Bring strategic rigor to your internship program
This guest post is by Baron C. Hanson, principal and lead consultant of RedBaron Consulting LLC, a strategy and turnaround management firm based in Charleston, S.C. Follow RedBaron Consulting on Twitter at @redbaronUSA.
Great hiring isn’t an instant process, and many companies would benefit from developing more-structured internship programs, in which success and proof of a good fit are measured over time. For a model of this approach, look to the top consulting firms of the world. Bain, McKinsey and BCG tap only the brightest, most highly accomplished, perfectly polished college and graduate program candidates to interview with their respective companies. Then, only the very best of those best are offered summer internships and positions after graduation.
With a new academic year approaching, now is a good time for companies large and small to carefully consider more strategic internship policies. Here are five suggestions that can help.
- Consider academic calendars when planning internship phases. Obviously the pace of business and the economic realities of your office rule, but you’ll get better results if you respect critical exam, term paper and thesis periods. The best college seniors and final-year graduate students are gunning for top grades, and you don’t want your internship to stand in their way. If your company prefers short internships, brief field studies or specific hiring periods that coincide with annual conferences or isolated events, holiday breaks between semesters can be ideal. And ramp up expectations with each semester: Begin phase one in the fall, matriculate to phase two in the spring and then offer an intense phase three internship during the summer. This system also makes it easier to analyze patterns of performance before hiring full-time the following fall.
- Scare B-list candidates away upfront. General, fluffy job listings create more work for your HR team in the long run than a sharply focused one would. First, too many random candidates respond. Second, HR must then sift through a mountain of lackluster or insincere applicants. Third, these are short-term applicants that need any job they can get, as opposed to A-list candidates interested in a long-term career path with you. There’s a much better way: Sit down with key managers to carefully draft the most challenging, rigorous, mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive job description write-ups as possible –– with zero fluff. Include a roster of advanced role requirements and high cover letter expectations that invite only the keenest and most accomplished to apply. In short, scare the heck out of flaky applicants. Shotgun-blast resume slingers and well-dressed slackers won’t bother applying.
- Require each intern to digest an advanced reading list. This intense material absorption not only tests each intern’s mettle, mind and priority management, advanced reading lists help bridge that frustrating gap between academia and the real business world. At our strategy and turnaround management firm, intern reading lists consist of 13 industry-, client- and position-leading books. Some are classic works, others contemporary and cutting edge works. Most are math, science and behavioral economics reads. This aggressive syllabus requires time-consuming homework outside working hours, which further defends against weak or lazy applicants upfront.
- Pay your interns. Sadly, internships are widely considered as sources of free labor, which is absolutely false. Internships are supposed to be intense learning experiences, extended job interviews and on-the-job training as a mutual exchange of service and education. The best companies attract and retain the best interns by offering modest bonuses at critical stages during their tenure. The secret is to not mention compensation until the third interview. And get creative. Besides paying them a wage, offer to pay for schoolbooks, a campus meal plan, a holiday trip home to see friends or family, or even a laptop. Appropriately compensating candidates throughout the internship process helps them avoid financial duress, which builds a better working relationship and brands your company as a fair and equitable place to work.
- Deliberately schedule interns to attend multiple mixed-company events. Beyond the workplace, job description and weekly to-do list, observing potential hires in multiple real-world situations is imperative before full-time positions are offered. Cocktail parties, golf outings, industry-related conferences, civic club lunches, company BBQs or a day of local community service –– the list of potential events is endless. Mixed-company events take your working relationship beyond their classroom and your conference room to engage real-world settings with real people. How appropriately do interns dress or carry themselves during various occasions? Is their ability to mingle and carry on multiple conversations crisp, or do they thumb their BlackBerry every few minutes? Do they gulp down the last sip of wine (if legally aged), or confidently leave a half-inch in their glass? Do they offer to help clean up after a company picnic, or eat and run? Do they adhere to the rules of golf? You get the idea. Devise your own list of multiple mixed-company events, and then observe interns in various settings to gauge behavior.
As potential candidates emerge from colleges and graduate schools, hiring processes should be especially selective and exhaustive over time. No one in their right mind would choose a spouse after one date, admit a student at the first recruiting event or hire a CEO after one interview. Even top athletes at the college, professional and Olympic sporting levels must be carefully scouted and coached over time. In short, hiring slowly via a rigorous process should be your mantra for any level of employment going forward, especially internships.
Image credit, phillipspears, via iStock
Posted by Toni Young on August 17th, 2010 at 5:19 am
Mary Ellen – TERRIFIC advice for employers on intern programs! Many companies today 'think" they have the internship game mastered, but in reality, more don't than do. Big name companies for example. Another important factor that they don't spend a lot of time on is how their internship program is structured. A good measure of that is to look at how many interns are interested in being hired on with the same company after their internship is completed. Don't be surprised if your interns who you thought were 'dying' to work for you say 'no thanks'!
Posted by Margo Rose on August 17th, 2010 at 6:57 am
Sadly true. We have to treat our interns with dignity, and value their integriy, and intellectual growth. They are looking up to us for help. As I've always said, "be nice to the interns, you never know when you'll be reporting to them…"
Great post.
Posted by Tweets that mention Bring strategic rigor to your internship program | SmartBlog on Workforce -- Topsy.com on August 17th, 2010 at 11:37 am
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Posted by Marissa Crean on August 18th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Thank you for these great ideas. I am in the process of debriefing from our second year of a finance internship program, so this is so timely. I love the idea about an advance reading list and will be incorporating this into my internship program next year. We will see who truly embraces learning by doing the work. Follow-up workshops during the internship can validate level of understanding, too. Your last point, regarding a rigorous schedule that includes mixed-company events, reinforces my belief that the interpersonal skills I've observed over the summer at these events are as important as their technical skills. Another idea for internship programs is to require the student to present to a team of colleagues a summary of their internship, emphasizing accomplishments and how these benefited the business.
Posted by Marissa Crean on August 18th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Some additional thoughts:
Unfortunately, I don't believe a detailed job description will scare a B-list candidate away; however, it will attract an A-list candidate! On the other hand, a thorough application process, including open-ended questions, will do the trick or at least help recruiters quickly identify the weak.
Once you know who you really like, it's also important to retain their interest in you. Let them know you are interested by facilitating the formal interview process. Schedule time for the students to interview with other managers and be sold on the benefits of working at the company. Then stay in touch with them after they go back to school.
Posted by Baron on August 18th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Margo, a very true statement. In fact, in addition to "feedback Fridays" and strategic role-reversal exercises, we've actually empowered interns to briefly take the reigns and lead senior consultants in a mock-client engagement (not real), to see how well they lead, react, and think on their feet with experienced faces staring back at them. Millennial interns may be brash on paper, over Twitter, and via antics on Facebook –– but they can be very shy in real life when "the suits" actually take them to task on their innate leadership skills and retention of academic + analytic skills. Obviously treat interns with dignity, but they must be tested like real employees, and not baby-sat.
Posted by Baron Hanson on August 18th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Toni, thank you for such a mindful reply — especially the intern-to-hire traction (metric). So much is changing in terms of business models, time tables, and role expectations – and quickly – that Millennial interns will require more structure, more contained autonomy, and more direction/feedback, not to mention considerable orientation of role and workplace dynamics. Focusing on the legitimate pressures of senior executives at larger firms can easily lead overwhelmed HR departments into the "not-so-polished internship program" trap. Let's hope 2010-2011 is a better internship year in todays economy – Baron
Posted by Baron on August 18th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Marissa, thank you for such a lengthly roster of comments! The reading list is a multi-faceted strategy that brings their mind up to speed via terms, frameworks, and conclusions that you and your executive peers (or clients) now use to think through and mentally organize your work. The more interns read and absorb, the faster they will connect and remain on the same page in the office (our in the field). Choose your books carefully, and do not allow interns to skim. Blue Ocean Strategy is a favorite. Our interns must read that book –– twice.
I enjoy your idea about presentations and feedback, especially in a group "public speaking" format. Weekly summations, reports, and discussions also allow other key executives to test interns as potential associates. Invite as many key people to sit in as possible, and collect individual feedback.
Please allow me to clarify: the detailed job description is intended to be laden with challenge, rules, expectations, and honest role details. The idea is to lay out the rigorous scope of work (dashboard) that each intern will be required to embrace and manage each day. Some intern job descriptions are written as sales pitches (perhaps a historical pattern) to gain free labor. Now that many universities require internships for graduation, the volume of B-list responses is a future challenge to strategically design into your company now.
Staying in touch with them back on campus is a critical point. School is a bubble that is engaged using a completely different mindset than a job, which is why invitations to events beyond both school and office are critical management opportunities to observe behavior in detail.
Thank you again for the Re-tweets! Baron
Posted by Resume Slingers and Well-Dressed Slackers | @360JobInterview.Com blog on August 19th, 2010 at 9:20 am
[...] “Great hiring isn’t an instant process, and many companies would benefit from developing more-structured internship programs, in which success and proof of a good fit are measured over time,” says Mary Ellen Slayter in her recent article entitled Bring Strategic Rigor to Your Internship Program. [...]
Posted by Marissa Crean on August 19th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Hi Baron – Now you have me thinking differently about those job descriptions. The more rigor I demand of the managers, the more seriously they will take the responsibility of challenging the intern. There may come a time when I have greater demand for interns than my ability to provide the resource, so a detailed job description will help determine who is awarded the higher potential intern, or an intern at all. Thanks for the exchange of ideas! Marissa
Posted by mszczepanik on August 23rd, 2010 at 9:25 am
Great advice. I've been chairing the internship program at Liggett Stashower <a href="http://(http://liggett.com/careers/internships/)” target=”_blank”>(http://liggett.com/careers/internships/) for 5ish years now – it's been a formal program for close to 20 years now. More that 10% of our staff started with us as interns.
We don't really do anything to try to scare off any applicants. Our job titles are straightforward. We get a lot of resumes (200+) so we can afford to be discerning when making our first cut – typos and grammatical errors cull the herd. We have established criteria that we use to judge resumes.
The only other thing we don't do from the list is the advance reading. We do assign each intern a book on their first day and require them to do a book report on it in front of the entire company on their last day. Helps them overcome presentation fears and the company gets to hear a 5-minute review of the latest industry books.
We also get them involved with local community. We take them on "field trips" to our vendors. We clubs and associations – the idea being that we may not have an immediate opening for the best of the bunch but keeping them local makes them easier to recruit later on.
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