Writing an Internship Description

Structuring Your Internship | Internship vs. Job | Writing an Internship Description

Structuring Your Internship

Before writing an internship description, ask yourself the following questions to help structure your internship program:

Do you have an appropriate supervisor who has sufficient expertise in the area of the internship? The internship supervisor should be able to teach the intern best practices and answer detailed technical questions about the internship responsibilities
Will they be onsite at the internship and able to watch first-hand how the intern performs and do they have enough time to spend teaching the intern? An internship is usually a student’s first professional experience and there will be a learning curve
Is that supervisor on-board with mentoring an intern? Make sure the supervisor understands what is expected of them and shares the same goals
Do you have some clear-cut learning objectives for the internship? Consider writing a syllabus of things you want the intern to learn. There is often a gap between college and the professional world - think about how to close that gap and train them for the professional world
Do you have a list of pre-professional tasks for the intern, both short term & long term? Do you have some intern projects they can work on if there is downtime? It is natural for things to be busy sometimes- make it is clear to the intern what they can work on when this happens. Sometimes it is helpful to have the intern work on a sample project so they have a safe place to be creative and get more involved with some work
Are there opportunities to network with staff, clients, stakeholders?
Are there opportunities to shadow projects, presentations, meetings, other staff/departments?
Do you have a regular schedule for the intern? Make sure you set a schedule that works for both you and the intern. Interns will need to meet a minimum of 135 hours in a semester for credit- make sure you can offer that. Most students intern 10-20 hours per week during a school year and are more flexible over the summer
Can you pay an hourly rate? Paid internships are encouraged. Offering an hourly paid internship will allow the intern to be more committed to the internship and reduce the need for paid job that will compete for their time & priorities. Students can get credit for paid internships as well
Be clear on expectations and let them know about late and sick policies as well as how lunch breaks work
Do you have an internship manual? It will be helpful to create a guide for your intern(s) to cover your workplace policies, tasks, projects, and expectations

Additional tips:

Offer an internship orientation at your company
Offer job shadowing opportunities in various in-house departments
Offer opportunities to conduct informational interviews with other staff members
Hold an intern brown bag lunches with senior staff
Offer guidance on professional development within your industry

In some cases it may be worth asking if an internship is the best route for your company/organization. If you do not have an appropriate supervisor or time to train an intern you may need to ask yourself if your opportunity an internship or more appropriate as a job? Here are some tips to help determine which opportunity type is the best fit for your goals.

Internship	Job
Primarily for training purposes	Primarily serves and supports a business need
Has specific learning objectives
Is not essential to business operations	Is essential to business operations Does work that helps generate revenue for the business
Offers pre-professional tasks and training for current college students	Employee brings expertise & professional experience
For current college students
College level experience needed only Is an extension of academic experience and connected to curriculum	Is expected to hit the ground running
Skills are developed in professional environment Intern shadows staff & business activities	May also manage projects, staff, clients May assist with routine, menial, administrative, production work or as staff for peak times or events
Skills developed are transferable to other workplaces
Intern is closely mentored by staff with expertise in internship area (similar to a teacher-student relationship)	Employee has enough expertise to manage responsibilities and needs minimal guidance Works independently and/or as a part of a team
Feedback is given to facilitate learning process
Intern meets professionals and begins building a professional network
Must be located onsite at an organization business location	May work onsite or remotely
Short term with a fixed start and end date Future employment is not mentioned or promised	May be full time, part time, freelance, contract, as needed by employer