What kind of work to expect at your internship

Unfortunately there’s not a simple one job fits all answer to such a question.  Internship programs and the types of work given to interns vary among different companies and often times are even different in the same company in different divisions or in different offices. If you search for “what type of work can I expect during my XXX internship” on google, you’ll find that you’d need to expect anything from being bored to death to being a coffee runner to running a multi-million dollar project.  In my few years working as the international internship program director, I’ve been able to see first hand how different those responsibilities can be even within the same industries. What you can expect is that there is definitely going to be a mix of things that an intern will be asked to do including the boring stuff.  I remember reading somewhere that it should almost be expected that students will be spending 20-50% of their time doing boring or routine tasks, and up to 50% of their time doing tasks that are perceived to be more challenging and therefore will seem to be more important.  Obviously this is not going to be the case in every company but hopefully it works as a general rule.

The reality is that even full time paid employees of a company spend some time during each week working on repetitive, boring or routine tasks.  In fact employees inevitably also have times when they have little work to do and are looking for ways to pass the time (think instant messaging or aimlessly surfing the web). Of course if you look for work to do you can always find it, but let’s face it, as humans we tend to take the easiest path, especially if the expectations of us are limited.  That means as we move up the career chain, we get more responsibilities, have much higher expectations of what we should be accomplishing and will have less time to be lazy. As an entrepreneur you pretty much start at the top so every moment is important and your motivated (hopefully) to be as productive as possible because you can’t afford the extra hands to sit around and do nothing.  This is just the way things go at work and should be expected especially in an internship. Don’t waste this time though, spend it researching, building a relationship with colleagues and learning more about the company, clients and industry.  Many intern supervisors agree that they are not only impressed but also appreciate when interns come to them with project ideas that they would be interested in working on. Remember, part of the internship experience is learning how to deal with those times when you have little to no work and motivating your self to finish those tasks that seem so insanely boring to do.

What are important tasks? It’s hard to have one set definition for what can be considered an important task.  What’s that saying? “One man’s trash is another man’s important task…” If a task is necessary to get a specific job or project completed, then that task should be considered important.  So what does the coffee you just picked up from Starbucks have to do with getting that new financial forecast finished? Just maybe, the coffee that you picked up for your manager was part of a daily routine that she needs every morning to be able to get the juices in her head flowing enough to create those amazing excel spread sheets. If she didn’t get that coffee, she would create flow charts that don’t flow and don’t convert that new lead into a new customer.  It’s your perspective, if you believe it’s important, than it is. One day you’re going to need to explain to your intern why getting a simple cup of joe for you is so damn  important for the success of the company.

I’m not trying to say that you should be expecting or accepting of just making snack runs all day, but you should realize that sometimes those tedious research projects, or document revising jobs are all part of an equation that makes up the whole.  Show your managers that you are efficient at getting even those routine jobs done well and you will be able to build up their confidence (in you) to land you those more game changing assignments.  Once you score the tough jobs, take time to understand what the requirements are and ask questions if you don’t understand something or ask for help if needed.  Your almost guaranteeing a boring internship by handing in results that don’t match expectations or worse yet, delivering an unfinished assignment.  Starting a first job requires working your way up the career path and an internship is no exception.  Be ready to handle whatever your managers throw at you, be open minded to learning from any opportunities that present themselves and have fun.  Your not getting paid (or getting paid very little), but an internship will reward you with a solid foundation to start a successful career path on.