Interns lose their first week to things that could have been done before they arrived: laptop, accounts, access, a project nobody had scoped. On a twelve-week internship that is 8% of the engagement, and it is the week that sets whether the intern spends the rest of it asking or waiting.
This plan front-loads all of it. The pre-arrival section is the part that matters most and the part most often skipped.
Before day one — the week that decides the first week
Week one — the schedule
| Day | What happens | Who owns it |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 morning | Welcome, paperwork, equipment handover, accounts verified working. Policy and grievance mechanism explained, including the anti-harassment process. | HR |
| Day 1 afternoon | Mentor one-to-one: the project, the definition of done, how the team works, what "asking for help" looks like here. | Mentor |
| Day 2 | Codebase / process walkthrough. First tiny task — something completable the same day, chosen to end in a small win. | Mentor + buddy |
| Day 3 | Sit in on a real team meeting. Second task. First blocker deliberately allowed to happen, so the escalation path gets used once while it is cheap. | Buddy |
| Day 4 | Start the actual project. Review the written scope together and let them push back on it. | Mentor |
| Day 5 | End-of-week one-to-one: what is unclear, what is blocked, what they expected that has not happened. | Mentor |
The 30 / 60 / 90 plan — copy this
INTERN 30-60-90 PLAN Intern: ______________ Mentor: ______________ Start: __________ PROJECT: ________________________________________________ DEFINITION OF DONE: _____________________________________ BY DAY 30 — ORIENTED AND CONTRIBUTING • Can explain what the team does and how their project fits • Has completed [2-3] small scoped tasks end to end • Knows who to ask for what, and has asked at least three people • Has made a first substantive contribution to the main project Checkpoint date: __________ Assessed by: ______________ BY DAY 60 — OWNING A PIECE (midpoint review) • Owns a defined component of the project • Works with reduced supervision on familiar tasks • Has hit at least one blocker and resolved it without escalating late • Written midpoint review completed and shared Checkpoint date: __________ Assessed by: ______________ BY DAY 90 — DELIVERED AND HANDED OVER • Deliverable complete, or scoped down deliberately and documented • Work documented so it survives their departure • Presented the work to the team • Final review completed; conversion decision communicated Checkpoint date: __________ Assessed by: ______________ FOR A SHORTER INTERNSHIP: compress proportionally. An 8-week internship uses 20/40/55. Do not drop the midpoint — it is the review that can still change the outcome.
What onboarding is actually for
Everything above serves one goal: that by the end of week one the intern knows what they are building, who to ask, and that asking is expected. Interns who do not have those three things by Friday spend the internship guessing, and the mentor spends it wondering why the intern never says anything. Almost every "the intern did not work out" conversation traces back to a week one that did not happen.
Frequently asked
How long should intern onboarding take?+
Concentrated into the first week, with a scoped project available on day two. The pre-arrival preparation is what makes that possible — accounts, access and a written scope ready before they walk in.
Should interns get the same onboarding as employees?+
The same policy, safety and grievance content — that part is not optional and interns are the group least likely to know their rights. The role-specific onboarding should be shorter and much more hands-on: interns learn by doing a small real task on day two, not by watching four days of presentations.
What is a buddy and why not just use the mentor?+
A buddy is a peer the intern can ask the questions they are embarrassed to ask the person assessing them — where the canteen is, what an acronym means, whether this is normal. It costs the buddy about twenty minutes a day in week one and it measurably reduces the intern's time-to-first-contribution.
What should an intern do on day one?+
Paperwork and equipment in the morning; a real conversation with their mentor about the project in the afternoon. What they should not do is spend day one reading documentation with nothing to apply it to.
How do we onboard remote interns?+
The same plan with two changes: ship equipment to arrive two days early and confirm it works before day one, and schedule more short calls in week one rather than fewer long ones. Remote interns fail from silence, not from distance.