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Internship Best Practices
Although many large enterprises and governmental agencies have well-established internship programs, small businesses often overlook this valuable opportunity. Tech internships are a win-win for businesses and interns alike. For businesses, implementing a structured internship program can bridge skill gaps and expand the capabilities of your tech department. For interns, it offers an opportunity to gain real-world on-the-job experience so they can build their resume and enhance their education.
Creating an internship program doesn’t have to be overwhelming or resource-intensive. By taking a step-by-step approach, you can develop a comprehensive internship program that meets the needs of your business and is a valuable growth opportunity for your interns.
Small businesses have some significant advantages over larger enterprises. You can often pivot quickly in reaction to customer demands or market changes. However, without a full-staffed tech department, you may have trouble innovating and keeping up with advances in new technologies.
An internship program can be a cost-effective method of growing your tech department so you can drive business and revenue growth with new tech advancements. In today’s tech landscape, particularly in light of the growth of artificial intelligence, skills that were cutting edge a few years ago go stale quickly. Interns who’ve recently completed their education can bring a fresh perspective and new skills to your company.
However, you'll likely face some challenges when developing a small business internship program. You may be dealing with a lack of resources for onboarding and training new interns. If your business typically only brings on a few new employees each year, you probably don’t have efficient pipelines for bringing interns up to speed.
Since internships are typically short-term engagements — lasting anywhere from a few months to a year — your interns need to assimilate into your business almost immediately to deliver the most value. The faster they understand your processes and goals, the more they can contribute while they’re with you.
Another significant challenge in running a successful internship program is balancing your existing employees’ workloads while managing intern productivity. As you integrate interns into your departments, you may experience a decrease in productivity as your permanent staff has to take time away from their regular job duties to help the interns.
An internship program can be an excellent opportunity to audition candidates for long-term positions before you commit to hiring them. Many successful businesses use a tech internship as a pipeline to find highly qualified talent. You’ll need to establish an intentional method for evaluating and retaining tech talent in order to reap the full benefits of your program.
The key to a successful tech internship program is having a clear plan from the beginning. If your program doesn’t support your business objectives, it can become an expensive time-sink. Start by setting clear objectives for what you want to get out of your tech internship program. Identify projects where interns can add the most value, along with specific deliverables for each. Outline how interns will integrate into these projects and what their responsibilities will be.
Next, set clear roles and expectations. Comprehensive, explicit job descriptions will help you onboard interns faster and will eliminate confusion about what they should be doing. You want to have them work-ready on day one. As part of the job description, include measurable learning objectives for your interns. In addition to being a valuable performance metric, this will provide your interns with demonstrable educational experience.
In your planning, consider how long you want your program to be. It may be more convenient for you to bring in summer interns to reduce the load on your permanent team for the rest of the year. In this case, you can structure work so your new or experimental projects are given priority over the summer while you focus on your bread-and-butter work the rest of the year.
If you have more time and resources to devote to your internship program, you can set up a semester or year-long internship program and maintain a rotating pool of interns. You’ll also need to consider how much you’ll pay and other legal considerations. If you’re working with local colleges, you may need to meet specific requirements or paperwork for them to grant academic credit or provide a stipend for unpaid internships.
When you’re creating your program, develop a structured, efficient onboarding process. It should include a welcome package and plenty of insight into your company’s mission, values, and daily work processes. You’ll be able to onboard and train interns rapidly if you have automated workflows to provide them immediate access to tech tools and other platforms.
Assign each intern a mentor responsible for overseeing their work and introducing them to other team members. Pairing interns with experienced employees will provide all parties with the most value. Your intern will benefit from hands-on learning strategies with impactful, real-world projects, and your existing teams will benefit from the extra help.
Provide regular skill development sessions and check-in sessions to monitor progress. Your program should encourage interns to take initiative and contribute so they can develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills rather than simply performing rote busy work.
Regularly evaluating and refining your internship program will allow you to maximize its impact. Set up a feedback loop on both sides, including project milestones and performance reviews. Incorporate feedback from supervisors and interns into your program after each round of interns for continuous improvement.
One of the biggest advantages of small business internships is the opportunity to convert high-performing interns into full-time employees. Set up a structured plan to evaluate your interns for future potential. Even if you choose not to hire an intern full-time, provide strong recommendation letters and networking support when they leave.
To promote your program, showcase success stories and testimonials on your website and in your recruitment materials. Put a spotlight on intern contributions in your company communications and on your social media channels.
An internship program is an excellent opportunity for building a strong tech talent pipeline that can help your company remain competitive. While starting a program from scratch can be resource-intensive, the rewards can be immeasurable in terms of innovation and maintaining a skilled workforce. Miami Tech Works can simplify the process and set you up for success. Reach out today to get started with long-term recruitment strategies at no cost.
