York College Internship Program

Provide the intern with meaningful work.

• Get involved with the initial internship for academic credit learning contract the intern brings. Discuss with the intern what their learning goals are and how these goals may be accomplished through their experiences during the internship. Review the learning contract regularly with the intern.
• Strive to find an ongoing balance of challenge and support in the work that the intern is doing. Discuss with the intern what they can do related to prior coursework, skills, knowledge, etc. and structure the work accordingly. Be as specific as possible. Interns, like others in the process of learning, need structure so they don’t become overwhelmed, confused or bored.

Make the intern feel welcome at the internship.

• Orient your intern to their new workplace, physically and/or virtually. This might take the form of a formal orientation program or merely a walk around the office, or something in between depending on the size and structure of your organization. Give interns an overview of your organization. Explain who does what and how it relates to what the intern’s role and duties will be.
• Give your intern the resources they need to do the job. Give the intern a desk, point out the supply room, and introduce the appropriate people. If you give the message that the intern is unimportant, you could miss out on valuable contributions to your projects.
• Provide the intern with opportunities to understand the mission, goals, organizational structure, and people in the organization. Encouraging informational interviews throughout the organization can provide helpful context, functional and comparative information which allow the intern to better understand operations and pathways.

Establish and maintain clear communication and expectations with the intern.

• Have a discussion in which you set clear expectations regarding attire, punctuality, the intern’s work schedule, cell phone/office phone use, web/e-mail policies, and any other policies or procedures relevant to your site. In particular, be sure to discuss health and safety policies (ie. the sexual harassment policy, emergency procedures, etc.) so as to reasonably ensure the intern’s safety during the internship.
• Set clear beginning and ending dates for the internship and let the intern know about your absentee/vacation policies/expectations. Please note that the student’s internship-for-academic-credit will be finished at the end of the semester even if the intern is invited to continue working for your company/organization.
• Provide regular opportunities or scheduled meetings to connect with the intern to discuss projects, learning, progress, and goals.
• Give your intern lots of feedback. Especially if your interns have never done this kind of work before, they’ll want to know if their work is measuring up to your expectations. No matter what the level of experience, they need you, as a more experienced professional, to let them know if their work is officially “okay.” Periodically, examine what your intern has produced and make suggestions.

Assign a mentor or supervisor who will be available for the intern to talk with about the experience.

• Choose the internship supervisor carefully. This person doesn’t have to be a teacher per se, but should be selected because he or she likes to teach or train and has the time and resources to do it. If the person you select has never mentored an intern before, give them some basic training in mentoring.
• Watch for signs that the intern is confused or bored. As often as silence means that an intern is busy, it also could mean that he or she is confused and shy about telling you so. See whether the intern is trying to do anything that requires someone else’s input. Make sure that work is taking precedence over web browsing. Paying attention early helps you head off problems and bad habits early on.

Evaluate the intern’s progress formally and informally.

• You will receive a copy of the intern evaluation approximately mid-way through the semester to help you provide more effective feedback to the intern. However, it is the end-of-experience evaluation that is required for the student to complete the graded portion of the experience. Toward the end of the semester, we will email you a link to the intern evaluation, which we ask you to complete and share with the intern. If you should need another copy of the form, or the link, please contact internship@ycp.edu.
• Remember those goals you outlined with your intern before the experience began? Please revisit them regularly time to see how well you and your intern are meeting those goals. Informal evaluations are an opportunity to give feedback to the intern about his or her performance.

Adapted from “Starting and Maintaining a Quality Internship Program” by Mike True

On-Site Supervisor

An on-site supervisor is the individual at your organization who is serving as the student’s direct supervisor/mentor for the experience.

Faculty Internship Advisor

The faculty member from York College of Pennsylvania who supervises the student on behalf of the college, determines the academic components of the experience, and assigns the student a grade. This individual varies from internship to internship. If you are unsure of who the faculty supervisor is for this internship, please ask your intern for the name of this person or refer to the initial application that was completed prior to the internship and sent via email.

Career Development Center

Coordinates internship postings, oversees the overall application process, and facilitates communication between the site and the college.

Best Practice #1: Provide Interns with Real Work Assignments

Providing interns with real work is number one to ensuring your program's success. Interns should be doing work related to their major, that is challenging, that is recognized by the organization as valuable, and that fills the entire work term.

You can guarantee that hiring managers provide real work assignments by checking job descriptions, emphasizing the importance of real work assignments during a manager/mentor orientation sessions, and communicating with interns frequently throughout the work term to determine who they perceive what they are doing.

*Note: The best practices presented here assume the organization's goal is to convert interns to full-time hires and is therefore paying its interns. Unpaid internships present a number of problems for organizations focused on intern conversion, not the least of which is legal issues that arise if the unpaid intern is given real work assignments. (For information about intern compensation, see NACE's Guide to Compensation for Interns & Co-ops.

Best Practice #2: Hold Orientations for All Involved

It's important that everyone "be on the same page," so to speak. Make this happen by holding an orientation session for managers and mentors as well as a session for students. Orientations ensure that everyone starts with the same expectations and role definitions. This is time well spent-the effort you put into these sessions will pay off throughout the program.

Best Practice #3: Provide Interns with a Handbook and/or Website

Whether in paper booklet format, or presented as a special section on your website, a handbook serves as a guide for students, answering frequently asked questions and communicating the "rules" in a warm and welcoming way.

A separate intern website serves many of the purposes of the handbook, but has the advantage of being easy to change. You can use your website as a communication tool, with announcements from the college relations staff or even articles of interest written by the interns themselves.

Best Practice #4: Provide Housing and Relocation Assistance

Few employers can afford to provide fully paid housing for interns, but you'll find that you get a lot of appreciation if you offer any kind of assistance toward housing expenses. If that's not possible, provide assistance in locating affordable housing: For those relocating to the job site, the prospect of finding affordable, short-term housing can be daunting. Easy availability of affordable housing will make your opportunity more attractive to students, broadening your pool of candidates.

If you can pay for all or some of your interns' housing, be sure to design (and stick to) a clear policy detailing who is eligible. This will eliminate any perceptions of unequal treatment. In addition, be aware that employer-paid or employer-subsidized housing is considered a taxable benefit. Check with your internal tax department on exceptions to this.

You will also want to consider the issue of relocation, which is separate although related to housing. Many organizations pay some or all of their interns' relocation expenses to and/or from the job site.

Best Practice #5: Offer Scholarships 

Pairing a scholarship with your internship is a great way to recruit for your internship program — and this is especially true if you are having difficulty attracting a particular type of student or student with a specific skill set to your program. Attaching a scholarship can increase your pool of candidates with the desired qualifications.

Best Practice #6: Offer Flex-Time and/or Other Unusual Work Arrangements

Students mention flex-time as one of their most desired features in a job. (A flexible time schedule during their internship eases their transition to the workplace.)

If you think about how students spend the day on campus (varied schedule each day, with varied activities such as work, class, social time), you can understand that 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday is a bit of an adjustment for them. A flexible schedule can make them feel less chained in by an unchanging routine.

Other work arrangements that have been found successful with students include keeping them on as part-time, remote employees after they go back to school (depending on the type of work they do for you and whether they have a willing manager), and having them come back and work over school breaks for a couple of weeks. These are excellent ways to keep communications open and build a stronger bond.

Best Practice #7: Have an Intern Manager

Having a dedicated manager for your intern program is the best way to ensure that it runs smoothly and stays focused on your criteria for success. Unfortunately, the size and resources available to most internship programs mean that this isn't always possible. If your program isn't big enough to warrant a dedicated full-time staff member, an excellent short-term solution is to hire a graduate student (look for a student working toward an advanced HR degree) to be your intern, and put this college relations intern in charge of the daily operation of the internship program. This gives the interns a "go-to" person, and gives you and your staff a break from the many daily tasks involved in running a program of any size. For this to work, you have to plan the program structure in advance (don't expect your intern to do it), and be very accessible to your college relations intern.

Best Practice #8: Encourage Team Involvement

Involve your college recruiting teams-whether they are "volunteers" who participate in college recruiting, staff members dedicated to college recruiting, or some combination of both-in your intern program. They can sponsor social or professional development events, and help to orient the interns to your company culture. In my experience, college team members served as cooks at intern picnics, hosts at speaker events, and drivers for social outings such as ball games.

Best Practice #9: Invite Career Center Staff and Faculty to Visit Interns On Site

Although some programs — especially those that are very structured on the university side — make visits by career center staff and faculty a regular practice, most do not. In general, career center staff and faculty members have relatively few opportunities to visit employer work sites to see firsthand the types of experiences that their students are getting. By inviting them to your site, you will build a better working relationship with these groups, which can lead to more student referrals, enhanced campus visibility, and increased flexibility on their parts when your business needs dictate it.

Best Practice #10: Hold New-Hire Panels

New-hire panels are one of the best ways to showcase an organization to interns as a great place to work. These are panels of five or six people who were hired as new grads within the last three years. They act as panelists in a meeting of interns, giving a brief summary of their background and then answering questions from the intern audience. Your interns get insight about your organization from your new hires-people who they perceive are like themselves and who they consequently view as credible sources of information.

In these meetings, I've found that the interns consistently bring up the same topics: Why did you choose this employer over others? What was your first year like? How is being a full-time employee here different from being an intern? Do you recommend getting a graduate degree? In the same field, or an M.B.A.? Is it better to go straight to graduate school after the bachelor's or better to work a while?

It's also fairly consistent that the new hires will offer other types of advice to your interns, such as how to handle finances those first couple of years out of school. (Their typical advice: Don't run right out and buy a new car, and, Start contributing the maximum to your savings plan as soon as you are allowed.}

College relations staff should attend these sessions, but should remain unobtrusive, staying in the back of the room so as not to stifle the conversation. By being there, you stay aware of what is on the minds of your target group, and you can answer any detailed questions that may come up, such as those related to benefits.

Best Practice #11: Bring in Speakers from Your Company's Executive Ranks

One of the greatest advantages to students in having internships is the access they get to accomplished professionals in their field. Consequently, speakers from the executive ranks are very popular with students — it's a great career development and role modeling experience for interns. Having a CEO speak is especially impressive. Best scenario: Your CEO speaker is personable, willing to answer questions, and willing and able to spend a little informal time with the students after speaking-your interns will be quite impressed.

For you, having your executives speak to interns is another way to "sell" your organization to the interns, and get your executives invested in (and supporting) your program.

Best Practice #12: Offer Training/Encourage Outside Classes

Providing students with access to in-house training — both in work-skills-related areas, such as a computer language, and in general skills areas, such as time management — is a tangible way to show students you are interested in their development.

You may also want to consider providing interns with information about nearby community colleges: Many students will be interested in attending during their work term to take care of some electives and/or get a little ahead with the hours they need to graduate. If you have the budget, you may also want to consider paying the tuition for courses they take while working for you, but, as is the case with housing, any assistance you can provide — even if it's just providing them with information about local schools — will earn you points with students.

Best Practice #13: Conduct Focus Groups/Surveys

Conducting focus groups and feedback surveys with these representatives of your target group is a great way to see your organization as the students see it. Focus groups in particular can yield information about what your competitors are doing that students find appealing.

Best Practice #14: Showcase Intern Work through Presentations/Expo

Students work very hard at completing their work and are generally proud of their accomplishments. Setting up a venue for them to do presentations (formal presentations or in a fair-type setting such as an expo) not only allows them to demonstrate their achievements, but also showcases the internship program to all employees.

Best Practice #15: Conduct Exit Interviews

Whether face-to-face or over the telephone, a real-time exit interview done by a member of the college relations team is an excellent way to gather feedback on the student's experience and to assess their interest in coming back. Having the students fill out an exit survey and bring it to the interview gives some structure to the conversation.

Courtesy of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE)

The U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which applies to all companies that have at least two employees directly engaged in interstate commerce and annual sales of at least $500,000.00, severely restricts an employer's ability to use unpaid interns or trainees. It does not limit an employer's ability to hire paid interns.

You do not have to pay interns who qualify as leaders/trainees. The U.S. Department of Labor has outlined six criteria for determining trainee status:

• Interns cannot displace regular employees
• Interns are not guaranteed a job at the end of the internship (though you may decide to hire them at the conclusion of the experience)
• Interns are not entitled to wages during the internship
• Interns must receive training from your company, even if it somewhat impedes the work
• Interns must get hands-on experience with equipment and processes used in your industry
• Intern training must primarily benefit them, not the organization

Workers compensation boards have found that interns contribute enough to a company to make them employees. It is wise to cover interns under your workers compensation policy even though you are not required to do so. Student interns are not generally eligible for unemployment compensation at the end of the internship.

Even if a student is working through a school program for which he or she is being given college credits, the student still has the right, under the FLSA, to be paid unless the employer is not deriving any immediate advantage by using him/her (see six points above). Paid interns make ideal workers because they are hungry to learn, eager to make a good impression and willing to perform a multitude of tasks. The relatively small amount of money employers spend on intern wages and benefits is a good investment because it often produces future, long-term employees.

The employer should identify the specific terms and conditions of employment (e.g., dates of employment as an intern, including date the internship will end; compensation; organizational and/or reporting relationships; principal duties, tasks or responsibilities; working conditions; confidentiality; any other expectations of the employer), and should discuss these with the prospective intern so that there is no misunderstanding regarding the relationship.

Also, it may make good sense to document such a discussion with a written agreement. Please note that compensation for internships is not regulated by York College in any way.

Remember that interns must be treated fairly by your organization. If an intern is harassed at your organization and you do not do anything about it, your organization opens itself to the risk of lawsuits. Take time to advise your interns of appropriate workplace behavior, the organization's harassment policy and complaint procedures and other items that they may need to know while interning with you.