Hi, We've had several interns with mixed success. * Has anyone used them in a design setting before?
Not us. Our design cycles are too long and most interns that we've seen don't have the necessary design skills. We give interns a usability evaluation project because it is self-contained and can be started and finished fairly quickly. This gives them something concrete to put on their resume. * What's the best way to get the most out of the internship? 1. Realize that the person that gets the most out of the internship is the intern, not the employer. 2. Know exactly what you want the intern to do when they arrive. 3. Make sure that what you have planned for them matches their skills or the skills they hope to learn during the internship. 4. Spend enough time with them so that they know what they are supposed to do and that they are doing it well. The amount of time you spend with them will be more than you spend with full-time employees. This one is really important for us. The interns that we hire are very green. Most are eager to please and eager to learn. Not spending time with them is a sure way to dampen their enthusiasm. The one failed internship we've had was one in which the intern decided, during the internship, that he really didn't like usability after all. (That part isn't the failure.) The failure was that I didn't notice that he'd lost interest and stopped making progress. * What financial arrangement did you have? We have both paid and unpaid internships. * Did you use them on client work? We are part of a software R&D organization so our "clients" are development teams. We keep the interns separated from projects involving near-term production software. In other words, they are off the critical path of anything critical. Todd From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Brown Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 1:29 PM To: UX Management Subject: [Ux-Management] Internships I just got an email from someone asking if EightShapes has any open internship positions. I have to admit, it made me think. I've never been an intern and only have had very limited experience managing interns, so would like to solicit other managers on their experience: * Has anyone used them in a design setting before? * What's the best way to get the most out of the internship? * What financial arrangement did you have? * Did you use them on client work? I listened to a podcast a couple months ago on Joel Spolsky's internship program at his software company. His shop is almost pure development, and they build products -- they don't do client work. Still, he uses interns as a recruiting mechanism. Brings them in, assigns them a project (for the summer) and ultimately (if it's a good match) hires them. It made a heckuva lot of sense to me. Nathan and I could probably use a similar model but: (a) It would be difficult to use interns on client work (b) I'm not sure if we would have time to evaluate or mentor their work outside current billable projects Any guidance or suggestions (or horror stories or more questions) would be most welcome! -- Dan -- | work: eightshapes.com<http://eightshapes.com> | book: communicatingdesign.com<http://communicatingdesign.com> | blog: greenonions.com<http://greenonions.com> | talk: +1 (301) 801-4850
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