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We have interns, virtual and in office every month. I called one of the virtual ones since we were informed that he is available. Assigned him a task. Immediately after understanding the task, he told me that he also had college assignments to complete and was expecting some work from his assigned team. While he did finish the task, I did not reach out to him again.
It was very strange - firstly, He was somewhat selective in what he wanted to do, which is fair but it's difficult to place a high degree of trust on an intern, so the task allocated would not be of very high quality. Secondly, it just flipped a button in my head when he said that he has college work, after listening to the task. He's still here for a month, and he did well in the task, but I'd rather do it myself now. Did I experience disappointment?
Thirdly, terrible formatting. I had to get on another call to understand what he had written in the mail.
Takeaways - please be clear on total time available, if college is a priority, please don't chase the certificate, or pick a month with full commitment. Communicate clearly and reach out proactively. Submit good quality work, virtual impressions are even more delicate. Ask for phantom tasks to keep busy. Finally, be humble - your contributions are important, but ego is the enemy.
As for assessments, the team hardly even knows that you're interning, and apart from the first-day introductions that you send, there is no other way that you can communicate with the team, and even if you can, they hardly reply.
Honestly, no one can be blamed here, this virtual scenario has taken a toll on everyone and delegating work to interns have become difficult.
This is why the majority of work you get is research. If you find something useful, great! if not, meh, I was gonna look for it anyway. Just focus on doing what you get properly and be prompt. Once had an intern who switched off her phone after I gave her some work with a clear deadline. Don't be that girl - do a good job and hope for the best. Cheers.
Always remember there 200 people waiting to replace you with no ifs and buts.
Plus, any work given to these newbies interns are a burden on the AO. You can't rely on them to provide and qualitative work plus you're left to chase these interns for deliverables and these little peas behaves as if they are sons of Tata and Reliance that we will put PPOs for them on silver spoon.
You're probably not getting work because you either pissed in prior work or there is urgency and you can't be given that work or there is no work.
Tier 1 internships in virtual setup are just sham. Most people get in basis of their grades they hardly have any practical experience.
God bless our HR with some brains
Toh you should make yourself available and become a trustworthy asset. Most of the work that you get during these internships is based on a follow up prompt by the associates who think you can be trusted with the work.
Because they know ki if you fuck up, that can mean that they'll have to face the wrath of their seniors. Baaki keep shooting mails asking if you could help out in any way.
In my experience associates often like when they have someone who can take a small share of their work, which provides them a bit of an alleviation from their stressed lives.
Personally, my main goal has been to always think of myself as an assistant or a paralegal during the internship, considering the main task to be of assistance in the limited ways that I can.
1. Don't hesitate to ask around for work. Check LinkedIn to see who works in what practice area and shoot them an email requesting for work. Compared to working from office, this may offer you more flexibility in choosing what work to do. If an associate doesn't have work to delegate, they may refer a colleague.
2. Ask for feedback. I'm always happy to get on a call with an intern or email them with feedback if I have the time. Some associates may not want to, but there's no harm in asking.
3. Speak to HR. You can always call up HR and tell them you do not have any work assigned to you at the moment. Depending on the firm, HR may proactively find you some work to do.
4. Speak to a partner. This one's a bit tricky, because no partner wants to be flooded by intern emails. However, if you've been working steadily on a few matters, or have past experience in the firm, or you're two vodkas down and feeling very brave, emailing a partner clearly (yet briefly) stating your work preferences and offering assistance may just work. Worst case scenario you get a very angry phone call, but that's going to be every day working as an associate, so may as well prepare for it :)
Keep asking for work, you’ll get some eventually, there’s nothing else that can be done other then depending on 1-2 people who actually give you work.
I’ll be starting my 5th year next month and it’s bothering to see that even if one is getting internships, they’re hardly useful. How will assessments take place and what are some ways in which one can get work? Especially considering that we hardly know the people who we’re working with (because everything is virtual) and people aren’t willing to delegate work, maybe due to confidentiality issues.