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letting an intern go midway

hydroazuanacaine

hydroazuanacaine

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Joined
May 17, 2007
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i need to let my intern go midway through her internship. has anyone been on either end of this situation?

she does not possess the type of intelligence we need and she is far more work than we get back. i do not believe she is intentionally slacking off, but instead that she struggles both with the work and on how to focus. that said, i've caught her reading a book on the clock. she doesn't have an attitude problem; she's just not a good worker. she is an english major, but she cannot write in a complete sentences. she gives me work with inaccurate subject-verb agreement. she will not capitalize words. everything she does is garbage, and she's not quick about it. instructing her does not help and she repeatedly makes the same mistakes.

some of this is my fault. i was not the one to interview her due to an error on our part. i understand why my co-worker made a mistake in recommending her to me, as she is enthusiastic and i was asking for either an english, journalism, or marketing major. the writing samples the she sent to me were of course edited by someone else. i did not realize she was unable to perform the duties of the position before hiring her.

this internship is through a specific college, and our pool of candidates were mostly no-call-no-shows. i wanted an upperclassmen, but she was the only candidate in a relevant area of study who showed up able to vaguely describe the nature of our organization's work. she's a freshmen. the interviewer let me know she was very green, i made a mistake in thinking a freshmen was better than no intern. one of the major reasons i hired her was because of a very difficult job in her work history, and since hiring her she very foolishly let me know she was asked not to come back to that job.

i spoke to her at the beginning of this week about her lack of productivity and the low quality of her work. i tried to brainstorm with her about ways we could fix it, but she is shy and all she ever says is "ok." her work has not improved significantly since the conversation.

my boss wants her gone. without asking me first, that boss got HR to approve her dismissal and then told me i can let her go. i can't take the responsibility of keeping her on. i'm going to propose handing her off to our office admin for duties like filing, but this will not work for her class credit and i doubt our very overworked office admin wants someone who we've deemed incompetent. she has only 5 weeks left of a 10 week internship, but we are not a big enough organization to absorb her inability to perform. this will be devastating to the intern, and i realize that an internship is not supposed to be cutthroat. she is getting class credit for this internship. sucks.

i am looking for similar experiences and/or advice. thanks.
 
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This is a shame. I haven't managed interns but for a few months I was contracted to lead a team of technical writers for a pretty big brand name. Unfortunately, they did not pay well and I tried to tell them their budget was too low for me to get anyone good, so I was stuck with some pretty shitty performers. It's kinda the same deal with interns. You get what you pay for. I've seen some great interns and some really bad ones but the good ones usually like what they are doing. Maybe she just hates what she is doing and slacks off?

I always felt terrible getting rid of people. Plagiarism was my major problem. I don't know if I did the right thing, but I was honest about it. "This is plagiarism... you went to college, so you should know this."

Some of what you said (her being shy and green) is just the cost of hiring a freshman. Lots of these people have never had a job. She will get better at it with time, but it's going to hurt her. Is it possible you're asking too much from someone so green? I don't know... just asking because most things interns do are pretty basic.

As for how to handle it, I think I would be bit soft about it but maybe be honest enough where she can take a lesson from it. She is new and maybe your work environment just isn't right for her. People thrive differently in different environments. Maybe you guys are asking too much from her. Maybe she is too green for what she is doing. Maybe she just isn't any good. But I would be honest without being too harsh. If this was some 40 year old, I'd say just be straight but this experience will probably affect her.
 
:\ Idaknow about giving a pass, but I shared "D-mail" with the dinosaurs. What do I know?

Yes. I've had interns, both good and bad. I ask nothing from them that I would not do (or have done) along my education/career path. I suffer no slackers and often poke bears.

She would not get credit for simply "showing up". Apathy is unacceptable.
 
it sucks firing people, especially college-aged people. but it's something that I've had to do and it's something that you will have to do at your company until probably the end of time (or the end of colleges)

she seems nice - and like you said, it's not so much the slacking off, but you don't think she has the mental capacity to even do the job right. I work in a large warehouse & shipping distribution center (in Sales, but I've been around long enough in this smallish business to do many things that the Boss doesn't want to - which means firing people)

it's so freaking hard to get good people. like I said before, this will be a constant issue for you. on the brighside, this is an internship, she probably isn't getting paid, right? the worst is when you have to fire broke people that count on their paycheck and they have kids and stuff. since she is an intern, go easy on her. tell her constructive criticism - without making her cry. I feel as if that last point is my major point - as she is a young woman and will probably take it hard. tell her some good things she did (hey! at least she seemed to show up on time!) and tell her some things she needs to work on. this could be a very integral part of her life - when I was her age I'm sure I didn't take tons of shit seriously!

good luck and please tell us how it goes :)
 
hydroazuanacaine said:
we are not a big enough organization to absorb her inability to perform
Click to expand...

Is she a paid intern or no? The fact that she is getting school credit makes me assume that she isn't. The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division actually specifies that an intern can only be unpaid if all of the following are true:

  • the training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction
  • the training is for the benefit of the trainees
  • the trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation
  • the employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded
  • the trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period
  • the employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training

Paid interns are a bit of a different story, but I I think that if you want someone who can walk in and within a few weeks be performing critical tasks, what you are looking for is an employee or contractor, not an intern. Interns are apprentices and should be viewed as students first and foremost, not work resources.
 
Same question that was literally just asked... is it paid or not?

If unpaid, can you give her more menial tasks that aren't really doing much just so she can complete her internship?

Paid is completely different, not sure if I have any good advice for that (sorry).

It is VERY hard to get and keep good employees. Often times we go through 300 - 500 resumes, find 15 decent ones, do 10 phone screens, hire 2 people, 1 ends up leaving. So frustrating!!!
 
I would not sack her for the simple fact, that you/your boss and your co-workers were unable to evaluate her abilities in the first week (unveil, that she likely did not write her assignment on her own) and now firing her so late would render her superiors unable to specify, which proficiencies the candidate is meant to bring to the table in the first place. Dunno the usual age of freshmen in you country, but if she is 17-20 I guess you should regulate your benchmark again.

And to the people, that write "It is so hard to find good people". If it is hard to find native speakers with above average talent in writing English you either look in the wrong places or compensate subpar.
 
i appreciate all the replies. it is a paid internship, although we are not the party paying her. we're a nonprofit and a foundation pays the interns through a program we are able to participate in.

letting her go is on my calendar for the end of the day. spoke to the phd overseeing her class credit for the internship, who told me the intern has a learning disability and it's not surprising she is not a good fit for a writing intensive position.

there was only one other candidate who showed up to their interview with a vague idea about what our organization does, and for most of the interview she talked about how her little sister struggling in school might affect her schedule. we will utilize this program with more caution next year.
 
^thanks. suggestion #1 was utilized.

i let her go back on the 19th. she told me she's just glad she got to be part of the team. sad as fuck.

she's receiving class credit for the internship, which is right. she learned a lot during her time with us. and i wrote her a letter of recommendation.
 
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i never sent the letter. my boss advised it write it, and then after she advised i not send it. the letter wasn't going to be of any use to the intern as college freshmen. the reason i took the initial suggestion and wrote it was to mitigate the blow to the intern's self-confidence. the phd overseeing the program said she would make sure the intern understood she was let go due to a mismatch in the internship program, not because she was at fault. it's over, but major fail in the "do no harm" category.
 
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