How to manage your Summer Internship?

We recently concluded a webinar on the topic of managing summer internships for B-school students. I pen down some of the key points the panelists shared. Before we go ahead, let me introduce you to the panelists: Sarthak Shah and Shivani Thakker. We would like to thank them for taking out time for the session.

One of the most important questions that come to any intern's mind during these times is whether virtual internships are any different from offline internships and if so in what sense? Both the internships have their advantages and disadvantages in their own way. On one hand, an offline internship gives you a higher frequency to meet and talk with your peers, team members, managers, and senior leadership but it may happen that in the workplace it is difficult to get undivided attention from your colleagues because they might be busy with something or the other. At the same time, a virtual internship offers exclusivity whenever you book time with any person. But this exclusivity comes at the expense of it being rare because we all know how as humans, we have the habit of living in a fake sense of being busy.

We talk about four aspects of any summer internship in this article: purpose, project, networking, and communication.

Purpose of a Summer Internship

Every individual has this notion of an internship serving the sole purpose of getting the candidate a job via PPO. While this clearly is not the case, here is what the panelists had to say on this topic:

• Evaluation: The internship is an opportunity for the organization to evaluate you as a potential full-time candidate. The organization might look at your work ethics, culture-fit, execution, and quality of work. Similarly, an internship is also an opportunity for the intern to evaluate the organization. The intern can evaluate based on the type of work that he/she does, work culture, roles that the organization offers, and future growth opportunities.
• Understand Yourself: For many interns, the summer internships might be their first corporate exposure and for everyone, it will be the first corporate exposure during their MBA. The summer internship is an opportunity to understand your capabilities and skills. This experience helps a student understand what their strengths and weaknesses are. This period of 6-8 weeks helps the student understand his likes and dislikes and eventually helps them make a career decision.
• Understand Sector/Industry: The summer internship is like a trailer for the industry (movie) in which you intern. The job of the intern is not just to do the project or work that they are assigned but to look beyond those things and look into the minutiae of the sector and the industry. At the end of the internship, the intern should be aware of the workings of the industry in which they are interning. This again helps the student decide whether to continue in the same sector or pivot to something else.

How to manage your Project?

• Expectation Setting: The first step for any intern is to ensure that there are clear deliverables set before the start of the project. Apart from the deliverables, the intern needs to understand the expectations of their manager or mentor, or whichever authority is going to evaluate the intern in the end. This helps to avoid a last-minute change of plans during the short time period of the internship. It is also good to do a recheck of these expectations during the mid-term review.
• Responsibility: The intern is supposed to take responsibility for their own time and actions.
• Project Management: Having a to-do list or following a project management tool (eg. Gantt Chart) is an effective way to keep track of your progress. This will ensure that none of the key action points are missed and will also keep you up to date with your tasks.
• Communicate with relevant stakeholders: During your internship, it is extremely crucial that you talk with all the stakeholders associated with your project. Stakeholders would include everyone from the customer to the retailer to the shop floor management. Talking alone is not sufficient, you need to quantify the results after the discussion and ensure you integrate the feedback into your project deliverables.
• Proactiveness: As an intern, you are expected to have a bias for action. You need to try out new things and avoid thinking linearly. There are multiple opportunities beyond the project which you should utilize. It is always appreciated if you are able to deliver more than expected. But ensure you have a specific mention of all the things that you did over and above your expected work.
• End Review: This is one of the most important parts of an internship. One key piece of advice is to start early and prepare well in advance for the presentation. It is always helpful to do dry runs by yourself, with your team, and with your manager/mentor. This helps you to smoothen out and practice the finer aspects of the presentation. It is always useful to know who will be attending the presentation so that you can structure the presentation accordingly. Knowing who all will be present will also help you determine the type of questions that you can expect. Finally, ensure you submit thorough documentation of your project in the end.

Networking

• Layer-wise Networking: There are three layers that you would interact with during the internship. The first is your fellow interns, second your immediate team, and finally the rest of the organization. Apart from this, there is also the external networking aspect that you need to keep an eye on.
• Relevancy: Always ensure that you find an objective and a relevant reason to network. Networking is not equivalent to cold calling. It helps to have a preliminary idea beforehand about what you would be discussing with the other person(s).
• Organic Approach: Ensure that networking is not a robotic task. In the initial phases, it might seem to be something that you do as a task but eventually, it needs to flow naturally. Do not force networking as an activity upon yourself.

Communication with Manager/Mentor

• Understand your manager's schedule: During the virtual scenario, it might be difficult to have casual conversations with your manager. But everyone has some time slots available during the day. Hence, one needs to look for these small-time slots and take permission for contacting in these slots. Ensure that your communication/meeting times are not interfering with the individual's privacy or personal time.
• Recurring Invite: Set up a recurring invite with your manager for every week or every fortnight. This ensures that the meeting stays in the mind of the manager and there is a dedicated slot for you. But ensure that during this time, you are prepared with all your updates, questions, requests, etc. This exclusivity is not to be wasted; hence ensure you are well prepared.
• MoM after the meetings: It is helpful if after the one-to-one sessions with your manager if you can send the minutes of the meeting document to them. This will ensure that there is a thread of communication between you and your manager. Moreover, this also helps in case any point is missed during the meeting or if you would like to refer to any conversation over the period of your internship.

In the end, always remember internships are supposed to be for your learning. Go with an open mind and try to learn and grow as much as possible. All the best for your summers!!