Students come back from internships with one of two things: a set of examples they can talk about for years, or a certificate and a vague memory of being in an office.
Which one you get depends far less on the size of the organisation than on whether anyone there had a reason to want you. That is knowable in advance, and it is knowable from questions you can ask before accepting.
Apply where there is work, not where there is prestige
Large well-known organisations run structured programmes that are heavily oversubscribed, and the intern who is one of forty is easy to leave unattended.
A smaller organisation that is genuinely short-handed will hand you real work in the first week because there is nobody else to hand it to. The name on the certificate matters far less than the sentence you can write about what you did, and the sentence is easier to earn where the work is real.
Ask what the last intern did
This is the single most informative question available to you, and almost nobody asks it. It is polite, it is easy to answer, and the answer is diagnostic.
A specific answer — they rebuilt this, they handled that — describes a place with a use for interns. A vague one describes a place that takes them because it is asked to. Both are honest answers; only one tells you to accept.
Ask what the last intern actually did, who you would report to, and what you would be expected to produce. Prefer a busy small organisation over a prestigious crowded one. Keep a weekly record of what you do, and leave with one referee who can describe your work specifically.
Find out who you report to
An intern attached to a named person with a stake in their output gets work, feedback and attention. An intern attached to a department gets whatever is left over.
Ask who you would be working with day to day. If nobody can say, that is the answer — the placement has not been thought about, and you would spend the first fortnight looking for something to do.
| Ask before accepting | A good sign | A warning |
|---|---|---|
| What did the last intern do? | A specific project | "General support" |
| Who would I report to? | A named person | "The department" |
| What would I produce? | Something with a deliverable | "You'll learn a lot" |
| Are the hours and dates fixed? | Stated plainly | Left vague until you start |
| Is anything paid or reimbursed? | Answered directly | Deflected |
Settle money and hours before you start
Many internships here are unpaid, and that is not in itself a reason to refuse one. What is worth establishing plainly is whether transport or lunch is covered, what the hours are, and how long the placement runs.
Ask before accepting rather than in week three. An organisation that answers directly is one that will be straightforward about other things too; one that avoids the question has told you something useful.
Volunteer for the thing nobody wants
Every workplace has a task everyone avoids — a records mess, a backlog, a report nobody has updated in a year. Interns are usually kept away from it in favour of something safer.
Ask for it. It is unglamorous, it is finishable within a placement, and it is the one piece of work whose completion is immediately visible to everyone. It is also, in our experience, the single most reliable route from intern to a phone call when a role opens.
Record it as you go
A placement is short, and the details fade fast. One line a week — what you did, for whom, what changed — turns into the specific examples that interviews are won on.
Without it, an internship becomes a date range on a CV, which is worth roughly nothing. With it, it is three or four things you can describe in detail, which is what an interviewer is actually listening for.
Leave with a person, not just a certificate
Certificates confirm attendance. A supervisor who can describe your work specifically is a reference you can use for years, and the difference between the two is a conversation in your final week.
Ask whether they would be willing to act as a referee, thank them properly, and stay reachable. Nearly every early-career opportunity that comes through a person rather than an advert starts here.
