Ask an intern in week six why things are not going well and the answer usually traces to week one: access that was not ready, a project nobody had scoped, and no clear signal about whether asking questions was welcome. Twelve-week internships lose 8% of their length to a badly prepared first week, and the habits formed in it last the rest of the engagement.
This guide is about the preparation, not the paperwork.
The three things an intern must have by Friday of week one
- They know what they are building
- A written scope with a definition of done, discussed with them and open to their challenge. Not "you'll be helping the team with various things".
- They know who to ask for what
- A mentor for the work, a buddy for everything else, and an IT contact. Three names, given explicitly, not discovered over three weeks.
- They know that asking is expected
- This one is cultural and it is set by example. Let them hit a blocker in week one and use the escalation path while it is cheap, so they know what it looks like.
Before they arrive — the part that actually matters
Everything on this list can be done in the week before and cannot be recovered afterwards without cost:
- Equipment provisioned, imaged and tested.
- Every account created and every access actually verified — not requested, verified.
- A written project scope with a definition of done.
- A first-week calendar with invitations already sent.
- A buddy assigned and briefed — a peer, deliberately not the mentor.
- A welcome email with where, when, who to ask for, and what to bring.
- The team told who is joining and on what.
The first week, day by day
| Day | What happens | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 AM | Paperwork, equipment, logins tested together. Policy and grievance briefing including the anti-harassment mechanism. | Interns are the group least likely to know their rights or feel able to use them. This is not a box to compress. |
| Day 1 PM | Mentor one-to-one: the project, the definition of done, how asking for help works here. | The single most valuable hour of the internship. |
| Day 2 | A small task completable the same day. | A win on day two changes how the next eleven weeks feel. Choose the task for that, not for its value. |
| Day 3 | A real team meeting, and a deliberate first blocker. | They learn the escalation path once, while it costs nothing. |
| Day 4 | Start the main project; review the scope together and let them push back. | A scope they questioned is one they understand. |
| Day 5 | One-to-one: what is unclear, blocked, or different from what they expected. | Catches mis-set expectations while they are still cheap to fix. |
Onboarding remote interns
- Ship equipment to arrive two days early and confirm it powers on and logs in before day one.
- Schedule more short calls in week one rather than fewer long ones — remote internships fail from silence, not distance.
- Give a standing daily fifteen minutes with the buddy for the first week; it replaces the questions that would have been asked across a desk.
- Be explicit about working hours and response-time expectations. Remote interns over-work or disappear, and both come from not knowing.
- Put them in a channel with other interns. A remote intern with no peers is the most isolated person in the company.
The week-four check
Four weeks in, ask the intern two questions directly — not the mentor. Is the work what the job description described? And how many hours a week are you actually getting with your mentor? Both failures are recoverable at week four and are not at week ten, and both are invisible unless you ask the intern. Across a cohort, mentors report the hours they intended and interns report the hours they got; the two answers routinely differ by half.
Frequently asked
What should be ready before an intern starts?+
Equipment, every account, verified access to the specific systems the project needs, a written project scope, a first-week calendar, an assigned buddy and a welcome email. Requested access is not the same as verified access, and the difference costs the intern a week.
How long should intern onboarding take?+
Concentrated into week one, with a real task on day two. The preparation happens before they arrive; what happens after they arrive should be mostly doing, not watching.
What is a buddy, and why not just the mentor?+
A peer the intern can ask the questions they are embarrassed to ask the person assessing them. It costs about twenty minutes a day in week one and measurably reduces time-to-first-contribution.
How do you onboard remote interns?+
The same sequence with equipment shipped early and verified, more short calls rather than fewer long ones, an explicit statement of hours and response expectations, and a channel with the other interns. Remote internships fail from silence.
Should interns attend the full company induction?+
The policy, safety and grievance parts in full — those matter most for the group least likely to know their rights. The role-specific induction should be shorter and hands-on; a small real task on day two teaches more than four days of slides.