Most interns dread a stereotypical experience of fetching coffee and making copies.
Not only are these tasks unhelpful in terms of professional development, they'll also leave your interns disengaged and unmotivated.
Your event planning internship program should leave a lasting impression on your participants, play to the strengths of those involved, and maximize productivity in your workplace.
This piece will help your event planning business or event team identify and utilize the strengths of your interns. Once you do that, you'll be able to assign necessary tasks to the right intern to ensure maximum efficacy and benefit your business.
Find the strengths of your interns
Your interns have arrived, but are they ready to start working? Too often, many companies give their interns general tasks without much consideration for their interests and strengths. This approach can lead to lower productivity for your business, and decrease morale for your intern class.
Instead, find out what your interns' strengths and weaknesses are, and assign tasks accordingly. Some interns have a strength for data entry/spreadsheets, some are socially inclined, and others are creatively inclined.
Upon arrival, use a Strengthsfinder test to identify your interns' interests, strengths, and weaknesses. Why are there here? Why did they take this particular internship with your event planning team or business?
Once you understand all that, you can roll right into assigning each tasks that will maximize their efficiency.
Maximize the use of your interns with these five tasks
The following tasks will give your interns useful skills to carry with them after their internship ends, while maximizing the productivity of your intern class for your event planning business or team.
1. Posting on social media
Social media outreach while event planning is invaluable.
A consistent posting strategy and execution are necessary to maintain and/or grow attendee numbers. While most young adults bring extensive social media experience to the table, they're often not ready to manage an entire social strategy.
This doesn't mean that they can't help you execute your existing strategy, however. Interns can post links and other materials about your events to your accounts (registration links, video advertisements, blog posts, etc.), live tweet during events, and schedule future posts.
Make sure you have clear brand guidelines in place for your interns to follow. Check out Shift Communications' social media policy guidelines while drafting your own.
2. Manning the event
What better way for your interns to learn what it takes to run an event than working the event itself? Have your interns assist at various event tables (registration, VIP areas, etc.), walk the event floor to give directions and pass out event information, and help with event setup.
Different event tasks require different skill sets, and this is a perfect opportunity to play to your interns' identified strengths. Here are a few ideas for intern placement if your business/event team has multiple interns:
Detail/data oriented interns: well-suited for registration tables.
Socially inclined interns: well-suited for walking the event floor and providing direction.
Artistically inclined interns: well-suited for event setup and decoration.
It's important to train your interns on the ins and outs of your event, any software they'll use (including registration software, check-in tools, and event apps), and run them through the most likely questions they'll get from attendees. And don't forget stress to your interns the importance of asking seasoned employees for help.
During the event, your regular event staff should perform routine check-ups on your interns to make sure things are running smoothly. No matter how skilled they are, most interns lack the experience of seasoned employees and need to be guided through the process.
3. Writing event blog posts and other basic content
Not all young people are suited for this task. Writing is best suited for creative interns who can provide plenty of easily digestible content that will help your blog attract followers and your event attract more attendees.
Here are a few sample blog topics for your interns:
Top XX Reasons to Attend XX Event
XX Lessons You Can Learn from Our Event
Top XX Speakers at Previous XX Events
Give your interns some creative freedom in writing blog posts, but don't let them run wild. Clearly stipulate the blog focus, and state your goals for their content. The best way to do this is to by providing a style guide that lists out your expectations for each blog post.
Additional resources:
4. Compiling data from post event surveys
This task is well-suited for data savvy interns who love spreadsheets and are more likely to think with the left side of their brain. Compiling data doesn't require much guidance outside of explaining the system and letting your intern run with it.
Have your intern enter data and convert it into charts in Excel, or write up reports based on your data. As with any intern task, one of your team members should regularly check your intern's work. Remember that an internship is a learning experience, and that not every moment will be a productivity booster.
If your data intern has the interest but not the know-how when it comes to working with large quantities of data in spreadsheets, schedule an initial training session and give them a few guides to refer back to.
5. Putting together "swag" kits for event attendees
Putting swag kits together is a perfect task for interns. They can gather up the t-shirts, notepads, and branded phone chargers while you're making sure all the moving pieces of the event are coming together.
Before passing off this task, make a checklist of all the items that go in each bag for your intern. This is a fairly simple task that you can assign to pretty much any intern, and you'll be glad you passed it off as the event looms closer!
Additional Capterra resources: