Category Archives: Creating an Internship Program

Can I Have a Successful Internship Program? Make an Assessment

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An internship program should meet the specific needs of your company while providing a meaningful work experience for the student.  By conducting an internal needs assessment you will be better able to determine how an intern can meet your current as well as future needs (if you plan on transitioning the internship program into a full-time position).

can I have a successful internship program?

Image extracted from: Career Rocketeer

There is no set formula to developing a successful internship program, therefore by answering the questions below you may be better able to determine how an intern(s) could be best utilized at your company.

I. Will your organizational culture support an internship program?

  • Try asking around to see how your co-workers feel about bringing in interns.
  • Why might people not support an internship program? Be prepared to respond to these concerns.
  • You can shape your organization’s culture by including relevant employees in the conversation about how your internship program will advance strategic organizational goals.
  • How much will top management support your program? How involved will they be?

II. What human resources do you have to support an intern?

  • Who would supervise the intern?
  • Can your organization provide an individual with enough time to organize the program? Who do you think that person would be?
  • Are there employees in your organization who could develop supervisory skills by working with interns?

III. What physical resources do you have to support an intern?

  • Adequate workspace
  • Computer access
  • Internet access
  • Phone and fax
  • Parking
  • Access to people who the intern would work with to complete their projects

IV. What financial resources do you have?

  • Can you pay an intern?
  • Can you provide other benefits to the intern? (Training, meals, etc.)

Still not sure if your organization is ready to build an internship program? Please contact the Regional Internship Center team for a chat.

People Power Drives New Voices Pittsburgh Women of Color for Reproductive Justice

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La’Tasha D. Mayes, founder and director of New Voices Pittsburgh Women of Color for Reproductive Justice, shares her thoughts on long-term organizational goals, internship programs and people power.

People power is the fuel that moves our mission and vision for Reproductive Justice and Human Rights in the Greater Pittsburgh Region. Each day, our board, staff, members, volunteers, funders and donors invest in our work and make it possible for New Voices Pittsburgh to create a sustainable organization and an effective local social change movement.

New Voices Pittsburgh

Over the last 7 years, we have had the opportunity to host interns through the Regional Internship Center, colleges and universities career services for undergraduate and federal community service work-study for graduate students, fellowships, apprenticeships and community-based youth employment programs. Interns found our work interesting and compelling and – for the most part – hosting interns was a fair experience.

Somewhere along the way, our organizational leadership began to feel and it became evident that perhaps we did not have the operational or supervisory capacity to manage undergraduate interns. The nature of our work as community organizers and activists require passion for social justice, amazing interpersonal skills coupled with a dynamic personality and an ability to create solutions. Unfortunately, we were not able to find this caliber of intern at the undergraduate level. We shifted our focus to graduate interns who could make a commitment to specific projects and work extremely independently which worked well.

Serving women of color ages 12-35 across identities of race, class, genders, sexual orientation, culture, we recognize the need to create leadership opportunities. With our Strategic Plan, we now understand that our struggle has been infrastructure with issues of planning, supervision and evaluation. I am looking forward to attending the “Creating a Successful Internship Program” workshop at the Regional Internship Center today to get some practical ideas and innovative strategies to reintegrate youth 14-24 and undergraduate interns back into New Voices Pittsburgh.

[Editor's note:  This article is part of a two-part series and was written before New Voices Pittsburgh attended a special "Creating a Successful Internship Program" workshop for organizations in and around Pittsburgh that serve the LGBTQ community.]

Using Internship Programs to Achieve Long-Term Goals

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I’ve noticed over the years that some businesses that create profiles on the RIC website or attend a workshop take a long time before they actually post an internship position description.

determining and achieving your long-term goals

Image extracted from: Five Year Business Plan

The RIC team follows up with those employers to help problem-solve and decrease the rate of delay to posting.  The RIC team has heard about the many roadblocks to actually getting the internship program off the ground.  I wanted to address one specific problem that I’ve noticed repeatedly.

First, there is a difference between creating an internship program where one did not exist already, and strengthening and maintaining an already established internship program.  I will focus on common roadblocks when creating an internship program over the next couple of months.

Roadblock 1: Determining long-term goals for your internship program

Internship programs are designed to support your business in many ways.  One main advantage to your internship program is that it helps your business achieve long-term goals.  If you host an intern each semester (or a minimum of three interns a year), think about the benefits of having people work in concert with your employees to accomplish long-term goals.

  • A long-term goal is NOT hosting a fundraising event.  A long-term goal IS to increase the diversification of sponsors or funders to your business to 10 new funding sources.
  • A long-term goal is NOT to create a Twitter account.  A long-term goal IS to increase online sales by 10%.

The long-term goals are goals that your whole business is working towards, not just your internship program.  If you want to bring in 10 new funding sources, there are a host of items that need to be implemented that require the work of the President/CEO/Executive Director, the board of Directors, and all the departments in your business.  You wouldn’t expect that after having a team of interns, working a semester at a time (or even two consecutive semesters) over the course of 5 years to have accomplished this long-term goal, right?

Roadblock 2: Giving the responsibility of creating an internship program to an entry-level employee or internship coordinator

Your internship program is part of a larger plan that often an entry-level employee might not fully understand.  Establishing an internship program takes the effort of more than just the internship coordinator, it requires whole-systems thinking, and a team of people to establish the plan.

Entry-level employees might not have the authority needed to establish an internship program that takes into account long-term goals.  Without properly positioning the goals of the internship program within the larger goals of your company, the person might tend to work on unconnected, small projects, and in a vacuum, that will not help with your businesses long-term goal.

The RIC team always tells employers that creating or strengthening an internship program takes time and planning.  An internship program is not about putting out fires.  Proper planning with the right people at your business can assure you reach your long-term goals.

8 Ways to Avoid Internship Program Disasters

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This is the time when organizations are beginning to plan and recruit for their summer internship programs.  Although fewer jobs are available, there are still many companies who will bring in interns in small groups.  Interns are a great asset to any company when the organization understands how to set up a great program.  Unfortunately,  internship programs can go bad when simple steps are not followed.  Here are 8 tips to help make your experience a success.

1. Gain a core group of strong champions internally. This will help in the marketing and overall success of the program.

2. Work with a partner school to recruit students and set clear recruiting standards to meet your summer needs.

3. Consider online intern sites like www.theregionalinternshipcenter.org, www.internhere.com and www.urbaninterns.com to connect with sharp students who may not have an organized school internship program.

4. Network with other organizations who host internship programs to learn about best practices.

 

5. Ask supervisors to plan the projects for the entire summer .  Each project should have a start and end, and interns should be learning different skill sets.

 

6. Select supervisors who know how to nurture younger employees.  Host a supervisor training. A dose of patience will be required for this role.

 

7. Recognize this is a big opportunity to build your brand with a new generation of workers.  Do you have a plan outlined to stay connected to them?

 

8. Plan a number of skill-building sessions throughout the summer.

Tip for Small Business Owners. If you are a small business owner, hiring a summer intern may be the perfect solution to many of the lingering, frustrating tasks you’ve been avoiding.  Market research, writing press releases, event planning and social media marketing are just some of the projects that interns can take off your plate.

Unpaid Internship Laws

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Looking to understand unpaid internship laws? The following YouTube video includes a short discussion about the fine line that often exists between a legitimate unpaid internship and an exploitative internship that takes advantage of a student.

Often the case is just that the employer is not familiar with the up-to-date unpaid internship laws. Since these laws do change from time to time, check out the Department of Labor’s  page for more information about The Fair Labor Standards Act guidelines for internships.

The lawyer being interviewed offers this rule of thumb: a for-profit company may offer an unpaid internship if the position exists solely to benefit the intern. However, if the internship fills a position that would otherwise be a paid position, the employer may not be in compliance with the law. Different criteria exist for non-profit and governmental  institutions.  Supervision by colleges or universities may help avoid exploitative internship programs and do not follow current unpaid internship laws.

Other related videos are available through the RIC YouTube Channel.

For more information, check out the Department of Labor’s  page about internships and The Fair Labor Standards Act guidelines.

Keep your internship programs high performing

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Image extracted from: www.butterbeehappy.com

The RIC understands the difficulty in keeping a project moving forward, meeting and exceeding goals, and delivering continued quality outputs for a project through staff changes or turnover. The same frustrations often apply to internship programs.

Planning and implementing a strategy for scheduled intern turnover can ensure the transition process does not compromise projects or engulf staff time as well as continue to strengthen the reputation of your internship programs.

Instituting some of these tips will help strengthen your internship programs!

1. Establish an Internship Program Team

Your organization has planned and organized the long-term lasting effects an internship program can have for your business over the next two to three years. That strategy translates to potentially dozens of interns and many medium-sized projects along the way to achievement of those long-term goals. Keeping track of interns and their projects from season-to-season is vital to ensure you are on course and takes some time to document. Establishing an Internship Program Team ensures the recording and evaluation of progress from intern-to-intern, year-to-year. This allows your company to implement needed changes to your short-term and medium-term projects to keep you on track to achieving your long-term goal.

The RIC suggests a Team (at least two people) rather than one person so that information collected is shared and in cases of turnover, historic knowledge isn’t compromised and your internship program doesn’t falter.

2. Appoint a Successor

Turnover does happen. Before it does, whenever possible, share your resources with another person in your organization including an overview of what responsibilities the internship program entails to run smoothly.

Your RIC account is the best way to keep internship program information centralized including position descriptions of previously offered internships and applicants.

Keep contact information for past interns you have hosted—they have benefited from interning with you and you can highlight their successes as a testament to your strong internship program to strengthen the reputation of your program to increase quality applications moving forward.

3. Let Current Interns Show You the Way!

Have your current interns keep track of what they are doing and how they are doing it. What is their main project and the goals associated with that project? What do they accomplish daily (or weekly)? Tracking projects in this manner is a win-win for you and your intern because you will have, among other things: a) a first-hand account of how projects can be completed creatively, b) an understanding of how much time these types of projects take to accomplish, which is especially useful if the project is reoccurring, and c) you can evaluated the project to determine if it is worthwhile, needs more staff supervision, or if the project really isn’t as important as once determined. The interns also wins because they now will have an organized list of their tasks and progress to bring with them when they leave your organization.