Watch Out for These 5 Internship Red Flags

Internships are a great way to do a test trial of the corporate world before deciding where you want to be and what work interests you. You may get the chance to live in a new city, try a role outside of your academics, and meet some cool people along the way.

There are tons of benefits of internships for both you and the company you’re working for, but it’s important to remember that while the company is seeing if you’d be a good fit you should also be trying to decide if the company is a good fit for you.

In a world where it’s easy to have the mindset of “I’ll take what I can get”, still note as many green and red flags as you can and think about how the place made you feel. In the event that you have multiple choices to choose from, you’ll feel confident that where you ended up is a great fit.

Interested in other career related blog posts? Read these:

1. What to Expect the First Day on the Job
2. Preparing for Career Fair: 5 Quick Tips to Make a Good Impression
3. 5 Tips for a Successful Post-Graduation Job Search: How to Land Your Dream Job (or at least a starting point)

What are some internship red flags?

Red flags are mental notes of what could be a potential dealbreaker for you at the company in the future. Everyone has different expectations of what a company should value, which means everyone will have a different set of red flags.

While companies do typically share their values on their webpages, sometimes those values can manifest in different ways in the real environment. That’s not to say that the values aren’t genuine, just that there are a million different ways to accomplish the same goal.

Most of the time when a red flag arises you’ll know right away, but in general red flags most directly relate to situations within team/company culture.

Some situations to consider:

• productivity
• critiques
• innovation
• teamwork
• personal investment

Productivity

Each individual has different needs in terms of office productivity. Are you someone who needs to be around other productive people to get things done? Is a chaotic environment good for you, or do you need silence?

Notice if you see multiple occurrences of work not getting completed on time or if you struggle with getting information from team member to get your own work done.

While everyone is busy and they likely won’t respond to your email immediately, if you’re unable to complete your work because things prior to your part in the process aren’t being completed according to the timeline, you might have a work flow problem.

Again, everything is up to preference, but if internal deadlines between team members aren’t being met, then you might be getting yourself into a situation where you constantly feel like you’re fighting fires and trying to catch up versus feeling relaxed and on top of your work.

Critiques

There are tons of different management styles and ways of delivering criticism towards someone’s work. A potential red flag could be criticism being delivered in a way that doesn’t match your personal style.

The last thing you want is to feel anxious every time you have to share progress or meet a deadline. Note how you feel after receiving feedback as well as how the feedback was delivered.

Do you feel valued despite some changes that might need to be made? Was it personal or strictly business?

Because it’s easy to misinterpret this type of communication, it might be helpful to debrief the feedback with your manager or someone else present during the feedback if you didn’t leave the conversation feeling the best.

Innovation

Do you want to be a frontrunner in a creative space, or are you okay with following behind other companies? Either answer to this question is perfectly fine, but it’s something to consider. If you feel like you’re a creative type and like to bring fresh ideas to attention you many want to work somewhere where fresh ideas are encouraged and highly considered.

Every company has innovation projects, but if you feel like your company is constantly looking towards other groups to set the foundation in a new space your creativity may become stagnant.

Teamwork

How is teamwork within the organization approached? Are people willing to spend time helping you in your efforts, or does everyone keep to themselves? Having a collaborative environment is essential to both personal and organizational growth.

In addition to considering how collaborative the environment is, you should also look for ways that the environment encourages competition between coworkers. Everyone working within the same teams should have the same goals for the company.

When the values of the company and the people working there align, there shouldn’t be a sense of toxic competition.

When someone thrives in their assignment, the company as a whole thrives and the same will be true of your personal success. If there’s an inkling that the majority of people use other’s as a stepping stone to reach the next bonus or promotion, RUN.

Personal Investment

Before we are members of Corporate America or any other title we may label ourselves as, we are people. Your own goals and aspirations and long-term fulfillment must come first.

As long as you’re able to complete the work that you’ve agreed to, all the rest of your energy should go towards living out your personal purpose.

A healthy work environment will value you beyond what you can provide for the company and will pour into you. Many companies have programs that allow you to pursue other interests or begin branching out into projects that may allow you to grow in skills you’d like to obtain.

Genuine care about the individual allows people to work on projects that actually fascinate them, and in doing this, the results will be much better. It’s not always the most time efficient way to operate, but when your place of work invests into your personal development, you’ll end up exactly where you should which benefits everyone.

Some examples of this include:

• Skills development database
• Providing Mentors
• Conferences/events
• Cross-team projects

If you ever feel like you’re giving all you can to the company without feeling valued or pushed towards a better version of yourself, then it probably isn’t the best fit for you.

It’s important to consider an internship as a long form of an interview, where you’re doing a test trial of the company to see if it’s a good fit. Everyone’s preferences for how an organization should function will vary, so take the time to think about your personal “red flags” for your potential work place. Hopefully, these red flags gave you a good place to start as you find the right fit.

Comment below some red flags you looked for when deciding if a workplace was a good fit.