Understanding The Internship Evaluation Process
At the end of the internship you will probably have a meeting with your supervisor to review your performance. Often this review will use an evaluation form. The evaluation process will be an early indication of the type of performance review you will have on a full-time job.
The review will likely consist of two major components:
- The work you accomplished
- The professionalism you displayed
The work accomplishments will be highlighted in your presentation. That’s why the presentation is so critical.
The professionalism is more subjective and in some cases more important. Here are some typical components for this part of the evaluation.
- Effective in planning, organizing assignments
- Takes the initiative to identify needs and makes proposals for resolving these
- Is a self-starter who doesn’t need a lot of guidance
- Stays busy and is not distracted by others
- Is committed to achieving results
- Works well with others at all levels of the organization
- Accepts responsibility for what needs to be done
- Achieves results by agreed upon dates
- Accepts critical feedback well
- Maintains a high energy level
- Able to adjust to non-routine activities and can deal with ambiguous situations
The professionalism part of the evaluation will be mostly new to you. You rarely get evaluated on these types of factors. The key things to be aware of is that your internship is placing you in an “adult world” where many of your college behaviors are no longer acceptable.