Unlocking Return Offers: 8 Key Internship Behaviors for Success
An internship is one of the easiest and best ways to get a full-time position after college. Here is some advice on how to take advantage of this remarkable opportunity.
Welcome to the Scarlet Ink newsletter. I'm Dave Anderson, an ex-Amazon Tech Director and GM. Each week I write a newsletter article on tech industry careers, and specific leadership advice.
“I haven’t seen him since last week.” Marta said. I was a veteran bar raiser at Amazon, and I was conducting intern hiring meetings. Marta was not recommending we hire her intern. This wasn’t surprising, considering she didn’t know where her intern went.
“He started off well, but became less engaged in his work over time,” she said, “Over the last few weeks, he hasn’t been putting in much effort or time. And now, it’s Thursday, and he never showed up this week. I talked to HR — they’re calling around to find him.”
“Well, I think we just hold off on the hiring decision.” I said. “While he’s clearly not meeting the hiring bar, we shouldn’t have Amazon document a rejection in case he’s starving to death with a broken leg on Mount Si or something.”
Marta laughed.
“To be clear, if he really did break his leg, I’m going to feel quite bad about that joke.” I said.
A couple of days pass, and then I receive an instant message from Marta.
“We found that intern.” Marta messaged.
“Don’t keep me in suspense.” I message.
“He was shacked up with another intern in his apartment.” she messaged. “Amazon had to send someone to knock on the door. We’re cancelling the rest of both their internships and the apartment lease. Amazon won’t be a career option for them. Ever.”
I hope that no intern thinks that they’d have a job to return to if they skipped out on work for a week to have sex instead. However, writing advice which says, “you should do your work” doesn’t feel valuable.
I do like writing concrete tactical recommendations, and I’m regularly asked for my advice for tech company interns. I figured it was a good time to write that up.
And if you’re not in this demographic, you can still consider skimming it to read my fun anecdotes. Or send it along to a high school or college student you know, to help them get a leg up on the competition.
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But first — What is an internship?
A quick primer, and to set expectations.
An internship is primarily (with exceptions) a job you get during the summer during college. Often before Senior year (4th), but sometimes before Junior (3rd), or even Sophomore (2nd). And yes, you can get a longer internship, one during the winter, etc. But that’s not the point of this article.
This is usually a paid position, where (at least at tech companies) you’re paid a great wage for a college student, and you learn what it’s like to do a similar full-time job.
The main goal for the intern (more important than the pay) is to get a returning offer. That returning offer is either another internship offer (if you’re heading into your Sophomore or Junior years) or a full-time offer (if you’re heading into your Senior year).
Imagine how awesome it is to get a full-time offer before you head into your senior year of college. I have extensive experience with the interview process at Amazon, and getting into Amazon through the intern program is absolutely the best and easiest way to get in. What a remarkable opportunity! Too bad so many people blow it.
If you do get a returning full-time offer, I suggest you read this article on the 10 traits of successful junior software engineers. And heck, then just keep reading about how to level up to a senior engineering position.
That all being said, let’s get into my specific recommendations.
One — Immediately figure out expectations
This is priority number one. Not doing this is a clear reason interns fail.
At many companies, an intern will report to an engineer, or a junior manager. Particularly when you report to an engineer, you’re reporting to someone with little or no management experience.
The number one way this impacts you is that they may not be good at giving you feedback.
And what’s the most important piece of feedback you need?
You need to know if you’re hitting or missing expectations. Nailing a return offer depends on them wanting you to return. And I’ve repeatedly heard of interns who thought their manager liked them, and were surprised with no return offer.
Of course that’s the fault of the managers involved, but that’s not the audience of this article.
You need to specifically figure out what they expect you to get done during this internship. Preferably with dates.
Some internships will provide this the day you walk in the door. “We’re hoping during this internship that you can deliver X (detailed explanation). And here are 8 milestones you can use to keep an eye on your progress (milestones with dates).” Great, you’re on a fantastic team!
Let’s assume you’re not. You should be very polite and clear with your requests. Here are a few samples of ways you can get this information.
“I’d like to get a return offer from this team, which means I’d like to be an excellent intern. What would an excellent intern deliver by the end of this internship?”
People are hesitant to answer questions like, “What should I complete to get a returning offer?” because there are many caveats to getting a return offer. People are hesitant to make promises, or even hint at promises. But if you instead used a hypothetical “excellent intern”, it makes the question easier to answer.
“I think I understand what I should deliver by the end of this internship. Do you have an idea of where in the project I should be during the weeks of this internship? I’d love some assistance in breaking down the project to milestones you feel would make sense to make certain I’m on track.”
You may be asked to do this planning yourself, but I feel it’s worth asking for advice here. It’s very hard for an intern to have an idea of how much work is involved in a project. Particularly as you’re often using internal tools and procedures which you may not be familiar with.
There’s another great reason to ask for expectations for the overall project, and those milestones. Listen closely.
By asking for expectations, you’ve guaranteed that they buy into those expectations at the start. Now, if you complete your project by those milestones, and you complete your overall project on time, you know what happened?
They gave you expectations, and you met them. For them to now complain about your deliveries is extremely unlikely. You suddenly have a great tool in hand to get that return offer.