User Name

Opps, first error. By "American summer interns" I mean any potential summer intern with work authorization in the USA, basically any student mechanical engineer in the local engineering schools who wants a summer internship.

We are at the start of a process for hiring at least one summer intern (mechanical engineer) with AutoCAD or TuboCAD drawing experience. So it's a technical short term hire, though I would like to see them carry on working with us, even if in a part-time capacity. Anyone done this? Pitfalls? I would like somebody with strong drawings skills, if they can speak more than one language that would be a bonus, but drawing skills are a must.


Some questions/issues as I see them:

(1) I really don't like disappointing young people, but we will be interviewing more than we can hire. How do I let a young person know that I don't want to hire them without hurting their feelings? What's a sound way of doing this?

(2) Smoking, I don't want to hire a smoker, is it OK for me to ask if they smoke cigarettes?

(3) Work authorization - what am I supposed to do about checking that?

(4) Can I ask them to do technical work and mundane office tasks? What if I hire them and they shy away from doing such tasks?

etc.

Hiro11

We have an internship program at my work, here's my two cents.
Dn't worry too much about this. As internships benefit the intern as much as your company, they need you as much as you need them. Just be frank (and not Judy). Also, they're probably applying for many, many internships anyway.

I believe it's against equal opportunity employment law to ask this question or not hire someone because they smoke. I could be wrong though. Tred lightly in asking these types of questions (age, marrital status etc). I just stay away from them when I interview candidates.

Surely the application form covers this?

Just be upfront about expectations. Honesty works best here and it would be worse to emphasize only the technical part of the job and not mention the stapling.

Bob

1- Just don't respond, seems to be the OP around here...

2- Your the lawyer *lol*

3- I-9

4- Stick it in the job description, if they don't like it, someone else will, there an intern, there meant to do everything shite bar licking your boots clean in the morning.

http://www.coroflot.com/ to post and find design type people...if you weren't so far away, and I didn't hate being a CAD monkey, I might have been interested *lol*

User Name

Cheers Bob and Hiro11, I think it is OK to ask about smoking (I just don't know if it would cause offense). I just can't stand being near a smoker and from experience know they love to take off to have a quiet cigarette.

As to (4), yes, they should be OK with doing the mundane stuff alongside the more technical stuff. Bob, yeah, if you were local I would certainly considered you for CAD drawings.

I have AutoCAD contractors, but it is becoming annoying that I can't fix corrections or numbering like yesterday. It has become a log jam, but we are in that situation where we don't know if the level of incoming work is going to keep on coming. If it does, we need a full time AutoCAD guy, we are shelling out a lot of money on AutoCAD drawings and I rather it was done in-house, would be a lot faster and more convenient.

So for now, will use a top-end mechanical engineering student based out of a local engineering school. One student looks very promising, has AutoCAD experience and did patent searching for a local law firm. I don't care how old they are, they have got to be able to draw and do some paperwork around the office, and I would like them to learn how to prepare certain legal documents (under supervision).

Both of you offer sound advice about point (4), I will check our adverts (put up at the local universities) to make sure they summarize what the internship will entail, failing that I/we will email the candidates a fuller job description, if required.

Bob

The first one, well I know it's a state thing, but some states say that if your on a computer, you've got to be allowed to take either a 5 min break every hour, or a 15 min every 3 hours whether you smoke or not...

As to uni, chances are they have a careers, industrial liason person, email them, and they could batch email around campus for you passing on the details, will be a lot easier.

User Name

Those breaks are fine ... I guess they would get 1 hour break from 12-1PM and a lot of coffee (or tea) breaks ... in the kitchen. I often walk around the outside of the building to stretch my legs, so I can't see myself telling them off for leaving their computer every 30 mins or so. So long as they get the tasks done I will be happy with that.

User Name

Well, I picked our summer intern today! Senior at college doing mechanical engineering. He speaks fluent English and Spanish. We will probably hire a second summer intern. Our second choice is a junior at the same university doing the same degree, he seems very willing to please and his eyes lit up when I told him he did well in our 3D AutoCAD test. I think we will also hire our second choice. We gave our prospective interns a four hour exam, but it was informal - they had two drafting projects and had to show they could use the latest version of AutoCAD.

When they don't have a drawing project, they will do some office work. They are going to get a lot of experience during their summer internship and one of them says he would also like to work part time for us after the summer. Hard working and very capable young adults. They are at the beginning of their professional careers, it's very pleasing to help them and am sure they will make an important contribution to our firm.

Bob

That's very cool...good luck with them