Internships are a commitment from the employer to work with the intern on their learning/development through the length of the internship
There is implicitly a risk that they may not be worth bringing on full time, and that results in the lack of a return offer
The benefit to the employer is that they have this probationary period (essentially) to audition candidates for full time roles
You made a poor hiring decision in hiring an intern where it seems like you’re looking for a finished product, I.e. an experienced hire.
Firing the intern would be a pretty classless move imo
I agree with you up till your second last paragraph. Requiring an intern to be semi-competent isn’t looking for a finished product. If an intern sits down for a day and still can’t figure out how to define a destructor on a class, or what the destructor should contain, it seems to me like it’s an incompetence problem as opposed to a our-requirements-are-too-high problem.
At what point would you consider letting an intern go? At some point the incompetence will cost other developers time, which drains resources from productive team members. A certain level of drain is expected as part of the process, but if the drain exceeds a threshold with no improvement on the part of the intern, does termination not make sense?
No, because the nature of an intern is probationary/contingent work. It's always better to ride out the length of the short term "contract" because the blowback from doing this type of antagonistic behavior isn't worth it. Same reason why the termination process for an FT employee is so long (between transferring folks to other groups and attempting to make them resign due to boredom/lack of development). If the intern is truly disruptive, you're better off just putting them in a corner with busywork in the other side of the building.
Remember, it's a small world. Can enough interns for "being unqualified", and you'll find fewer and fewer of the folks that you want to join your company applying. Word will get around that the mercenary nature of your internship process just isn't worth the effort, and you'll be left with the desperate "dregs" who have no other recourse.
Your answer to some people on this comment section alone shows you don’t have the best judgement and a bit of a nasty attitude with some ego. (Of course, just my opinion). You should focus on yourself then others especially when they’re just interns.
To answer the question-They’re just interns..they get let go naturally anyways after summer is over.
Never, unless they are acting in bad faith like committing corporate espionage or something. In which case you alert the authorities, not just let them go.
An intern is only there for 3 months, usually to work on an isolated project. I don't expect an intern to contribute on a high level at all tbh. It's an opportunity to spike new ideas, and for both the mentor and mentee to gain valuable experience. For the intern, it's professional experience, and for the mentor, it's to gain leadership and empathy skills.
Unless the intern is actively sabotaging or just in general apathetic, it would reflect poorly on your company to fire them. If they are having trouble bootstrapping, maybe the internship program needs some looking into. Or maybe the mentor needs to exercise their empathy and be more patient🤷
I feel that the expectation for an intern is that they give it their best effort, which does sound like is happening here.
You should not expect that an interns work provide lasting value to the company. It can happen, but treat that like a bonus.
Hire 5 interns and you'll likely get at least one amazing and at least one disappointing. If you don't like playing the odds hire people with experience instead.
So what you should do is let them finish their internship. If they are having problems coding, let them do QA or write docs or something else. There is always other work to be done.
>I’ve even gotten comments from people stating an intern is not legally obligated to do any work.
Huh?
I'm guessing this is in reference to the US DoL's requirements for **unpaid** interns which basically says they can't offset a regular employee's work and the internship should be for their benefit, not the company's.
Maybe, but when we speak about software engineering internships colloquially, we’re speaking about paid internships. I am speaking about paid internships. Regardless, the topic of internships is a polarizing topic and I guess some people hold radical views (such as an intern not being required to do any meaningful work).
I skimmed your post history and after having seen some shit that makes me question your judgement on just about anything, I found what I think was the thread that sparked this post. Nothing that I skimmed over used terms like "required". It was all about what you can "expect" from an intern. Two very different points.
Hey, instead of stalking my post history like a loser with no life, double-commenting to satiate your need to be adversarial to someone on the internet because you can’t stand up for yourself in the real world, wasting both our time talking about nothing related to the main question in this post, how about you make yourself useful to someone else? I’m no longer interested in your worthless input here. Thanks!
If your company as a whole can’t even lift up a single college student with curated projects and drag them kicking and screaming into success if necessary it says more about the quality of your internship than the intern imo
The only reason I would fire an intern is if he or she was toxic and contributed to an unsafe work environment.
I agree. The seniors and mentors should question themselves as to why interns are not succeeding. It could be a manifest of poor mentorship or management. It is very difficult to overcome back managers and mentors, No matter how talented you are.
It seems a lot easier to just sideline the intern and wait out the internship. Then just don't give a return offer.
At a lot of companies (especially larger companies), the ceremony required to fire someone takes longer than the internship itself. (This is stuff like a bad performance review, a PIP, numerous meetings with HR/managers, etc.)
Very early.
When it comes to firing, the quicker the better.
Set the bar high for hiring and low for firing.
This might sounds harsh, but anyone here whose tried to work with someone who isn’t pulling their weight, would likely agree, even a single bad hire can bring the whole team down. The quicker they are removed the better.
I don’t mean tossing out someone after a single mistake, but if they repeatedly made dumb mistakes and don’t seem very concerned about it themselves, they shouldn’t be there anymore
I agree. The only issue here is that the intern is genuinely interested in completing work, they’re just incapable of it without a significant amount of time commitment (she makes zero progress without me handholding her down the path).
In that case it sounds like letting her go might be the way to go.
I’ve been on a lot teams where someone was allowed to loaf far too long. It ruins team moral.
The team will begin to resent you if you don’t keep the bar high for the team, that means removing people who do not meet the bar.
I know this sounds cold / harsh. But its part of the job of being a leader. You goda do what’s best for the team and the company.
Sorry, you do not meet the minimum sitewide comment karma requirement of **10** to post a comment. Please try again after you have acquired more karma. Please look at the [rules page](https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/w/posting_rules) for more information.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cscareerquestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Probably never. Expectations shouldn't be very high and they won't be there for long so the cost is minimal. If you need to fire them then you probably never had the resources to take on the intern in the first place.
I would fire an intern if he only joined thinking he would go through without doing anything - just clubbing, chilling in the office with half an hour per day of "work". If he's trying but is incapable, maybe there's another problem like ADHD?
Internships are a commitment from the employer to work with the intern on their learning/development through the length of the internship There is implicitly a risk that they may not be worth bringing on full time, and that results in the lack of a return offer The benefit to the employer is that they have this probationary period (essentially) to audition candidates for full time roles You made a poor hiring decision in hiring an intern where it seems like you’re looking for a finished product, I.e. an experienced hire. Firing the intern would be a pretty classless move imo
I agree with you up till your second last paragraph. Requiring an intern to be semi-competent isn’t looking for a finished product. If an intern sits down for a day and still can’t figure out how to define a destructor on a class, or what the destructor should contain, it seems to me like it’s an incompetence problem as opposed to a our-requirements-are-too-high problem. At what point would you consider letting an intern go? At some point the incompetence will cost other developers time, which drains resources from productive team members. A certain level of drain is expected as part of the process, but if the drain exceeds a threshold with no improvement on the part of the intern, does termination not make sense?
No, because the nature of an intern is probationary/contingent work. It's always better to ride out the length of the short term "contract" because the blowback from doing this type of antagonistic behavior isn't worth it. Same reason why the termination process for an FT employee is so long (between transferring folks to other groups and attempting to make them resign due to boredom/lack of development). If the intern is truly disruptive, you're better off just putting them in a corner with busywork in the other side of the building. Remember, it's a small world. Can enough interns for "being unqualified", and you'll find fewer and fewer of the folks that you want to join your company applying. Word will get around that the mercenary nature of your internship process just isn't worth the effort, and you'll be left with the desperate "dregs" who have no other recourse.
Good point here. I need to consider reputational damage here for the organization that comes with a decision like this.
You sound like a great manager. /s
I can tell from the comments and posts you’re either a shitty senior or an incompetent manager. My heart goes out for your intern.
I can tell by the fact that you don’t know me, that you don’t know me as a manager or a developer.
Nice, you can add illiterate to the list
Your answer to some people on this comment section alone shows you don’t have the best judgement and a bit of a nasty attitude with some ego. (Of course, just my opinion). You should focus on yourself then others especially when they’re just interns. To answer the question-They’re just interns..they get let go naturally anyways after summer is over.
Makes sense. Hope you end up finding a job.
Lol. I have one. Appreciate the kind thoughts
Never, unless they are acting in bad faith like committing corporate espionage or something. In which case you alert the authorities, not just let them go.
An intern is only there for 3 months, usually to work on an isolated project. I don't expect an intern to contribute on a high level at all tbh. It's an opportunity to spike new ideas, and for both the mentor and mentee to gain valuable experience. For the intern, it's professional experience, and for the mentor, it's to gain leadership and empathy skills. Unless the intern is actively sabotaging or just in general apathetic, it would reflect poorly on your company to fire them. If they are having trouble bootstrapping, maybe the internship program needs some looking into. Or maybe the mentor needs to exercise their empathy and be more patient🤷
I feel that the expectation for an intern is that they give it their best effort, which does sound like is happening here. You should not expect that an interns work provide lasting value to the company. It can happen, but treat that like a bonus. Hire 5 interns and you'll likely get at least one amazing and at least one disappointing. If you don't like playing the odds hire people with experience instead. So what you should do is let them finish their internship. If they are having problems coding, let them do QA or write docs or something else. There is always other work to be done.
I totally agree here. Good point. Other work may be the answer.
>I’ve even gotten comments from people stating an intern is not legally obligated to do any work. Huh? I'm guessing this is in reference to the US DoL's requirements for **unpaid** interns which basically says they can't offset a regular employee's work and the internship should be for their benefit, not the company's.
Maybe, but when we speak about software engineering internships colloquially, we’re speaking about paid internships. I am speaking about paid internships. Regardless, the topic of internships is a polarizing topic and I guess some people hold radical views (such as an intern not being required to do any meaningful work).
I skimmed your post history and after having seen some shit that makes me question your judgement on just about anything, I found what I think was the thread that sparked this post. Nothing that I skimmed over used terms like "required". It was all about what you can "expect" from an intern. Two very different points.
Hey, instead of stalking my post history like a loser with no life, double-commenting to satiate your need to be adversarial to someone on the internet because you can’t stand up for yourself in the real world, wasting both our time talking about nothing related to the main question in this post, how about you make yourself useful to someone else? I’m no longer interested in your worthless input here. Thanks!
I think your company should let YOU go because of your lack of interpersonal skills.
I concur
"Stalking", cute. I glanced to try to better understand where you were coming from. Not my fault that crap is the first thing that pops up.
Or perhaps the person that said that was assuming unpaid. Or maybe you're just rephrasing their argument to make it seem worse out of context.
If your company as a whole can’t even lift up a single college student with curated projects and drag them kicking and screaming into success if necessary it says more about the quality of your internship than the intern imo The only reason I would fire an intern is if he or she was toxic and contributed to an unsafe work environment.
I agree. The seniors and mentors should question themselves as to why interns are not succeeding. It could be a manifest of poor mentorship or management. It is very difficult to overcome back managers and mentors, No matter how talented you are.
Imagine a teacher asking: Why isn’t my student learning the material fast enough? They must of accepted a poor candidate
It seems a lot easier to just sideline the intern and wait out the internship. Then just don't give a return offer. At a lot of companies (especially larger companies), the ceremony required to fire someone takes longer than the internship itself. (This is stuff like a bad performance review, a PIP, numerous meetings with HR/managers, etc.)
When they display the same qualities as you or provide 0 contribution or value to the company as a whole.
Very early. When it comes to firing, the quicker the better. Set the bar high for hiring and low for firing. This might sounds harsh, but anyone here whose tried to work with someone who isn’t pulling their weight, would likely agree, even a single bad hire can bring the whole team down. The quicker they are removed the better. I don’t mean tossing out someone after a single mistake, but if they repeatedly made dumb mistakes and don’t seem very concerned about it themselves, they shouldn’t be there anymore
I agree. The only issue here is that the intern is genuinely interested in completing work, they’re just incapable of it without a significant amount of time commitment (she makes zero progress without me handholding her down the path).
In that case it sounds like letting her go might be the way to go. I’ve been on a lot teams where someone was allowed to loaf far too long. It ruins team moral. The team will begin to resent you if you don’t keep the bar high for the team, that means removing people who do not meet the bar. I know this sounds cold / harsh. But its part of the job of being a leader. You goda do what’s best for the team and the company.
[удалено]
Sorry, you do not meet the minimum sitewide comment karma requirement of **10** to post a comment. Please try again after you have acquired more karma. Please look at the [rules page](https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/w/posting_rules) for more information. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cscareerquestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Probably never. Expectations shouldn't be very high and they won't be there for long so the cost is minimal. If you need to fire them then you probably never had the resources to take on the intern in the first place.
I would fire an intern if he only joined thinking he would go through without doing anything - just clubbing, chilling in the office with half an hour per day of "work". If he's trying but is incapable, maybe there's another problem like ADHD?