Are you interested in applying for an internship at BizStream, or are you looking for inspiration to develop your own successful program?
Regardless of your needs, I think you’ll find some valuable insights here to help you either take part in or run your own internship program. Today, I’m excited to share the ins and outs of the internship process here at BizStream.
My goal is to give you a peek into the inner workings of our tried and true process for hiring and working alongside interns. If you’re considering applying for one of our internship positions, I hope to provide all the preparation you need to make that decision with confidence. We’ve learned a lot over the years, and I hope our experiences can help you avoid some of the pitfalls we’ve encountered.
It’s very important that we discuss what an intern is and is not at BizStream.
An intern is not:
An intern is:
There are a lot of internships out there. We get it. It can be overwhelming to sift through thousands of opportunities only to find a job listing at a “respectable company” where you’ll be stuck doing grunt work for the next 90 days. You end up walking out, having learned nothing except how to efficiently place orders at Starbucks. Been there. No thanks.
At BizStream, we believe it’s our responsibility to lead and foster growth in the next generation—the future builders of cool things that make a worldly impact. That’s why landing an internship here is so challenging. We have incredibly high standards and expectations. But don’t let that discourage you. You’ve read this far, so why not keep going?
The first thing we ask is for anyone interested in applying for our internship program to go to bizstream.com/careers/internships. From that page, scroll to the bottom and see if there is an open position for an internship within your line of profession. As of writing this, we have one developer internship slot currently open. If you select “Learn More” you will be taken to a detail page describing the internship position. If you want to apply, simply select “Apply to Position”.
We also have an “Internship Availability” graphic on that page which can help those seeking a specific date/time for their internship to know if we have any availability.
Once the internship form has been submitted and the candidate has uploaded the typical requests (resume, portfolio link, LinkedIn) via our form, our team gathers the applications and does a first-round vetting.
This first round of vetting is to check for things like:
If a potential candidate passes the initial vetting phase, we move on to the phone interview, typically a 30-minute conversation. The goal is to get the individual relaxed and talking about their passions. We want to know what they hope to gain from this internship and assess whether BizStream is the right place for them to achieve those goals.
Note: It is crucial that expectations are set and as clear and concise as possible. Make sure you have a clear understanding of the duration, timeline, compensation, and any other school-related requirements (if any).
If the candidate makes it past the phone interview, that’s when the real fun begins. Specific to our development interns, our team has crafted a unique and engaging set of tests using coderpad.io to give us a baseline of the applicant’s skill set. This forms the foundation for how we craft their experience at BizStream. Not to worry, though! The whole test takes roughly 2–4 hours, depending on experience level.
I mentioned above that our internships are a notch above the rest. We don’t hire on grunts. We hire passionate individuals who want to gain a high level of experience from industry professionals. I know it sounds cliche, but you would not believe how many places get this wrong.
Before I get into the details, it’s important to understand that no two internships are identical. We offer marketing, design, and development internship positions, and each intern comes with a certain level of experience, which dictates how far down the path they will travel.
On day one, our interns get a crash course in the “Life at BizStream” and a team lunch to get to know their team members. We then assign each intern a mentor for the duration of their internship. Our goal is to ensure our interns are never forgotten and feel fully integrated into our teams. They attend all of our team standups, are reviewed by their peers as an operating member of the team, and are required to show up within our designated work times.
We curate an internship experience to be unique to the individual. For example, our most recent intern was a developer on Team Tangerine. Her first 30 days included a lot of reading from some of our favorite books (Add links to starting books), as well as solutioning, architecting, and building out her own personal project.
If the individual crushes their personal project, their mentor may decide to transition them into working on a BizStream internal project. These projects are designed to bring significant ROI to the greater BizStream team. For a developer internship, it could be an application that automates building out SOWs, a better tracking system for our daily goals, or even a potential product we plan to ship. For marketing, maybe it’s a re-design of one of our existing websites or updating content in our space to bring it up to brand. Regardless, it’s a tremendous opportunity.
Certain interns may even get a chance to move into billable client work. This is where the rubber meets the road in terms of skill set and actual application; dealing with real-world requirements and deadlines.
At the end of the 90 days, we review the intern’s time with us via 360 feedback. Our team spends at least an hour doing a deep dive into their work output and overall experience. And let’s not forget, we send them off with a fun social hour/mixer.
We have spent years crafting our internship process into what we believe is a valuable opportunity for anyone who is trying to break into our industry. It’s challenging and at times can be a bit of a push out of their comfort zone. However, our unique approach to how we so intricately weave these candidates into our BizStream family is what makes BizStream such a unique place to work.
We offer internships in many fields, including web development, creative design, and marketing. To learn more about our internship program, check out our internship page to see what opportunities are available.
Check out more of our internship-related blog posts: Fostering Growth and Nurturing Potential: Welcoming Our Five Newest Interns! and 4 Tips for Maximizing Your Internship Experience.
We love to make cool things with cool people. Have a project you’d like to collaborate on? Let’s chat!
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