{"id":8890,"date":"2016-01-31T10:34:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-31T05:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/internshala.com\/blog\/?p=8890"},"modified":"2017-02-06T11:25:09","modified_gmt":"2017-02-06T05:55:09","slug":"abc-of-managing-virtual-internship-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internshala.com\/blog\/abc-of-managing-virtual-internship-program\/","title":{"rendered":"The ABC of Managing a Virtual Internship Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-8891 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/internshala.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Remote-interns.jpg\" alt=\"Remote interns\" width=\"636\" height=\"358\" srcset=\"https:\/\/internshala.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Remote-interns.jpg 636w, https:\/\/internshala.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Remote-interns-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 636px) 100vw, 636px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Congratulations! You have hired your first virtual intern (a.k.a work from home intern or a remote intern) through Internshala. Hiring remote interns can be really effective especially for young (and bootstrapped) startups. Internshala, for example, was built by a group of virtual interns for first two years of its incipience. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nextbigwhat.com\/startup-interns-297\/\" target=\"_blank\">Our success story<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Since this may be\u00a0your first experience with work from home interns, we thought of sharing a few lessons,\u00a0that we have learned on our journey, on how to get the best out of your virtual internship program &#8211;<\/p>\n<p><strong>A.<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 600;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>The first week is <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">really<\/span> crucial:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Proper communication with the intern is imperative. <strong>Spend 15 minutes with her every day\u00a0<\/strong>(on Skype or on a phone call) to understand her working style, daily timings, expectations from the internship, and to get her excited\u00a0about your vision as well as your expectations from her.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Discuss her academic schedule<\/strong> during the internship period &#8211; ask about her exam dates, any college\u00a0fests or events she&#8217;ll attend, semester breaks, and any other plans which she might have during which she may not be available. \u00a0Prepare the work plan accordingly.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Define tasks and compensation.<\/strong> Clearly communicate\u00a0the work-hours she needs to put in her work every day\/week and also let her know\u00a0about the\u00a0stipend. Ideally, these should have been discussed and agreed upon before hiring.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>B. Task list:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Since a virtual intern is not present in the office, delegating work\u00a0can be tricky and that is when a daily task list comes to your rescue.\u00a0Ask her to email\u00a0you her\u00a0task list at the start of the\u00a0day, and later an EOD (end of the\u00a0day) update. In the beginning, you can give her a task list and ask for an update on it every day.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">This will make her feel accountable, and she will strive to perform better.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">You can track her progress on a daily basis which, in turn, will help you in giving her regular feedback.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">It will also be helpful to you in gauging the extent of responsibilities that could be given to her.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>C.\u00a0Make her feel a part of your team:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Virtual interns won\u2019t have an idea about the work culture of the company\u00a0and it is\u00a0your duty as a mentor to instill the sense of being part of the team\u00a0in her.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Send a welcome email introducing her to the team and include her in some team building activities. At\u00a0Internshala, for example, a new remote intern has to play\u00a0<em>Pehchan Kaun<\/em>\u00a0game \u00a0to get\u00a0acquainted with everyone. She also has to write a blog about her expectations from the internship that is published in our <a title=\"Internshala Team Diary\" href=\"https:\/\/internshala.com\/blog\/internshala-editorials\/team-diary\/\" target=\"_blank\">Team Diary<\/a> section.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">A Facebook group of the team can be a great\u00a0platform for the virtual reunions, bantering, and celebrations.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Send out regular updates\u00a0about the company&#8217;s growth and success stories and include remote interns also in it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">With a bit of planning and effort, a\u00a0virtual internship program can do wonders to your business. Furthermore, if the intern performs well,\u00a0she can also be invited for an\u00a0In-office position\u00a0during summer\/winter break or upon graduating building you a strong talent pipeline.<\/p>\n<p>Hope this helps. We would love to hear if you could add anything to it from your experience; please comment below.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main \"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">265<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Finternshala.com%2Fblog%2Fabc-of-managing-virtual-internship-program%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Share&nbsp;on&nbsp;Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Get&nbsp;Your&nbsp;Dream&nbsp;Internship<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.42-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Congratulations! You have hired your first virtual intern (a.k.a work from home intern or a remote intern) through Internshala. Hiring remote interns can be really effective especially for young (and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796,1921,4164,961],"tags":[3490,4123,4121,4122],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The ABC of Managing a Virtual Internship Program<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You have hired your first intern but are not sure about how to manage her effectively. These tips provide you insights on managing virtual interns.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/internshala.com\/blog\/abc-of-managing-virtual-internship-program\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The ABC of Managing a Virtual Internship Program\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You have hired your first intern but are not sure about how to manage her effectively. 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