Internship – How to approach your Internship-II

This in continuation of what I wrote yesterday on How to approach your Internship.  I've shared my thoughts primarily from real time experience of engaging Interns. Hope you would find it interesting. 

# You will never know where your next opportunity may come from. So always give your best.

I had a psychology -HR student as an Intern in one of the organizations that worked and I could not hire him there though he carried all good professional qualities - good attitude, commitment and above all he was a value-driven person.  He was struggling to get corporate opportunity.  However, when I moved to another Organization, there was an opportunity for a fresher.  The first thing that I did was to ring him up and the next day, he was on-boarded.  Again, no interview was conducted. 

There was another MBA intern who did a good job and demonstrated all the good traits that you would want to see in your potential hire. To give an example, there was one quick turn around recruitment that I was handling that required on-boarding around 100 employees.  So all of us were on our toes and had to work without really looking the clock. Without any hesitation, this intern also came forward to good amount of responsibility and stretch himself even on off days too. I've seen his accountability, orientation to learn and finish the task on time.  I could not hire him immediately since there was no opportunity but I knew that he was quite interested to join our team. After 6-7 months, there was an opportunity and I am sure you could guess what I would have done. I just rang him up and gave the offer. 

Don’t have a conditional mindset that you will put your efforts provided there is a benefit or probable career opportunity for you. 

You may not know where your next opportunity may come from.  Always give your best.

# Do take care of your attitude

In one of the Organizations that I worked, I had a very smart MBA Intern and he impressed everyone in the team with his smart work.  Though fresher, he could work smart, communicate very well and confidently. He was a sure candidate for hiring and potential managerial material too. This was until we came to know that he was bad mouthing about the Organization to the other Interns and inducing them not to join if they were to be given any offer. 

I had to show the door instead of welcoming him on-board.

Attitude matters much more than your smartness.  However smart you are, if you don’t have the right attitude, you will get fired.

# Demand and Supply:

IT and ITes industries are synonymous with attrition.  So one of the things that I wanted to do was to initiate a quarterly exit survey that would cover all the employees who left the Organization. I wanted to give this task to the Interns so the employees left will find them approachable and be forthcoming in their feedbacks.

When I happened to interact with a bunch of Interns, I mentioned about exit survey. The next day, one of them came back and kept following up till this task was given to her while all the other interns did not take this initiative or show further interest to do this job.

Life always revolve around Demand and supply rule and this rule is not an exception to Internship. When you are on internship, your only mission is learning and unless you take initiative, you will not get the opportunities. 

Do stay connected to check my next posting on the same topic. 

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