In an organisation, there is an MD, organizer, employers, and employees and there are also the interns. The primary work of the interns remain that they help the organization to run smoothly and effectively by giving the maximum of their contribution from their side. People say interns are the backbone of an organization. Without them, the whole pressure comes on others and a secondary help that is needed falls absent. Thus, employers should select interns very carefully. Interns are the people who will be working in the future with the organisation, doing the same work which they may be doing presently on a very small scale.
Why and How are Interns Selected?
It does not take much time for the organisation to get flooded with request mails from students, fresher’s or people who are eager to work in the same organisation. It is not always possible to hire each one of them. Thus at a basic level, you take these people on a temporary basis. You take interns so that they can help in the completion of some amount of work with a lesser or no pay. Some organizations chose to not pay their interns. These interns then learn the Job on the field and get a lot of experience.
The procedure of selecting these interns varies from one organization to another. Sometime interviews are taken or sometime a resume also suffices for taking interns.
Thus it is required that you pose the right questions to them so that only interns with quality can be selected:
Best Intern Interview Questions:
Thus as the scenario is clear as to who are interns and what they do, their importance has been completely justified. These interns, who will work for long hours in the company, will contribute to the work output of the company. Thus it is necessary that their qualifications and talents are scrutinized well before being given a chance to work. These are some of the various questions or criteria of questions which can be asked to interns.
1. Why this organization? Why intern here?
It is very important that you ask the intern about the choice of organisation to him or her. The organisation he or she chooses should be in tandem with the quality of work they desire to produce. For example:- If there is an intern who actually wanted to go in Godrej company because that was her company of choice and could not because of limited options, then you must know why he or she could not do that. If she was not able to take up her choice of field or company then you must ask her if she will be willing to work with the same integrity and honesty that they wanted. Thus, it completely depends on the right question asked.
2. Do you know about the nature of work?
If the intern is very well able to answer the question, then you should know that he or she is the right choice for the job. Like for example, you can take a small test of her and ask her a situation based question to know how aware she or he is. You can also go ahead to may be check the Intelligence quotient of the person if the nature of the work involves IT or computers. Suppose if the company is a top marketing agency, asking who are your favourite bloggers or how will you sell our product- a new brand in competition to the others are some questions you can be ready with.
3. Why do you think you should be selected?
It helps you to get a variety of responses from the person. As we know that an organisation just does not get few applications for internship. Especially the top firms are always flooded with requests. Asking such a question will help you test the self confidence of the intern and also give an insight into their understanding of the job they are applying for, you will also come to know about their inputs they will bring to the table.
4. How passionate are you to work?
This also forms a very important question when you want to know more about the intern who is read y to join. You must try and decipher his or her level of passion for the work .The level of passion for the intern can be seen in the eyes while they answer the questions. You will automatically understand whether the intern is completely willing to give his or her hundred percent to the nature of work or not. Thus try and judge how quick or fast paced the intern is while replying .All these are cues to understand about the person.
5. Tell us how your learning in the school or college will benefit our nature of work?
These days, any institutions offer jobs or work to interns who are specialising in a niche degree which their company offers. For example, people who study Mass media either work in Journalism houses or Advertising agencies, people studying Biotechnology can work at Research labs, people doing their masters in social work get involved with NGO’S or work under Government service agencies. Thus, this can be another valid question that can be asked to check whether the intern is able to apply the knowledge he or she has learnt to the work table. To test that, an employer can also ask some course related questions to the interns to check about their know-how with the particular field.
6. What extracurricular are you involved in and why?
Interns are students or fresher’s who would have just left their colleges or schools and come to get a work experience. An intern is supposed to understand that there is a difference between being a hit in the classroom and achieving glory in a professional setting. If the intern replies in positive about being active in extracurricular, they will be the ones who would be more motivated, even organized and all-rounded. Some companies do look for something unique act, skill, passion of yours than simply looking at your GPA.
7. What skills do you think you will acquire? Tell us about the skills, experience you can offer to the company?
This is another important question which will test the level of clarity of the person. This question will help you know how passionate the person is to work. Suppose, if you are an article at a ‘CA firm’, your skills of knowing TALLY well or fast calculation will help the company. At the same time, you are going to learn how to talk with the clients, how to prepare project reports and so many other skills.
If you are someone who is doing ‘ Arts and Architecture’, then you will be able to give your creative inputs to the building agency and in turn they will be able to guide you to work and also let you work under professional people. Thus, this works in two ways.
8. Are you willing to take risks? Tell about a challenge you conquered.
This can be a very out of the box question. A ‘yes’ from the person will lead to a question like what kind of risk? Give examples? What next and if the intern replies in negative then questions like Oh, why like that? Why, actually and why really? Thus, this can be one of the various questions which can be asked in such an interview.
9. We do not pay, does that mind you?
This question will raise eye brows among some interns who are coming for the job only for this reason. If you do not end up asking this then there is no meaning at all in this scenario of taking interns. Interns have to be ready if they are not paid and they should have no problem with this issue. Some organisations do have the courtesy to pay you at least for travel but some would not even ask for something like that. You need to make sure that the intern is okay with the fact that he or she is not getting paid, getting very less paid or getting a pay which is lesser than her friends or counterparts. If you are able to see that the conscience of the intern is clear and he or she is passionate for work and not for money, he or she must be taken.
10. How long can you stay in office?
This becomes yet another important question to be posed to an intern. Sometimes when other permanent employees are not able to do a job then it is left upon the interns to complete it. It does not mean that these interns are fillers or are purposely made to wait till late to complete some unfinished work. It just means that when it is not possible of rooters to contribute, interns can come into the picture and offer help. These Interns will then carry on the baton and this can involve some extra time. Thus, interns if willing to wait a little extra can just add to the picture of working and contributing to the organisation. It will save up time of the others.
11. What are your goals after you complete studies?
This question must receive a satisfactory answer when asked to an intern. An intern can always say that he or she may be having some other different goals or aims to achieve after she completes studies and this work may only be building some good foundation for her. As a company, you also get clarification about her future goals and can make a decision about absorption of the intern.
12. What are your expectations from us?
This can be another important question you can ask to the intern. A person, when gets talking on this, can reveal her ideas and goals or future endeavours which she/ he aims to get fulfilled through the company. The goal could be from just getting the name of the organisation on the resume or absorption in the work force. For example, interns who have worked for 6 months and more in advertising agencies are even asked to work full time as they have become completely aware of the nature of work and expectations.
13. Miscellaneous questions
These questions may be asked for fun but actually they can say a big deal about the person. The question could be as weird as asking her if suppose your employer does not like the colour of your dress you are wearing, what are you going to do? They can go ahead and ask while coming to the company, did you manage to count the number of stairs you were coming up from. All these questions may seem funny but matter a lot. They help in testing the intelligence level of the person. They actually let you know whether the intern is confident or not. It actually makes you believe that the intern has some amount of logical reasoning skill ability. Thus such miscellaneous questions can also help sometimes.
Thus one must understand that these interns are innocent and are about to be joining the company as representatives of their firms. They sure do not have complete idea of what is happening and have come to only learn. Neither he nor she must be pampered nor must she be insulted. Remember any behaviour of yours with the intern will affect how he or she is going to work in any company. Thus make this foundation or the building base very strong for any intern. Do not stagnate the growth, instead add it. Thus, ask the right questions so that the intern will also reply well .Thus, interns are the backbone of an organisation, if treated and made to work well.
