Being a great intern: 12 tips from an agency perspective

Episode 64

What are employers looking for in an intern?

What will set me apart from other interns?

What’s the most important quality for an intern?

Being a great intern isn’t something that happens without effort. What a student thinks makes them a great intern, might not be the same as what agencies are looking for. Today we are talking about interns from the agency perspective. What do the supervisors want in an intern? What about the therapists, what are they looking for? What’s the best way to position yourself for a job when you graduate? This doesn’t have to be a mystery. I served as a supervisor and a director of two agencies over the last 12 years of my community mental health career. I had more than 20 interns pass through our doors from all types of programs. I got to see great interns and tried to hire all of them. I also had some interns cause havoc in my programs and even do some illegal things. It’s a wide range to be sure.

I’ve said before that being an intern is a great way to get yourself set up for a job. Either at the intern agency or with good references from that internship. Today we’ll talk about the things I feel were the best qualities in the interns I’ve worked with and hopefully give some useful perspective to what agency life is like.