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by nonrandomstring
509 days ago
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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. |
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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.