By : James Brockway jbrockway @ brockwaycommercial . com
Brockway Commercial
For several years Brockway Realty has brought on interns , primarily from San Jacinto College . Typically these interns have been individuals wanting to pursue a real estate career and some permanently came on board our company . The past year we started a program with Odyssey Academy , a charter school , where we would take a senior of theirs and teach them the basics of how businesses operate . While the San Jacinto students were focused primarily on real estate activities and personal growth in the industry , our focus with the Odyssey Academy students was to provide them with a basic understanding of working at and running a business .
Taking on interns can be rewarding to both the intern and the company when done properly but consider the following :
• Set reasonable expectations . Remember , in many cases , these students have had little to no experience in a business environment so what might be old hat to you could be a very foreign concept to them .
• Set goals and measure their progress .
• Enforce a dress code that ’ s representative of your company . It ’ s one thing to teach an intern about business , but how to look and feel like a businessperson is important as well .
• Determine what the pay will be , if any . In some cases , the student might get classroom credit hours and there is no request for compensation . In other cases , especially with college level students , the pay is a significant issue because it helps them pay for their college and other expenses .
• Determine if you will allow the student to work from home and just show up periodically for face to face updates .
• Will you give the Intern a company email account ?
• Will you give the Intern business cards ? A recent high school intern thought it was so cool that he was greeted at the company with his own business cards !
• Have an exit interview with the student when their internship ends . Make sure to ask them what you could do to improve the internship program for the future . I was surprised when my most recent intern told me that he was surprised that I didn ’ t enforce a dress code . I just assumed as a high school student he did not have a big budget for business clothing but on the other hand were T- shirts and jeans appropriate ?
Above all , make sure you have the time to create a program for the student and can regularly meet with them . For it to be successful , interns are going to need a lot of guidance from you . If the internship is one that is general in nature and not project related , give the intern every sort of task no matter how mundane . Teach them how to make coffee , how to make copies , give them your office lease to read , give them your corporate bylaws to read , then give them bite size projects like entering business cards into Outlook , preparing a basic Excel schedule and preparing a Word document on company letterhead . The point of all this is for them to become well-rounded and get a taste of everything in a business setting whether it be administrative , technological , data entry , etc . Remember , you could be shaping the next business leaders !
19 MOMENTUM / Summer 2018