It’s summer time and the students are starting their internships! Congratulations if your son or daughter landed a position for the summer. This is a fantastic way to learn new things, meet new people and develop professionally with real work experience.  You can help them and make sure they get off to a great start with these 7 tips:

1. Expectations: Advise your child to find out their company and departmental goals. Find out what the boss is expecting from him or her as an intern. Exceed all expectations every day. It isn’t so hard to do this, but you would be surprised how many people didn’t realize this in the beginning of the summer.
2. Meaningful Work: Millennials do internships to learn new things and gain new skills. Make sure your child is optimizing every opportunity to learn and try new things. So if your son or daughter describes a new or unique departmental project over dinner, you can nudge them to try to raise their hand to get involved. Have them take every possible opportunity to do new projects or take advantage of any special training programs.
3.  Networking; Internships present a wonderful opportunity for networking.  Your son or daughter will likely meet co-workers and other interns. They may also meet vendors, partners and customers. Encourage them to reach out for any possible one on one time with potential mentors within the company. Also encourage them to follow up with thank you emails to their new workplace connections after a helpful meeting or mentoring.  Hopefully your child is using LinkedIn and is able to connect during the summer with his/her coworkers.
4. Research: Encourage your child to really learn everything about the company that they are working for. It’s a great chance to review the company website and learn about the corporate initiatives, locations, goals, policies, products and divisions. Suggest he or she likes their Facebook fan page, Follows on Twitter, Likes the LinkedIn Company page and so on. 
5. Dress: Advise your student to dress professionally and fit into the corporate culture.  A finance company in New York City will be more formal while a social media tech startup in San Francisco might not be. Advise them to stay away from flashy or revealing outfits no matter what kind of office you are working  in. It will always serve them well to be classy and professional looking. 
6. Communications: The students will bring a cell phone but they shouldn’t use it except during lunch or breaks unless she is communicating with the boss that way. If an intern spends her day texting, she will be headed for trouble. The same goes for social media usage, unless your child is working on social media projects. Actually a lot of interns do have this as part of their marketing responsibility. 
7. Attitude:  Coach your child to do the following: Go in with a smile and be ready to listen and learn. Ask questions and be helpful. Take notes and be inquisitive. Be ready to assist in a variety of situations. Remember that even though you signed on for meaningful and meaty projects,  everyone has to do the lower level tasks sometimes. Also be ready to help other team members when needed. Approach all your work with enthusiasm.

Internships are all about learning and growing for your son or daughter.  You can also have a very rewarding experience and be a behind the scene cheerleader and coach for your student!   Looking forward to your ideas, questions or comments!

By Sandra Long  

@myinterncoach   Google +