How You Can Maximize This Summer’s Internship Program

It’s almost summertime — time for barbecues and ice cream, sunburns and camping trips, Q3 targets and mid-year reforecasting … and internships.

As businesses across numerous industries prepare to offer and activate short-term jobs to college students, now is a good time to examine the structure, intent and impact of your summer internship program.

“Successful internship programs provide professional experience to young professionals who need it, and also offer both the intern and the company the opportunity to gauge if there is a more permanent fit in the future,” said Amy Dufrane, the CEO of the HR Certification Institute (HRCI). “Further, internships allow companies to benefit from the perspective of the future workforce — whether in operational suggestions, trendspotting or simply evaluating their own processes as part of the onboarding process.”

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Recruit Once, Hire Twice: The ROI of Summer Internships

For employers of all sizes, offering internships can serve as a direct investment into the future workforce by developing the skills your organization needs — while also allowing current employees to step into mentorship or management roles, which can engage them in new ways, said Laura Love, the senior vice president of work-based learning at Strada Education Foundation, an organization that seeks to bridge the gap between education and employment.

Internships can imbue a business with new perspectives and fresh ideas that sometimes turn into profitable ventures or problems solved, added Josh Kahn, the associate director of research and public policy at the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), which serves the professionals who develop and employ college students and graduates. The programs can help an employer’s brand on campus and beyond as satisfied interns become ambassadors for the company. And, they can become a pipeline for returning talent.

“Employers have told us that internship programs are their best recruiting tool,” Kahn said, noting 80% of employers polled by NACE placed internships over career fairs and on-campus visits or panels as a top return-on-investment (ROI) recruiting strategy. “It gives them the opportunity to recruit once but hire twice.”

Elements of an Effective Program

While structures, environment and work experience will vary across employers and industries, experts share these are some of the components of a first-rate internship program:

Fair pay
Supportive supervision, teaching and mentorship
Career development opportunities, including networking and exposure to the field
Coordination and partnership with colleges and community organizations
Intentional efforts to create a sense of inclusion and belonging
The opportunity to meet with, and present work to, corporate leadership
Onboarding, clear job descriptions, specific tasks and learning outcomes, structured evaluation, and offboarding
Work that aligns with interns’ studies and academic schedule
Clear program metrics, tracking, documentation and reporting
Meaningful, relevant work and projects — not just administrative tasks or “busywork”

“These ideas are evergreen,” Dufrane said. “However, to execute them effectively involves proper advance planning before your interns come in the door, with a special focus on making sure your managers are aligned with the imperative.”

One example of these components in practice is Under Armour’s “Rookie Program,” Dufrane said, which includes one-on-one mentorship, time on-site at the headquarters to experience the organizational culture, opportunities to access training and meet corporate leadership, and the chance to complete a project of the intern’s choosing.

Kahn also commended innovative approaches like Verizon’s focus on immersion and skills assessment and cultivation, and the model at coffee company Saxbys. The latter’s string of cafes, situated mostly on college campuses, are completely run by students — including a rotating student CEO (“cafe executive officer”) — and the organization focuses heavily on core competency development.

Another way to innovate this year? Utilize artificial intelligence (AI) tools, Love said. They can be used to help craft internship program guides and work plans — and you can also invite participants to leverage the tools.

“Ask interns to help with AI integration and usage, as they may introduce new comfort and skills in managing AI that incumbent workers don’t yet have,” Love said.

Missteps That Stymie Internship Programs

A mistake employers often make is not aligning their internship program with the organization’s workforce planning — whether by overburdening an inexperienced intern with work due to staff shortages, or not having enough work for interns to complete.

“If a business is hiring too many interns and isn’t able to integrate them into their workforce, they’re really setting themselves up for failure,” Kahn said. “Not having enough opportunities available for the interns they brought on leaves a bad taste. If interns are sitting around and not getting the most out of their time, they’ll think, ‘This organization doesn’t have its ducks in a row.’ Making sure workforce planning is in place and the internship program is the right size is really important.”

Organizations sometimes struggle to assign appropriate projects to interns, and program participants often share after the fact they believe they could have done more, Love said.

“It is worth investing extra effort before the intern arrives to map out what they will do on a weekly basis, and to also have a backlog of projects to give them if they move quickly through initial assignments,” she said. “Under-investing in a clear work plan risks limiting the value and productivity interns can truly offer, which could lead to a less valuable experience on both sides.”

Another blunder? Engaging with participants only throughout the 10- or 12-week span of the program itself. According to Kahn, communicating with interns both leading up to their internship and after it wraps up keeps the connection open — helping foster a sense of goodwill and a potential return to the company.

That may look like sending out a digital newsletter to update program alumni on the business and industry, inviting them to corporate events, or even sending them small gift baskets during finals week. She said treating the intern relationship like a long-term one, not a summer fling, can pay dividends.

How HR Can Sustain Impactful Programs

Paying interns market rate is one of the most important ways HR can reward them, Kahn said.

Offering logistical and financial support for relocation, housing and transportation also can open doors.

“Relocation assistance is an enormous help to interns, and a powerful recruiting tool,” she said. “Students have told us this is a significant barrier for them. Employer-provided relocation assistance helps all students clear this barrier so they can focus on getting the most out of their internship.”

In some cases, Kahn added, employers also may offer interns many of the same benefits they provide their employees — access to employee resource groups, paid days off or insurance coverage.

Dufrane also pointed to gift cards, company swag, point systems, prizes, and access to professional development and job-specific training as additional tools for HR to leverage.

“If there are simple ways to enable interns to access some of the professional development resources available to all employees in bite-sized ways — such as employee assistance or financial literacy training — this can support conversion and hugely benefit students who are just entering the professional workforce,” Love said.

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