Start Strong: 3 Ways to Set Up Your New Intern for Success
You’ve just been matched with your high school intern—congrats! They’ve completed their onboarding and are ready to begin their journey on your team. For many, this is their very first professional experience. That means they’ll bring curiosity, fresh perspective, and a lot of questions.
The first few weeks are critical for building trust, setting expectations, and giving students the tools to succeed. Here are three practical ways to support your intern early on and to set the tone for a successful semester together.
1. Get Meta: Make the Unspoken… Spoken
Your intern is stepping into a brand-new environment with new people, new tools, and an entirely new vocabulary. They’ve never worked in this job function before, and even common terms or processes might feel unfamiliar at first. When in doubt, over-explain. The more context you give about your team’s workflow, decision-making, or why a task matters, the faster they’ll get up to speed.
Walk through your team’s org chart and who does what.
Narrate how and why decisions are made.
Name workplace habits that are considered “professional” (e.g., checking email twice a day, adding a greeting and signoff in messages).
Encourage them to observe, read, and ask—especially in the first month.
📌 Manager Move: Ask your intern to come to your next 1:1 with 3 takeaways from something they shadowed or read (e.g., a meeting, a team deck, a Slack channel).
2. Create Opportunities to Shadow and Reflect
Young people can’t imagine careers they’ve never seen. Giving interns a front-row seat to your team’s work helps them understand how the pieces fit together and how their interests might align.
Invite them to join team meetings, then debrief together.
Introduce them to a colleague for a 20-minute “coffee chat” and review 3 questions they are prepared to ask.
Encourage them to keep a “career curiosity list” of roles or tasks that spark interest.
📌 Manager Move: At the end of each shadowing experience, ask: “What surprised you? What would you want to try next?”
3. Use the Calendar to Build Ownership
One of the most important skills students develop in their internship is time management. Interns should be responsible for tracking tasks, managing their calendar, and communicating about deadlines.
Require them to send calendar invites (they should practice double-checking for accuracy every time).
Help them break down bigger tasks into smaller steps.
Set a clear expectation: “When this is done, send me an email with your takeaways.”
📌 Manager Move: Use a shared agenda for weekly check-ins. Encourage your intern to add updates, questions, and feedback before each meeting.
Student Action: Take the Lead in Your Internship
🌟 Want to impress your manager? Start here:
Ask: “What should I be learning this month?”
Schedule shadowing conversations and send calendar invites yourself.
Come to your 1:1 with one insight, one roadblock you’re facing, and one question.
Use your calendar to plan out your tasks, not just track meetings.
Overall, take ownership, speak up, and treat every week as a chance to learn something new!