Technical Communications Internships — what, why, where, and how?

Technical communicators learn best by doing. And real-world experience matters most to the majority of hiring managers. Internships are a synergistic solution to the dilemma of how to get experience efficiently while helping a company do real work.

As a member of the San Francisco chapter of STC's Internship Committee during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Andrew Davis learned a lot about internships' advantages to both technical communicators and companies, as well as the challenges of arranging them.

What is an internship?

Internships are short-term, onsite assignments in which a manager teaches and advises the intern in the performance of typical duties, in exchange for a discounted hourly pay rate and the opportunity to hire (or extend) the intern if mutually agreed. The intern learns how professional technical communicators work, gets hands-on exposure to the tools, processes, expectations, and compromises made in "the real world," and contributes to a product or service that affects paying customers. Internships allow an individual who may have academic training in Technical Writing, or who has explored the profession through STC meetings or informational interviews, to find out what it's actually like.

Legally, interns are temporary W2-based employees of the company for which they are performing services. They are not necessarily eligible for employment benefits, but they are paid for each hour they work. The intern has a fixed-term employment contract, but is subject to dismissal like any other employee under specific circumstances.

Internships' benefits

Companies stand to benefit from hiring interns because they can train the aspiring technical communicator in their process and to their standards. Interns typically do not have the 'bad habits' that often plague more experienced professionals, and their levels of motivation and attentiveness often compensate for their lack of experience. Essentially, they are more likely than most to do what they're told.

Interns gain real-world work experience, including exposure to the processes, tools, personalities, and priorities of technical publications departments in actual companies. They also have the opportunity to earn positive professional references and create portfolio samples that will impress future employers. Essentially, the internship is their first job in the business and influences the course of their career.

Interns who excel are often hired as salaried staff by the company with which they've interned. These employment associations often last many years because both parties have established respect, trust, and even mutual gratitude. After all, the company took a chance on an inexperienced candidate and showed him or her the ropes, so candidates can feel strong loyalty and reluctance to leave.

Internships' costs

Internships are guaranteed wins for the intern. He or she gets all the benefits cited above with little or no risk.

From the hiring manager's perspective, internships are a 'resource sink' if not seen as a long-term investment in the company's business practices and culture. When considered only as a near-term cost-benefit tradeoff (namely 'what is our guaranteed reward for hiring an unknown and training him or her for three-to-six months?'), internships frankly have little merit from the corporate perspective.

Here's why. Apart from the money actually paid to the intern — which we suggest be in the range of $25-30/hr (gross cost to the employer) — companies must provide employment benefits if the intern works more than 30 hours/week. Hiring managers typically must also secure headcount and funding, just as they would for a regular employee, which can be time-consuming and challenging to justify if the alternative is to hire a more senior resource. And when an intern comes aboard, he or she must be fully trained, equipped, and supervised more completely than regular employees. Finally, when the internship ends (and the intern isn't hired), he or she leaves and the company's investment evaporates.

Here's what to do to make internships a win-win proposition:

1. The company needs to define its expectations clearly in collaboration with the intern, then set aside and strictly abide by a schedule, including specific milestones and routine opportunities for training, reviews, feedback, and related guidance. The intern must be mentored as well as trained, such that a bond develops and two-way communication thrives.
2. The intern needs to over-communicate, providing almost too much information about his or her status, challenges, anticipated progress, and so on. Such reports should be written rather than oral, whenever possible.
3. Both parties need to be explicitly accountable for the work. Shedding responsibility is a recipe for disaster. The manager should be motivated by the opportunity to train a protege, and the intern by the opportunity to gain 'live' references and portfolio samples.

Which workplaces are best-suited to Internships?

Not all companies are suitable for internships. "Lean and mean" startups and exceptionally fast-paced departments are usually inhospitable places for a would-be Technical Writer if there's no one available to guide, buffer, and provide consistent feedback. Even if the intern is used to life in high-tech's oncoming lane, too much fundamental training is inevitably left to chance — and bad habits result. Even if the company considers the association a success, odds are that the intern has been exploited rather than instructed and thus no sense of loyalty results.

Companies led by an experienced manager and in which the role of technical publications is respected, and also ideally where there are several levels of seniority among the staff, are best-suited to hosting internships. In our opinion, the manager or a designated Lead-level Technical Writer needs to commit at least two hours a week to meeting with the intern, evaluating his or her work, and sharing constructive feedback. He or she must also be available on short notice to intervene and troubleshoot projects on the intern's behalf. Merely throwing the intern to the wolves will not work to the company's advantage, even though it may have been the way the intern's supervisor learned.

We were all beginners once, and internships are not the right vehicle for torturing the trainee. Our advice: don't hire an intern, or accept an internship, if either party isn't willing to make a formal and enforceable commitment to 'safe' learning and regular constructive feedback.

Internships' implementation

By accepting internships, interns leave the world of theory and enter the realm of economics-driven pragmatism, often for the first time. Internships must meet the needs of the manager to whom he or she reports, and the intern must accept the manager's priorities and resulting guidance. However, to avoid exploitation and generate better productivity and long-term allegiance, the internship must also meet the needs of the intern him- or herself.

In practice, internships must have the following:

• Specific objectives
• Measurable goals
• Explicit accountability (from both parties)
• Documented accomplishments and references
• Rights to actual portfolio samples and professional references

If all five criteria are not agreed to and documented in a formal Internship Agreement, internships always fall short of their potential. For more information about what works and what doesn't, contact Andrew Davis or the directors of participating academic programs (such as Ms. Lu Rehling of San Francisco State University's Technical & Professional Writing Program).

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