How to Effectively Manage an Intern
A comprehensive plan for first time intern managers
Internships are controversial, especially if they are unpaid. Here’s how to make sure that your intern/s are getting loads of value and support from their time at your organisation, without massively draining your time and energy.
Plan, plan, plan, prepare
Planning always saves you work in the long run. My favourite way to manage juniors and interns is to spend the last hour of every Friday drawing up a loose schedule for my intern for the following week. I put everything in the calendar so that I am also mentally prepared for the interactions I have with this person. You should be prepared to give a lot of direction (at least at first) when you’re assigning tasks to a new intern.
Monday task allocation
Monday morning should be reserved for you and your intern to discuss what their upcoming tasks are, how they might approach these tasks, what the deadlines are and address any questions. This
Pre-lunch check-ins
I schedule these in every day for 30 minutes, although if you’ve covered everything in 15 minutes then that’s great! This time gives you an opportunity to sit down with your intern and answer any questions they might have, as well as guiding and supporting them though any of their tasks. This daily check-in will save you from the potentially endless interruptions that might occur if your intern has questions throughout the day!
Help them learn
Videos to watch, articles to read, resources to download. Being an intern is hard, exhausting and scary, so make sure you schedule in some time for them to do some chilled-out learning. This will also ensure that they are improving their skills in their time with you! You can even lend them a book and recommend a particularly powerful chapter.
Delegate, baby!
You can hand-hold an intern for weeks or months at a time alone, so get support from your colleagues. I would schedule in at least 3–4 meetings with team members each week so that they can carry the weight with you. BUT! Make sure that you are asking your colleagues about this first, and getting their enthusiastic agreement. Don’t just throw something in the calendar — respect your team’s time.
Help them branch out
Don’t just limit their time to learning about your specific team or skill. Perhaps an account manager could sit down with your intern and explain how to best nurture client relationships, or an SEO expert could explain a little about their role. Whatever it is, remember that broader context is super useful to any young person starting out, so don’t be afraid to schedule in a bunch of meetings with colleagues that might not be on your team.
Weekly wrap ups
At the end of each week, ask your intern to send you a weekly wrap-up. This should contain:
- An update on their tasks — are they completed?
- What they learned that week
- What they would like to learn next week or the week after
- Any questions, feedback or concerns they have
In the end, treat them with respect, and make sure they come away feeling empowered. If nothing else, it’s great PR!
This is the resource of the week from the weekly podcast that I host with Penny Blackmore called, Happy Hour Career Talk! It’s a weekly careers podcast where we discuss work related topics over a happy hour glass of wine!
In this episode we talk all about managing interns and being KILLER at your job. Have a listen here:
Do you have any tips for managing interns?! Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear em!
If you found this helpful, do give it a little clap (or two) and have a wonderful day!!!
