Our Fabulous Summer Intern Went Back To College :(

  This summer we had an intern working for our company. This was her last week as she heads back for her senior year of College. We are all very sad to see her leave. She has been a great asset to our company. She is a communications and business major and wanted to work with an entrepreneurial company. She is very focused on her life and career goals, hard working and lighthearted, smart and fun, yes the perfect intern!

At our first interview we discussed our expectations were of each other. We both did not see her primary role as filing, running errands, or grunt work. Certainly with-in the course of the day there would be some of the mundane, but we both agreed that was not the point of her internship. I was so thrilled that our goals matched that I hired her on the spot. I was a bit concerned that I acted too quickly, rebounding from my disastrous interviewing process and lack of interested applicants last year. My concerns were put to rest after her first day n the job!

I had to explain to this 21 year old the dynamics of menopause and side effects. Once she grasped the concept of who my customers are and what they are experiencing after asking some very insightful questions, a trait she intuitively possesses, she was up and running and quickly showing how she was able to help with our set tasks and goals.

As CEO of my company I manage many people. The two types of people that are the hardest to manage are the ones who do nothing you say and make excuses and the ones who do just exactly what you say. Luckily our intern, Terra, did not fit into either group. She gave me progress reports of her work. She gave opinions and suggestions with back-up data and proof. She re-worked projects that I rejected with-out having to have her ego massaged. In short, she worked not with the bar lowered as a 21 year old college kid, but as a great employee of the company.

Some of the changes and suggestions Terra worked on all summer are already in use and others will be in use before Christmas. We all wish Terra a great senior year in College, and good luck in her future. We will miss her a great deal!

Have you hired an intern? Were you ever an intern? How was the experience?