For many of us employees, this period of internship may just have seemed like “a brief period in which we had a few helping hands out” – but for them, this is their first-ever exposure to the professional working world; and in our context being in PETRONAS, this was their first-ever window to witnessing the inner workings of a Fortune 500-listed Oil and Gas Company.
By the end of these precious months of their internship, either one of two extremes may happen : either this will (a) inspire them and motivate them and kindling the fire to bring out the best out of themselves to pursue their professional career ambitions; or (b) give them such a negative impression that it will demotivate them, perhaps jaded and all the more relieved it was over.
Or perhaps something in between, a mediocre period which may have been a "meh" part of their lives.
Either way, it will have a long-lasting effect on their career, perhaps their lives as a person. As a supervisor, we play that role of being an ambassador to this role, and it is primarily our character that will leave an long-lasting legacy and imprint to their personal lives.
In retrospect, me personally – having completed my internship 12 years ago and now working almost 10 years in the industry – I don’t remember a single thing about the technical aspects of my internship. But what I DO remember is this: my supervisor was cool. He would coach me, patiently endure and entertain my stupidest noob questions, bring me out to lunch with his friends, and they were all very respectful to me in spite of my young age – and for that I am very grateful to have been assigned to him.
And as the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said -
لا يُؤْمِنُ أَحَدُكُمْ حَتَّى يُحِبَّ لأَخِيهِ مَا يُحِبُّ لِنَفْسِهِ –
“None of you have (perfect) faith until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself” – I took it as a personal commitment to myself, that if I have interns under my supervision, I would grant them with the same level of treatment, if not better: to provide a meaningful and motivating learning experience throughout their internship.
These are the guiding principles I used as a supervisor to my intern :
1. Respect them and take them seriously
While this may seem like a 'no-brainer', the first mental obstacle was to consciously remove any personal prejudice that interns are just ‘kids’, a ‘nuisance’, and “still a lot to learn”. While the latter (still a lot to learn) most certainly holds true, but so is the case with all of us : we will always have a lot to learn until the day we die.
I personally think of them as simply a couple of semesters away from becoming full-fledge professionals, and have potential to change the world: just like everyone else. Yes, they may be younger, but treat them with respect and seriousness.
My intern was assigned by her University (Unimas) to write a daily log book on her internship and required the supervisor to sign it off every single day. Yes, it was indeed a hassle, and as any of you have had the experience, will know how tempting it is to simply ‘sign off’ without reading.
But I took it upon myself to read every single word and provide comments where necessary. Tedious as it may be, it was a surprisingly enriching experience for me, as I got to see how much she understood or what she took away from different aspects of working experience, indirectly giving me feedback as to what she really learnt, and how effective or beneficial they were to her individually, there providing me insight on room to correct or clarify the different gaps where necessary.
At the last day, upon inquiring feedback on her internship experience, she said one of the most significant things was that she was really surprised to see me actually review her log book, as she expected supervisors to ‘sign off’ without really reading; the little things do have an impact.
Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself. First thing’s first, treating them with respect begins with..
2. Assigning challenging (but doable) tasks
While there is tendency to take the easier path and dispatch interns to carry out trivial fetch quests and photocopy tasks, I actually put a lot of serious thought as to the best type of tasks I could assign to my intern. The tasks had to be
- Challenging enough but do-able to them – one that would require multiple different skills, and optionally has a “wow” factor as an industrial training project.
- A good learning experience to them but at the same time one that can give a tangible benefit and added value to the organization
3. Coach and guide – but don’t hold their hand
With the challenges and targets in place, it’s time to establish the learning path to getting there. A lot of concepts and principles will be alien to them, and even theories which they are familiar with, require a paradigm shift and wisdom to understand how they are applied in the practical, real world.
With this in mind, it is necessary to provide effective coaching to them – in teaching them and providing the necessary learning resources. Along the way, probe questions, quiz them to keep them sharp and on their toes.
Fortunately, being final year students their minds are still fresh and quickly absorb new things and - perhaps in consideration their graduation depends on a good internship - are more than willing to spend time hitting the books and the reading materials to bring them up to speed; so provided you provide sufficient guidance, it isn’t necessary to babysit them every step of the way - they pick up fast.
4. Expose them to a variety of work experiences : get the holistic view of working life
What many university students sometimes find difficult to fathom is how all these technical stuff in university translates to real life, dedicating our lives from 8 to 5, five times a week every week. And indeed, there’s a lot more to the life of an engineer beyond the engineering.
In fact quite a major chunk of our working environment entails soft skills – stuff which you only ‘indirectly’ learn in university – participating in workshops, presentations, reviews, engagements, cross-disciplinary discussions, progress meetings, and events. And in each of these presents opportunities to learn, form relationships, and test ourselves. Bring them onboard all the way.
Interns learn to appreciate and understand the ‘bigger picture’ and – brace yourselves – observe the way you interact with others. Hey, whoever said it's only about keeping THEM on their toes? ;-)
5. Exchange feedback
At the end of the day of course is for us to share our advice and thoughts on their performance and how they can improve as individuals.
Also of course on the other hand, THEIR feedback to us is also important : As a fresh set of eyes looking into your office, interns can offer valuable insight to how they perceive you and your organization (vs. their preconceived expectations beforehand) – this can provide a nice perspective on the virtues and perhaps room for improvement.
CONCLUSION
At the end of the day, after the brief 10-week internship period, I feel she performed very well and exceeded all expectations, executing tasks at a relatively quick pace, and completing assignments ahead of schedule despite the steep learning curve of familiarization, and providing genuine added value in her work output.
As a last minute salute and motivational boost before they take off, and to grant a sense of accomplishment on what she has done, we issued a formal “Focused Recognition” card to my intern for her demonstrating traits of “Focused Execution”, “Nurture Trust” and “Tell Me” throughout her internship.
Manager issues Focused Recognition
Things like these may seem trivial from our perspective, but these gestures can have a huge impact and can go a long way; and it’s not at all difficult to do.
Overall I feel it has been a very enriching experience, and here’s hoping that this sharing can benefit others to make the best out of our future generations.
We wish Connie and all her other fellow interns all the best in the rest of their studies and in all their future endeavours in life.
Process Engineering, Eastern Cluster team
