Intern Interviewing 101: The Best Questions You Need to Ask

March 12, 2013

The Best Intern Interview Questions to Ask

Interviewing a candidate for an internship is incredibly different from interviewing for a full-time role on the team. Since intern candidates are generally current students with little to no professional experience, it’s not always reasonable to expect them to know how to interview or to have polished skills.
You can’t ask them questions about their experience working with Salesforce, for example, or their past interactions with customers, because they probably don’t have any. Instead, you should be looking for examples of leadership and work ethic from their schoolwork and part-time positions. Ask the open-ended questions that will get them talking and be careful not to cut them off.
Here are a few questions to get you started:

Ice breakers: Help Interns Get Comfortable Talking about Themselves

  • What are you studying in school and why did you choose that major?
  • Why do you want to work for our company?
  • What do you hope to gain from this experience?
  • Where do you want to be in 10 years?
  • Tell me about your professional interests.
  • Tell me about your personal interests.

Assess Their Leadership

  • Are you involved in any extracurricular activities? If so, why did you choose those activities? What role do you play in the group/team?
  • Tell me about a time that you worked in a team — how did that team function and what was your role?
  • Explain a challenge you have had to overcome — how did you do it?
  • Tell me about a time that you improved on an established way of doing something.

Gauge Their Work Ethic and Organization

  • Give me an example of when you have done more than what was required in a course.
  • Tell me about a time you had a particularly heavy course load — how did you manage your time?
  • How have you balanced your time between your academic work and your extracurricular activities?
  • What goals have you set for yourself for this year and the next few years? How are you ensuring that you stay on track to meet those goals?

At the end of the interview, be sure to answer any questions prospective interns may have about the firm and the role they will be playing within the team.
Interviewing an intern candidate should be focused more on whether they will be a culture fit and align with the company’s mission and vision. You should hire the intern who will fit in with the team and provide them the skills they will need to succeed.

What are the most important qualities you look for in an intern?

Senior Talent Manager, Engineering

<strong>Meghan Maher</strong> is Senior Talent Manager, Engineering, actively recruiting top talent for OpenView and its Portfolio Companies. Her tech background has helped OpenView hire for nearly 20 IT and engineering positions. Meghan began her career at AVID Technical Resources, where she was a Technical Recruiter for two years.