How do you evaluate your interns’ soft skills?
Posted by nicole_zhanggg@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 9 comments
Hey all,
I’m a freshly graduated high school senior doing research on how teams evaluate interns beyond just task completion!
Specifically, soft skills like communication, initiative, and follow-through.
I’ve spoken to a few managers who say it’s hard to give structured feedback or compare across interns.
Curious how your team handles this. Do you just go off gut feel? Is there a system?
Thanks in advance!
forgottenHedgehog@reddit
Vamosity-Cosmic@reddit
i just lowkey give them tasks and see how they do, its mostly a vibe for me i admit
Jmc_da_boss@reddit
I talk to them and give them tasks
trojan_soldier@reddit
Please ask in the weekly pinned thread as per sub rules.
To answer your question, depends on the company. Good companies have clear rubrics which evaluate multiple areas such as tech skills, communication, and behavioral (proactiveness, able to receive feedback, and so on).
ummicantthinkof1@reddit
I just want to see progress. A lot of interns will write 8 paragraph emails where a sentence would suffice. I explain why business communication is often short, give some tips, and see if they change at all. Same with technical work: I kind of expect a summer of mistakes, but please make different mistakes.
Part of it is just meeting them where they're at? Some want to debate code conventions, and great. Can they express their point clearly? Do they listen to the other side? Do they have something valuable to say? Others are shy/lack confidence to do so. That's fine too. Do they communicate when it's necessary? Can they use some channels like slack even if they don't like speaking up on Zoom?
If an intern can grow and learn over a summer, they'll be fine in the long run.
summerteeth@reddit
I have a conversation with them. I continue to have conversations with them as they do their jobs.
As an intern you are exclusively managing up and it is pretty low pressure.
matthra@reddit
Maybe I'm the bad guy, but I give them the opportunity to fail and observe what they learn from it. Do they try and hide it, do they struggle for too long before asking for help, do they quietly give up, or do they immediately ask for assistance without trying things? All of those are valuable insights into how a new person approaches work. I'm never harsh with them if they do fail, we just go through what happened and plan out how we can do better in the future. I was fortunate to have good mentorship early in my career, and that's something I've always tried to pay forward.
LeadingPokemon@reddit
I would say, in the specific case of interns, it is more fair to give subjective criticism. It is essentially a job interview that your company conducts for weeks/years.
Daedalus9000@reddit
It's not hard to give structured feedback, but it's not like there's an objective rubric one could write covering soft-skills like you mention. Usually those skills (or lack of) manifest as how well you work in a team environment, or under pressure, or when left on your own with a task that is a bit ambiguous. I think saying one goes off a gut feeling isn't quite right, but if you've been on successful teams and worked with successful people you do know what "success" looks like and can give feedback accordingly.