7 Tips: How To Have A Successful Internship

Last year, I was approached by a student who had a really ambiguous, “boil-the-ocean” summer internship project. It was the type of question that a CEO or CMO would spend months/years grappling with. She wanted to think through how to approach such an enormous project and so following our discussion, I sat down with a small group of MBA students at the Darden School of Business to think about how to approach their summer internships. What follows are key points made during the discussion:

1. The big, “boil-the-ocean” type of projects are that way on purpose. These types of projects are designed to see how you handle pressure, stress, and how you approach ambiguous problems. The perception by some recruiters is that students today need a paint-by-numbers approach to solving problems and in fact, recruiters want to see which interns cope with ambiguity—the reality in business—effectively.

2. Don’t panic when you get the project: They don’t expect you to have the perfect answer. Rather, they want to see how you tackle it. Know that you can do it and focus on your approach/process/plan. Break it down into bite-sized pieces and put your head down and move. Don’t overanalyze your plan…come up with something, think it through, but start moving. It will not be the final plan. It’s a starting point.

3. Drive regular alignment with the “decision makers” – starting with your boss. Do this in the style that they prefer (text, email, phone calls, meetings, written versus verbal, etc.). This cannot be overstated. A source of internship failure is that the interns go-it-alone. A fundamental requirement of most internships is to drive alignment at key milestones—the plan, progress, drafts of recommendations, and the final recommendation.

4. Success in an internship is about a lot more than the final output. Companies are assessing your fit—do people like working with you, do you adapt successfully to the norms of the company (i.e., if they make recommendations through writing and not meetings, can you adapt successfully to that), are you productive with others’ time, are you easily coachable (i.e., do you listen effectively to coaching, adapt to it, and build on it), and do you have an attitude that makes the environment better? They are also determining whether you manage projects well—are you organized, do you follow-up, do you understand the resources as your disposal, and do you get the “system” and play within the system?

5. Therefore, a big part of the summer is building advocacy. In reality, how you do the work is as important in an internship assessment as the work output itself. You want to build advocacy within the organization, and this is about who you are, how you treat people, how you work with them, how you get projects done, etc.

6. Remember to stay “service-oriented” during your summer. For most of our lives, people have tried to accommodate us. Parents, teachers, retailers, etc. You now are being paid to accommodate and adapt to the company. You are in a service role, being paid a wage to serve and create value for the company. This is a paradigm shift. When you walk up to the Delta counter, you expect that as a customer they will try and deliver a superior customer experience for you. Your company, your boss, your peers are now the “customer”. You are in a position to create value for the company while seeking to create a superior customer experience for those with whom you work. This can be a substantial paradigm shift for many and a key reason why some interns don’t get full-time job offers. Several years ago, a recruiter was telling me about an intern who complained to HR in week three that her boss wasn’t given her enough time. Is this how a service provider thinks? Or does a service provider realize that her boss is busy and that she needs to find a way to move the project along given her boss' constraints?

7. And this leads to the last tip…you must lead during the internship to ensure you achieve your internship goals. Leadership isn’t bossing – it is about influencing the direction of your project(s). Leading can come through questions …. “I know you are really busy and I don’t want to waste your time. I also want to make sure that I’m on the right track and moving the project(s) forward so that the result is useful for you and the team. What method of keeping you apprised of progress works best for you – do you prefer weekly/daily emails or meetings or phone calls or something else?” A leader drives the project forward and can use a multitude of methods to make this happen—questions, writing a short proposal/plan/recommendation and seeking feedback, setting up key milestone meetings, etc. This is the crucial part of the summer—leading to ensure that you move the projects forward to a successful conclusion. And for some, it’s hard to shift from following bosses to leading bosses. You will want to lead your boss and it’s all about figuring out how to do that in a way that works for the boss and fits within the culture of the company. For example, when I interned at P&G many years ago, the culture was a writing culture. Every day, I would meet with my boss to discuss progress—but everything was written down. Project objectives, plan, approach, resources needed, progress, and recommendations were all on paper and enabled us to engage productively. Had I not written anything down, it would have been hard to engage in that culture. I was fortunate at the time because I had a terrific boss, Rick Thompson, who was very clear about expectations and helped make it easy to work for him, but this isn’t always the case. Ferreting out how to effectively lead given a boss’ preferences and the norms of the company requires a lot of EQ.

Finally, the last key piece of advice is to use the summer internship for what it is—a job “try-out”. Most likely, you will never again have the ability to “test” a job while getting paid to do so. This is a time in your life where you have the opportunity to build your adaptation muscle (critical for long-term success) while also assessing the company, the culture, and the work. If it isn’t for you, that’s fine. This isn’t a make or break moment, and so try and have some fun and let the pressure go. I’ve watched a number of students return from their internships and say: “Wow—that wasn’t for me”. They then have a better idea of what they want (and don’t want) and convert that insight into a search plan for their second year. Use this as learning, practice, and a growth opportunity and don’t be too hard on yourself. A career lasts a long time—potentially 50 years or more—and so a 2-3 month experience is a very small part of the bigger picture.

Join the discussion:  @KimWhitler

As a former General Manager and CMO, who worked for nearly 20 years before getting a PhD and working as an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia's Darden Sc