In our other ‘An Intern’s POV’ blog posts, we’ve looked at how eLearning fares against training on-the-fly, as well as the most frustrating parts of being an intern.
Today, I’m going to let you in on a secret: what we, as interns, REALLY want from internships.
… And why we (not me, of course…but um, others) sometimes flake out of internships halfway thru.
members of SEPA – Student Event Planners Association; image credit: SEPA
FACT: to get the best out of your interns, they need to love what they do.
And to make sure they love what they do, you need to read on…
With recent research suggesting that happiness in employees can improve productivity by at least 12%, it shows you how important it is to make sure your interns don’t hate what they do!
If you’ve read my post on the most frustrating things about internships, you’ll know what mistakes you, as a mentor, should avoid.
But to keep them on top form, interns need to love what they’re doing!
Back in April this year, we did some extensive research to find out just what millennial interns REALLY want from their internships in the wedding and events industry. When we asked them to describe their ‘dream internship’, we saw one recurring theme of what they TRULY want:
they want real-world experience.
These interns want “to be someone’s right hand woman,” having the opportunity to “interact with clients, create budget sheets, go to tastings and shadow their mentor.”
At the end of the day, we apply for internships in order to gain tangible skills which we can use in future jobs. We want to get our hands dirty, get in it all.
We want to work for you and learn as much as possible.
The only way we can gain these skills is to be given the opportunity to actually do things – whether it is having the responsibility of completing projects, or just shadowing a mentor or supervisor.
Although it is natural to be cautious when first giving interns some responsibility, but know this…we learn by doing. And you MUST delegate tasks to us in order for us to have an opportunity to learn.
One of the best ways to prepare them for meaningful tasks is through a structured training program.
The Apprentice Program prepares your interns for life out in the real-world (as a wedding planner) by covering the critical topics of wedding planning in short videos, designed to spark better conversations between intern and mentor.
Here’s how it works:
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once a week, you watch short “spark” videos together with your interns, covering topics like budgeting, event design, planning timelines, sales/marketing and more.
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throughout the video, you’ll have pause/talk moments, where you specifically train your team on how your firm creates these planning documents for client weddings, etc
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your interns get homework missions to help them put into action what they’ve learned…these assignments could be for hypothetical clients or actual client work, as you see fit
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every week, your interns get weekly report cards to gain feedback on how they’re doing and what they could improve on
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once the 6-weeks is completed, you’ll find your team has been fully onboarded and are guaranteed to think faster on their feet, gain tangible skills in wedding planning and better understand how your firm operates
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RESULT: you can confidently delegate more tasks to them (as learning experiences that empower them), you can focus more time on sales and client relations (instead of hand-holding your interns) and it’ll help you become a world-class wedding planner, because you now have a world-class team.
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easy peasy, simple!