Ask HN: What should I do with an intern who can't complete any task

[binary_slinger]

I hired a software engineering intern with a decent resume for an undergrad. I decided to give them a chance after an in-person interview. It's been about a year, and they still haven’t completed a single task in Jira. At first, I thought the tasks might be too complicated, so I assigned something simpler. I even asked about their interests and assigned a task accordingly. When that didn’t work, I started meeting with them daily, but it turned into an exercise in testing my patience.

[rvz]

> I decided to give them a chance after an in-person interview. It's been about a year, and they still haven’t completed a single task in Jira.

A year is a very long time for them to improve and you have given them enough time to change.

So I would just let them go right now.

> I started meeting with them daily, but it turned into an exercise in testing my patience.

No hire is better than a bad hire. You will not get back that time and money you spent on that intern. Are you willing to invest more time on to someone that still cannot complete any task after hiring them a year later?

If the answer is still No, fire them right now.

[gregjor]

Either put the effort into mentoring the intern, or fire them. You wrote that you "hired" the intern but didn't mention if that means a paid internship or not. If you don't pay the person, or pay them very little, you should adjust expectations accordingly. A year of no completed tasks seems like way too long, indicating lack of guidance and management.

[nonrandomstring]

Agree. An "intern" is usually a continuation of study, not a productive team member yet. You need to put more work in or get rid of them. Love and be kind to them. Help them find a skill, an educational task no matter how useless it is to you. Forget Jira.

I had to place interns and work experience apprentices once. Most of the time nobody wants them because they're a damn liability. Someone has to handle them, and that's time out of doing real work. Even if you get smart, motivated recruits who are full of initiative, you have to kinda sandbox them and babysit.

If you're in a big org, apart from that one kid who is the boss's nephew, realise that your organisation is almost certaily taking them in as a PR move, or as part of some scheme. The real PR bit that people miss is that for the next 50 years they'll either praise or badmouth your organisation, First assignments leave a big impression. So now you're a teacher. Don't let anyone give them a broom and treat them as "free labour". Find a task that's challenging but just within their abiity. Make it really fun, even if that's all make-believe.

After a year though, it's probably too late to change the dynamic.

[gregjor]

I can't comment any more than I have on the situation the OP describes, but you raise a couple of good points in your reply.

Companies hiring interns as PR stunts and low-cost labor for menial tasks, or just throwing them in the deep end without mentoring, seems fairly common these days. Then employers complain that they can't find junior people.

I got started in my career as an intern, paid. I got assigned two mentors who had responsibility for getting me from newb to productive. They put in the time and effort and gave me valuable guidance, helping me learn the tools, the code base, and the organization. When I got hired the project manager told me I had no more than three months to sink or swim. I got offered full-time after a couple of months, and before long I got assigned to mentor new hires. I have always thought of that as one of the best places I have worked, and probably the best hiring process. That happened in 1979. Over the years I have seen mentoring and on-the-job training practically disappear, and now eager young people fresh out of school can't find those opportunities.

[binary_slinger]

Thanks for this info. This is paid.

[jpmoral]

What do they have to say about it?