5 Takeaways from Leading a Top 100 Internship Program
This week, our intern program was ranked among the top 100 best in the country. As you can imagine, building an intern program takes a village, from executives who believe in the importance of fostering early talent, to mentors and assignment leaders who take the extra time to upskill their team members and give them opportunities to grow.
Over the last two years, I’ve had the privilege of leading one pillar of our intern program, an R&D Technology Center at University of Illinois Research Park.
Every semester and throughout breaks, we host up to 60 student interns with diverse backgrounds, majors, and education levels to work on some of the most important and disruptive technology impacting our business and our clients. Recent work from the lab has advanced our exploration into artificial intelligence, data science, cloud computing, blockchain, and digital payments.
Here’s five key takeaways that I would recommend to anyone leading an internship program at their organization.
1) Find Your ‘Add’
Early in my career, I was coached to “hire for the fit”, but that approach leaves you with dozens of teams that all look the same.
Hiring for the “add” will change your perspective, as you begin looking for people who will bring something new to your team and make it better than it is today.
When we began looking for interns, we started looking for interns who “fit”, focusing on specific colleges that were known for churning out hundreds of high quality candidates.
After a few cycles, however, we noticed that the interns with the highest performance came from programs within those colleges that were bringing “an add” — ones that had cross-functional experiences for the students, focused on diversity, or fostered their entrepreneurial spirit.
Finding our ‘add’ helped us hone a robust program of interns who bring unique experiences and perspectives to our teams.
2) Intern Mentorship > Intern Output
One of the first things we tell new Assignment Leaders (our name for someone who manages an intern), is that taking an intern will not remove work from their plate, it will add it.
Anyone who manages knows that it takes work, but leading an intern requires a heavy focus on mentorship, education, coaching, and empathizing.
Your role is not to ensure they have the highest output to make your team more efficient (though great interns may improve productivity of your team), it is to ensure that they have an opportunity to try their skills in the real world for the first time.
Focusing on mentorship means you’ll take chunks of your time explaining decision making, leading them to solve problems, coaching their presentations, and even helping them make decisions about their next career move (which may be an internship outside your organization).
By placing mentorship first, you’ll develop a level of rapport with your interns that will benefit your program for years to come.
3) Pivot Quickly
Intern program are an immense amount of work to get right, but even with months of planning, problems will arise.
Interns take a different offer. Assignment leaders change roles. Projects fall through. The best thing you can do is pivot quickly.
This summer, we had an experience where an intern’s manager had an unexpected family emergency on the second day of the internship. When we were alerted, we went through potential solutions like a pilot trying to right an aircraft.
Can their manager take on the project? No.
Can a team member lead the intern? Possibly.
Do other team members have experience with interns? No.
Did we deny any projects from other teams who need the same skill set? Yes.
Do those leaders have the bandwidth to take on an intern? Yes.
One day and a couple new introductions, and the inten was back on track. In our case, summer internships are only 10 weeks, so speed is critical. Pivoting quickly is one of the best ways to show interns that their experience is your top priority.
4) Empower a Passionate Team
Our leadership at the Emerging Technology Center is the best in the industry, but I only know that because they’re empowered to do what they’re great at.
This summer was one of excitement and uncomfortable change, as we called all of our interns back into the office full time.
Our team pushed to make the experience completely unique, and flexible. Of course, there were the usual accomodations — snacks, energy drinks, and lots of SWAG. But the “planned stuff” isn’t the most important, it’s the unexpected places that empowering your team will really pay back.
On a Thursday early into the session, our Associate Site Director noticed that the interns were having a rough week. She blocked off their calendars for the following day and had them all meet at a make-your-own pottery studio for some team building.
No planning. No special approvals.
Because we trust them to create the best experience possible. And as the summer went on, the interns bonded. They volunteered at a community garden. Walked (together) to get ice cream, on us.
Nearly every other site in Research Park struggled to get any interns to come into the office everyday. Ours stayed past working hours to hang out with their new friends and play Smash Brothers.
Culture is king, and it’s created by an empowered team.
5) Create a Mix
Finally, it’s worth noting that the pillar of internship my team leads isn’t the only intern program at my company. Heck, it’s not even the only R&D lab.
Here’s just some of the other parts of our Early Career & Internship investments, all of which make for a well-rounded program:
- Skills Academy for High School Students
- University R&D Labs (x2)
- Summer Extern & Intern Programs
- Specialty Intern Programs and Workshops
- Full-Time Rotational Programs (Post-Grad)
- Full-Time Early Career Roles (Post-Grad)
A well-rounded program brings together interns at different stages of their career journey. Some may stay with you through their full-time career, while others will find passions elsewhere.
Either way, you will find that the more time you invest in your internship programs, the better off your company will be.
