Summer internship season is just around the corner! Whether you’re joining as an intern or taking a deeper dive into your work as a mentor, establishing strong working relationships with your team will help maximize productivity in all aspects of your job. As you look ahead to this summer, read along to learn more about how we established a strong working partnership from the get-go so you can maximize the impact of your mentorship-internship experience!
Why Mentor?
Mentoring can be challenging! It’s completely normal to be hesitant when deciding whether to become a mentor. As someone who tends to be on the introverted side, mentoring was something I had to really consider before making the decision. Would my mentee be able to understand what I am trying to explain? What would be the best way to teach them what they need to know? Are the tasks I want to assign doable for an intern? I realized that those questions corresponded to the skills that I myself wanted to improve: effective communication, a deeper understanding of technical skills, and the ability to break down tasks.
After I made the decision to mentor, I asked several co-workers who have previously mentored for advice. A common tip from everyone was to establish a communication style that works and make sure the mentee feels supported, especially for the first few weeks. In my case, that advice was invaluable and absolutely correct when I started working with my mentee Carli.
For our first meeting, we talked about how we should communicate and what goals Carli had for her internship. We decided to have a daily morning and end-of-day meeting and I added her to my larger team meetings, as well. In smaller meetings, where appropriate, I asked everyone to introduce themselves with a short summary of what their role entailed for Carli’s benefit. This way, she could see cross-team interaction and understand how all our work flowed together.
After each meeting, I would ask her if she had any questions and we would meet to discuss her concerns. As the internship went on, those after meeting debriefings were no longer needed. Carli was able to independently work on the tasks she was assigned and knew who she could reach out to besides me with questions. All those early conversations helped build a good foundation for Carli and helped me determine which tasks would be challenging but within her capability.
During an internship, it’s common to have your intern shadow you and work on tasks similar to your own. In my case, we ended up doing something between shadowing and what we as software engineers call “pair programming.” For the first task, I walked Carli through what needed to be changed and explained each change in the code. After answering any questions, we would work on a similar task but she would make the changes while I observed. If we ran into any errors, I would give hints as to why something wasn’t working and let her figure out where fixes were needed. There were also cases where Carli would question the approach. I didn’t always have an answer so in those cases we would investigate further and sometimes find that there was a better solution.
The last big thing I discovered as a mentor was the importance of breaking down tasks into smaller, more manageable sections. When I initially brought up the first task I wanted to assign to Carli, my manager rightly pointed out that it might not be the best thing to start with. I was assigning her a task that a mid-level engineer or someone of similar experience would easily understand, but definitely would not be an easy first task for a mentee. Understanding the necessity of breaking up something like this into smaller, more manageable segments, was crucial for me.
The overlap between my own personal goals and the questions I kept asking myself about the interning process is what ultimately helped push me to mentor. It ended up being a great experience getting to work with Carli! If you’re still not sure if mentoring is something that’s right for you, you can reach out to your manager or co-workers and get their opinions. What made the biggest difference for me was understanding that by helping someone else learn my profession, I was actually helping reinforce my own understanding of certain key concepts and learning how to better deal with tasks and problems myself.
Intern Experience
As a student interested in both media and technology, I was delighted to find out about career opportunities at Forbes. I was very grateful to learn from so many kind, talented colleagues throughout my internship during Summer 2023. Most essential to my day-to-day responsibilities was working closely with and learning from my mentor, Sungmin.
During our first few calls, Sungmin and I decided to establish standard modes of communication. We set daily check-in times and mainly communicated via Slack to book ad-hoc meetings when needed. Beyond logistical communication aspects, we discussed our preferred styles of working together. One thing I expressed that was most useful to me was having Sungmin walk through any new workflow, process, or setup. Once I had a basic understanding for how to set up the task by shadowing, I was able to work on my own by replicating his logistical steps and infusing my own approach.
Another early conversation we had revolved around goals. During my first week, Sungmin asked what types of projects I’d like to work on in my time here. I mentioned that beyond the back-end work that our team prioritizes, I was very interested in Product and trying out front-end work as well. Sungmin made sure to connect me with Product team members and front-end developers and found projects I could work on that suited my wide-ranging interests. The second half of the summer consisted of my intern project, creating the Accolades landing page, which allowed me to gain exposure to Front-End development and Product team workflows while collaborating with the other interns.
One of the most impactful routines set up by my mentor was including me in all of his cross-functional team meetings, including calls on high-impact initiatives. In these meetings, I witnessed true, internal workplace discussions within the team and learned tips for how to advocate for myself.
Work collaboration synergy only improves with getting to know your colleagues. When Sungmin and I set aside time to discuss our interests, hobbies, and lifestyles outside of work, I felt more comfortable asking questions and confiding in him if facing any difficulties in my work. Sungmin hosts a weekly meeting for this purpose, entitled “Digital Collab Table.” While originally an in-office hangout time at a large collaboration table, the weekly hangout has moved to Google Meets, where colleagues can hop on the call to discuss various random conversation topics with each other. Very much in the spirit of building workplace trust, this meeting helped better acclimate me to the dynamics of the engineering team. Establishing trust with my mentor gave me the confidence to reach out to other colleagues, thereby strengthening camaraderie and professional acumen.
Final Thoughts
A through line in both halves of the mentorship experience was the emphasis on communication, in our work initiatives and personal interests. Approaching the work with an understanding and appreciation for the other person’s goals helped us maximize our impact on the team. Even when working on different projects, we both understood the importance of checking in and sharing updates. Hearing about what each of us was working on allowed us to work productively on our own within a strong support system. Taking the leap to start a new role is an exciting, and at times, daunting change for both parties. Whether you’re just starting out as an intern, or considering taking on a mentee, showing up to support each other is the best first step.
The information contained herein is shared for educational purposes only and it does not provide a comprehensive list of all financial operations considerations or best practices.
