Ask HN: What do you ask your interns as they finish up for the summer? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What do you ask your interns as they finish up for the summer?

46 pointsryanchants20 comments

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In case the basic questions aren't obvious:

- What were your goals for the internship, and how do they compare to what you actually got out of it?

- What are the top 3 things you'd change about the way our internship program works?

- What are the top 3 things you think worked well?

- If you could repeat the internship knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

- What advice would you give to company leadership (at any level)?

I'd consider asking them how _they_ felt about their experience/the company/procedures/etc..

Getting fresh eyes from an intern can provide valuable insight into things you're doing right, and things that could be improved.

+1 On this, and I'd want to encourage them to provide this feedback throughout the internship as well, not just at the end. Sure, sometimes they'll have suggestions that we've considered and decided not to do, but if it's a common question we should document.

For helping the interns, I'd talk to them about what they learned, what their next career steps are, and what subjects they're most interested in. Ideally, you have a mentorship program setup already where this has already been discussed, so this may end up being very brief. But even without a mentorship program, having good discussion about how you can help the interns aside from just having an extra line of experience on the resume is healthy for both sides.

For improving the program for future interns, I'd also ask them what they wished they knew when they first started their internship. For all of the above, make sure that it's a safe environment to have honest discussion - for instance state outright that they're not going to burn bridges by pointing out process flaws or talking about working at other companies in the future.

Yeah, I think this is what I'm looking to focus on. We're a small startup, so interns are a new thing. So I'm going to focus a lot on how it felt settling in, getting up to speed. What can we do better to get people comfortable faster? What were their biggest pain points in the summer.

It's just interesting framing these to someone who may not have much experience to compare it to.

I mean if you are using interns as a way to find future employees, I'd check out the code they wrote for the best metric.

Most of them are probably hungry for a high paying tech job, and will tell you they want an offer / want to work with you. Even if to just get another offer for some bargaining power. It's probably worth asking them questions about how easy it was to ramp up and such if you are in a position where you can improve those systems.

Check out the code, is it well written? Modular? Documented? Did they go through the proper steps in your sprints / documentation? Ask their mentors if they asked questions when blocked, etc.

If they worked hard, had a good attitude / could get along with the team and wrote good code (remember they are new to coding most likely) - and you think they have a lot of potential than consider giving them an offer.

I can do all of this outside of a one-on-one/exit interview type conversation though. We really focused on iterative feedback during their internship.

What can we do to make our internship program more inclusive and less reliant on the preexisting privilege of our interns?

Thanks for the downvotes for literally posting a question I've asked interns in the past. Always important to remember the reflexive cultural conservatism of HN's audience.

Have you gotten any meaningful answers from your interns?

Yes

Now you've really piqued my interest. If you're able, please tell me more about the kind of answers you got.

I didn't down-vote you, but I should mention that your first post's phrasing led me to assume you were making a snarky critique of current culture, rather than sincerely answering the question.

I don’t think it’s actually snarky at all, though.

Based on how you intended the post to be read, I agree it's not snarky.

Taking the post to be snarky was one fundamental aspect of my misinterpretation.

One reason the site guidelines ask you not to complain like this about downvotes is that often, by the time the dust settles, people have given more upvotes. Then in addition to being off-topic, the complaint is misleading.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Do you pay your interns?

who the hell doesn't??

A surprising amount of companies do not (or pay them a symbolic amount) and think it is completely normal. It's ridiculous, but it happens nonetheless.

Yes

I have no idea why you're being downvoted for this.

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