We collaborated with Momentum, our wonderful sponsor and one of the leading recruiting consultancies in Aotearoa, with years of experience working with junior talent. Together we are presenting the Online Summer Talk Series to help you optimise your internship journey. This first session was all about getting the most out of an internship!

Megan Sipeli from Momentum and Cillín Hearns from Results Coaching have the lowdown. They covered how to be a valuable team member, the importance of asking for help, building social connections at the office, and the art of giving and receiving feedback.

Here are the key tips they shared during the session:

Set goals and expectations for your internship

When starting an internship or a new job, you need to set up goals and expectations. Having goals will give you an idea of what success looks like for you. If your mentor(s) are yet to provide you with a clear set of goals, do not be afraid to arrange a time to set this up with them. Setting goals will be helpful at the end of your internship to measure how far you have come, the achievements you have accomplished and things that you can improve for the future!

Ask questions and seek help from your team members

Your job is to learn during the internship, not to run the company! 

You can only learn by asking questions, so ask away. You may think that asking questions will take away the precious time of your team members. In reality, your team members are there to support you. Asking questions shows how invested you are in your work. Sometimes these questions also lead to innovation within the company - you are bringing a fresh perspective into the office!

Making social connections at work

A big part of working with people is creating meaningful connections. Through your team members or mentors, you can find out who the key stakeholders are in your organisation and introduce yourself to them. We call this stakeholder management. You can talk about anything - start with asking about their weekend plan or their favourite books or TV shows and go from there. Please make sure to actively listen to their answers, and don’t be afraid to ask follow up questions. Be ready to give them a short introduction about yourself too!

Requesting and receiving feedback

Feedback is essential; it will give you an idea of how well you perform in your role. If you receive critical feedback, avoid taking a defensive stance - instead, thank your supervisor for their feedback. If given respectfully, critical feedback means they care about your growth and want you to know how you are doing.

If you are requesting feedback, here are some examples of questions you could ask:

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how am I doing?

• What are the things I am doing to get that score?

• What are the things I can do to get to 10?

Dealing with imposter syndrome

Imposter syndrome is extremely common for interns to experience. Please remember that you are there because your employers saw your potential. Instead of lamenting your imposter’s voice, ask for feedback and talk to your mentors! 

One tip is to document the compliments and positive feedback that people have given you. When impostor syndrome hits, you can look back and remind yourself how far you have come!

Finally, the key to a successful internship is open communication between you and your employer. 

We hope these tips will help as you start your internship journey!

If you are in the midst of your internship this summer, we would love to hear how it’s going! Tag your posts with #MySummerOfTech on social media to join the conversation.