Summer Fellowship Program
Advice from Past Summer Employers
Recent Summer Fellowship employers offer the following advice to ensure both the student and the organization have a successful summer experience.
- Make sure the project is measurable and fits in to the time frame so the students have a project to complete for their benefit and yours.
- As much as possible, offer "line" duties, not "internal consulting" projects: both you and the student will get more out of it.
- Identify a discrete project. I think it is much easier to have an HBS student work on a specific project, as opposed to the ongoing work of the organization. Then, craft the job description and the project write-up and interview a few students. We interviewed three and were fortunate in making such a great selection.
- Understand up front what will motivate the intern — what the organization can give back.
- Be sure you are ready to act as a mentor.
- Create an atmosphere that allows the individual to take risk and to be a full team member; listen to what they have to say. Some great ideas that we'd not thought of.
- Give them enough support and access to resources that they can be successful but make sure you also give them autonomy.
- Ensure that the summer associate is a cultural fit.
- Ensure that the projects you have in mind are substantive and interesting.
- Frequent check-ins, access to senior management, deadlines all serve to increase quality and effectiveness of the product and the (their) experience.
- I think that our experience was good because we had very clear directives for the summer. We had a developed agenda for the whole summer as well as short and intermediate term goals that the summer associates had to meet.
- Define the project well, and make sure that program staff can dedicate time to the project as well.
- Over-invest upfront in bringing the associate up to speed and integrating them into the organization.
- Consider offering an intro session to discuss with the associate the culture of the organization, best-practices in working with colleagues and clients, and (if applicable) background on country culture.
