to do a first draft of a daily timetable as well as weekly targets and monthly goals. This helps in drafting very specific internship listings ensuring the role not only attract potential interns who are interested in that aspect of marketing but also ensuring that potential interns know up front what will be required of them – and can get them started right away without wondering if the tasks are suited to their particular skill set and interests.

From day one – and every day onward – show how the intern’s role is important in the company

While a senior level staff member or someone managing an intern can often see how important that intern’s role is in day to day work, if the work is just a part of a bigger project, it can be hard for the intern to get that same view. While interning for a Bay Area start up, I had a task that could have seemed repetitive and dull – until I was shown how this was setting up the company to run A/B testing on a critical part of the new user registration process which could be measured against how much lifetime revenue new users generated. Now this was an exciting project and I could clearly see that what I was doing could directly lead to increased revenues in a significant way. Making it clear how an interns task relates to a bigger business objective is helpful in engaging them in day to day work and putting their role in a context that can be articulated in CVs or interviews.

Make personal development a priority

An internship is an opportunity for a less experienced individual to learn skills that will allow them to get a full time, paid job – not a service created for companies that don’t want to pay for more staff. Internships work best when there is a balance between the benefit the company receives and the benefit to the intern. I was encouraged to interact with other employees of the company outside my own department, to ask questions about the running of the business, even to invite the CEO for lunch – all of which contributed hugely to my own personal development. Having supportive and mentoring environment can make the difference between an internship that is  successful and rewarding and one that is not.

Top Floor Flat Takeaways:

–          Developing a great internship program, especially in marketing, is an ongoing process that requires a lot of thought and dedication from the entire company.

–          Companies should select interns with the same rigour as hiring a staff member, and should be clear on the daily tasks and weekly goals of the internship before bringing someone into the office.

–          Make personal development a priority for interns by talking with them about where they want to go professionally, being up front about whether or not there is a job for them in the company and showing them how their role affects the company overall.