Before my current role I had little experience of working with interns. I shared the common cynical perception that often an internship was some sort of charitable act by the employing company, maybe as a favour for a son of daughter of an employee, where little value was added save keeping them off the streets for a time.
In GSXX, we are approaching double figures now with interns; currently we have three on the go, a record. I have become a big fan, to the extent that I wonder why more of us don't take it up as a fantastic model. I stumbled upon it by accident really, but we have not looked back.
Don't just accept any old intern. They should be selected and vetted like anyone else. In the early days, we used to put a small ad on the notice board of Erasmus college, and two of our team used to go to Rotterdam one afternoon to interview hopefuls from that year's MBA class (good experience for them, by the way). But don't worry overly about what they are going to do - once on seat, a good intern themselves will help you find a good project for themselves, while at the same time being more than ready to take on any old task that is to hand in parallel.
I have to confess that one reason I am so happy is that the intern costs rarely seem to appear on any budget of mine. Perhaps they do, but they are too small to notice. Or perhaps some central budget somewhere is paying - whatever, let us just be happy. There was one exception, last year, when I took on an intern from some fancy central group programme. We were informed (too late to duck out) that these people were so special that we needed to pay them at the top of JG3 level. He was good... but not THAT good... and you can imagine how all my hard-working JG 4's and 5's thought about that. While on the subject of central "support", I would like to pay tribute to Monique van der Zanden, who has some co-ordinating role or other, delivered with excellence in every way. Thank you, Monique.
So, apart from being cheap, what other benefits are there? Here are a few.
They are invariably highly motivated and hard working.
They are not fussy about taking on any task.
They are usually low maintenance once they get going, good with computers and networking and self-starting and all the other basic success factors of modern business life.
Supervising them is a great development opportunity for the team.
They are fun, vital, challenging, up-to-date, social, great sources of energy and ideas for the team. Awaydays and team meetings are always more fun with interns about. They usually consume a lot of beer and enjoy flirting.
Oh, and two more important ones.
They often deliver fantastic content, with new angles and with no limitations by dominant logic.
And a lot of them end up, one way or another, working full-time for Shell and enhancing our talent pool long-term. And some of them remember their debt to GSXX too.
So, what is the downside? Taking someone no good is the main one, avoided through rigour of selection. There is some maintenance involved, they have to be started off and kept under control and kept busy and prevented from causing major disasters with customers. Occasionally there are reports to write and assessments to complete. A small price to pay.
So, thank you to Abhishek and Doina and Demetrios and Chris and Holda and James and Joris and Elena and Kemala and Geert and everyone else I've forgotten to mention, you have delivered fantastic things and I hope we have given something back to you. Roll on the next generation. And, everyone else, wake up to this underutilised opportunity!
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