The 2021 Internship Program Process Overview

How the Internship was conducted

• Set up the #internship Slack channel
• Responded to Brentwood’s call for internships (to be included opportunities sent to students).
  • Text used
• Created spreadsheet of applicants
• Reviewed CVs of Applicants (15)
• Emailed welcome letter requesting Doodle filling out (2021-04-06)
• Analyzed availability for interns from Doodle (10 respondents)
• Conducted zoom AMA (2021-04-16 - 9 rsvped, 8 Attended)
• Provided deck that was referenced (parts shown) during our AMA
• Had prospective interns at AMA add themselves into our slack (self invite) where they could communicate with us at any time and get a timely response from the team
• Polled the interns for their specific summer availability (2021-05-06 - received 9 responses, 2 indicated they were no longer interested)
• Wrote and sent acceptance letters which included a link to the FAQ that we made from the AMA (2021-06-1313)
• Created an onboarding deck specific to the Internship Program. This deck assumes the viewer already has knowledge about what Hack for LA is/Does.
• Onboarded each Intern. Some of them in join sessions, some of them singly. During this process we updated the Onboarding deck after each session in order to improve the user experience.
• Iterated on the Hack for LA Linkedin Deck
• Delivered Linkedin workshop every Monday at 1:00pm PDT for Interns. See LinkedIn page for more details
  • Created issues for the Interns to manage the profile
  • Helped them word each of their resume items (see Interns-summer-2021#interns-summer-2021) for links to finished profiles
• Run Internship standup M-F at 9:00am using this issue to record their progress and have them document their hours and standup attendance in the Roll Call/Hours/Onboarding status
• Drafted response to the BWS Sponsor Reflection Form and replied
  • Created and Included links to summaries from all the LinkedIn profiles we helped the Interns create
    • IS21: Project Management Intern Value Delivered
    • IS21: UI/UX and Software Engineering Intern Value Delivered
• Conducted weekly 1-on-1 coaching meetings with each Intern. These meetings covered soft skills during the first half of the internship and then Linkedin writing and profile building in the second half.
• Executed Steps in the Research Plan
  • Conducted exit interviews and research with Interns
  • Synthesized Results
  • Produced Slide Deck - WIP
  • Created Personas - WIP

Meetings that the Interns attended

• Meetings

What we can do better

• Sent the FAQ sooner
• Sent acceptance letters earlier
• Send the prework for developers: JavaScript part of FreeCodeCamp.org
• Send invites to the Communities of Practice
• Communicated better and more often with Brentwood School
• Provided Bios of Hack for LA members that interns would meet during the AMA

What we will do to prepare for next year?

• Have interns give feedback at the end of this year to be able to show to next year’s prospective interns - completed
• Develop calendar for running internship program
• Publish internship details (including this FAQ) on a dedicated internship page
• Add items to this list suggested by this year’s interns
• Prepare the outreach materials for next year by evaluating what to reuse