Questions to Ask Interns
Questions for the first week with a new intern, covering what they were told the job would be, what they can already do, how they want instructions and corrections delivered, their commitments outside work, and what would count as a good placement for them.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What did you understand this internship to be when you applied?
Why ask it
Whatever the advert said, they built an idea of the job in their head. Hearing it now lets you correct the gap in the first week rather than discovering it in a disappointed exit conversation.
What do you already know how to do that we might not know about?
Why ask it
Interns often arrive with a skill nobody asked about: a language, a design tool, a summer in a warehouse. It stays hidden unless someone asks, and it is usually the fastest route to giving them real work.
What have you never done before that you will need to do here?
Why ask it
Framing it as a list to plan against rather than a weakness gets an honest answer. It also tells you which pieces of onboarding are genuinely new to them and which you can skip.
How do you want to be told when something is wrong?
Why ask it
Ask in week one and correction becomes a procedure you agreed rather than a surprise. Some want the fix immediately, some want the reasoning first; guessing wrong costs you weeks of a nervous intern over-checking everything.
What hours suit you, and when should I not expect a reply?
Why ask it
Interns will otherwise mirror whatever they see, including your late messages. Setting the boundary yourself prevents the quiet assumption that evening replies are part of the job.
What else is on your plate this term: classes, exams, another job?
Why ask it
Competing commitments are normal and only become a problem when hidden. Knowing the exam fortnight in advance means you plan around it instead of losing a deliverable to it.
How much checking in do you want in the first two weeks?
Why ask it
Preference varies and has little to do with ability. Agreeing a rhythm now means later reductions in contact read as trust rather than neglect.
Is anything about the setup not working: laptop, access, desk, travel?
Why ask it
New starters assume broken access is their own fault and wait. Asking directly in the first days catches the missing permission that would otherwise cost them a week of pretending to be busy.
What would make you feel like you had done well by Friday?
Why ask it
Gives you their standard, which is often either far below or far above yours. Aligning it early prevents a fortnight of anxiety about work that was actually fine.
What kind of task would you rather be handed than have to invent?
Why ask it
Some interns freeze on open briefs and thrive on defined ones, and the difference is not talent. Knowing which they are tells you how much scaffolding to put around the first assignment.
Who do you already know here, and who would you like to meet?
Why ask it
Introductions cost you a message and are frequently what interns value most. Asking in week one, while there is time to arrange them, makes them possible.
What do you want to be able to say you did when this ends?
Why ask it
Turns a general wish to learn into a target you can plan work around. It also flags immediately if what they want is something this placement cannot produce.
Is there a part of the business you are curious about that is not your job?
Why ask it
Interns rarely ask to sit in on another team's work, but often want to. An hour with sales or support is cheap for you and is regularly the thing they remember.
What worries you about the next few weeks?
Why ask it
Named early, the worry is usually mundane and solvable: not knowing anyone, a tool they have never used, the commute. Left unnamed, it shapes how they behave for a month.
Have you had a job before where you had to ask a lot of questions? How did that go?
Why ask it
Their previous experience of asking, whether it was welcomed or punished, determines how freely they will ask here. If it went badly before, you will need to invite questions repeatedly rather than once.
How do you prefer to get instructions: in a meeting, in writing, or by watching first?
Why ask it
The cheapest thing you can learn about a new person. Explaining verbally to someone who needs it written down produces work that is confidently wrong and takes twice as long to unpick.
Is there anything you would rather not be asked to do without warning: presenting, calls, video?
Why ask it
There is a difference between stretching someone and ambushing them. Knowing in advance lets you give notice, which usually turns a refusal into a manageable challenge.
What would you want me to be able to write about you at the end?
Why ask it
Working backwards from the reference makes the whole placement concrete. It tells you which evidence they need to gather and gives you both a shared target from day one.
If something here is going badly, who would you tell?
Why ask it
If the only answer is you, they have no route when the problem is you. Naming a second person, a mentor, a peer, an HR contact, in week one is what makes that route usable later.
What should I stop doing if it turns out not to be helping you?
Why ask it
Grants permission to review your supervision before the habits set. Even a small answer, too many check-ins, too much detail, too little context, is far easier to give in week one than in week six.
Starting an Intern Well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
The first week
Have the access ready before they arrive
Accounts, building entry, a machine and a place to sit are the difference between starting work on Monday and starting the following week. Interns will not chase missing permissions, they will sit quietly and assume it is normal.
Give a first task that can be finished
Something small, real and completable in two days does more for a new intern's footing than a fortnight of reading. It also gives you an early sample of how they work and where they get stuck.
Say what the job actually contains
Describe the routine part alongside the interesting part in the first conversation. An intern who knows a quarter of the placement is data cleanup handles it; one who discovers it in week three concludes they were misled.
Setting up supervision
- Book a standing weekly slot now. Interns will not interrupt you, but they will bring a list to a meeting that already exists.
- Name a peer as well as yourself, so there is somewhere to take the small questions and somewhere to take the ones about you.
- Agree how work gets reviewed: what standard the first draft should reach, who checks it, and how long that takes.
- Write down what they said they wanted from the placement, and look at it again at the halfway point.
- Tell them your own working hours and reply times, then keep to them.
Common mistakes
Waiting for them to ask
Almost no intern initiates a conversation about being underused, confused or blocked. If information is only available on request, you will get it in the exit interview.
Filling the placement with whatever is left over
A queue of leftover tasks with no explanation of what they feed into produces the busywork complaint that dominates intern feedback. Some routine work is fine if you can say why it matters.
Leaving the reference to the last day
Write the feedback and any reference while the detail is fresh, and tell them in week one what it would take to earn a strong one. Both are much harder to do well retrospectively.