Work from home internship or also known as a virtual internship is becoming more and more popular amongst the students. Although being an intern online has a lot of benefits, can be very tricky and misses the whole point of being an intern.
Why work from home internships are not good? The whole point of having an internship is to get a feel of the corporate culture, of how the company handles all the crisis during the day. With work from home internship, the intern is unable to experience life in professional surroundings and to have proper supervision and guidance.
Work from home internship is just like any regular internship – a great way to improve your career and give it a push, except the interns, gain their experience while working from home remotely, and not by being present in the office of the company they have their internship in.
More and more companies are accepting this trend of work from home internships, due to the improving digital technology, and a large pool of applicants but still this kind of internship is only limited to few IT industries that don’t require physical presence.
Also, there are a lot of companies who are recruiting their interns so they can be co-located with the teams they are working with. Usually, the company’s goal is to help the interns have an immersive, true learning experience and get a sense of what will look like if they have a career there.
If you are working from a home intern, you miss the opportunity to get real guidance by asking questions directly. Even though the work from home interns communicate with their supervisors through different online means of communication (emails, instant messaging, video chats, conference calls, phone calls, etc.), it still is very different from sitting down for a face to face conversation.
8 Drawbacks of Work from Home Internships
- Lack of structure, training, and support,
- Missing the office experience
- There is no networking
- Asking for help and being patient
- Don’t overwhelm yourself with work
- Lack of teamwork
- Distractions
- Organizational skills
The internship can become an ineffective learning experience if you are enabled to make connections or build a different set of skills that will help you when you get a real job. The work from home internships just like any other opportunity has positives and negatives. I will explain the drawbacks of work from home internships:
Lack of structure, training, and support
Work from home internship is not providing the needed elements so it can be considered like an internship. The interns are not getting structured supervision, support, there is little to no training and guidance from the employer, which of course depends on the employer.
If the employer is willing to dedicate their time to the intern’s needs to learn and be more productive, they will give their guidance and direction, no matter the time or place. However, it is a bit difficult for the employer to remember their intern’s schedule when he or she is not following them around every day.
Missing the office experience
Being an intern in an office environment you get to learn a lot from your colleagues. You will learn about the successful work behaviors such as the corporate culture and office etiquette, you will get a feel of what is the working process and how the work is being done.
While being an intern from home means that you will miss out on the work atmosphere in the office and you won’t be able to get to know your coworkers and be friends with them. Even though you will be communicating daily with your coworkers over the phone, you won’t be able to show them a funny video that you saw the day before or ask them how was their weekend, since everything that you will talk on the phone will be about work.
There is no networking
Being an intern also means that you make a lot of meaningful connections. All the people around you in the office are set to fulfill similar goals and have a similar interest in their careers.
When you are work from home intern, you don’t get to meet people physically or be a part of different gatherings, office parties, celebrations, etc., and therefore you are missing out all the networking that is happening. Being a part of a company has its own benefits, which will be missed out by work from home internship.
Asking for help and being patient
Having an internship is for a reason – you need to learn, and you don’t have to be an intern superhero and expected to know everything. Just starting in an unfamiliar environment can be stressful for the first few weeks.
When you are not on the site, it might be even more uncomfortable to ask for help when you need some assistance with your task. You will have to spend a lot of time on the phone to get clarification regarding your questions. Your supervisor will probably have a lot of other things on their plate, besides responding to your emails or calls.
Online communicating sometimes can be very difficult, since you can’t see when your boss is busy, and they will not respond right away. You will have to be flexible and patient when there is a delay in doing your tasks.
On the other hand, being in an office means that you have professionals around you, that can provide you with guidance and first-hand experience at every moment.
Don’t overwhelm yourself with work
When you are work from home intern, there might be no end-time of your day, you might want to take on more tasks and overwhelm yourself. Even do your supervisors know that you are having classes and extra activities, they might not have a full grasp of what you are trying to balance since they are not seeing you every day.
Even if you are working in an office, tell your supervisors when you are feeling overwhelmed, and take on as much as you can handle. They will probably prefer quality over quantity.
Lack of teamwork
Most importantly you will miss out the whole essence of “teamwork”. Although the work will be done as a team, you’ll still be a virtual part of it. They will expect to receive your share of the work on time, but you’ll be still working individually from your home, without being in touch with the other office employees or know any of the company’s strategies. You’ll end up being more of an outside contractor, than an employee.
Distractions
Work from home internship is surrounded will all kinds of distractions, whether you’d like to go out and join your friends, or having a 5-minute break on Instagram or Facebook, that will turn out to be an hour break.
These distractions are proving to be very difficult, because there is no one around you to bring you back on track, and you might keep pushing your work until your deadline arrives. Of course, all the rush will surely affect the quality of your work.
In an office, everyone around you is working and you have designated breaks, so you won’t feel like you are missing on doing something interesting at that moment.
Organizational skills
Working from home internship is requiring exceptional organizational skills and the ability for self-motivation. If you are a person that is not very comfortable working independently but prefers working with others, then this type of internship might turn up to be counter-productive.
On the other side, this kind of internship might help you in developing the needed skills for working independently. Either way, as an intern, the pressure on you will be less than on the other employees, so there is space for mistakes and learning along the way.
Which fields offer work from home internships?
There are few fields that are more likely to offer work from home internships:
- IT departments – software development, graphic design, etc.;
- Social media marketing and search engine optimization (SEO);
- Freelance researching and writing (blogging);
- Sales;
- Creating videos and editing;
- Journalism and etc.
Of course, there are other fields that can offer work from home internships, although in the fields like social sciences, physical interacting is the main feature of the job, so you can’t develop your overall customer service skills only using email or video chats.
How long should you stay at any kind of internship?
Usually, the companies want to prolong the stay of the interns, since they have a workforce that is doing their job without paying a lot, but three months should be enough for staying in one company. If you have an internship that is unpaid or is paying for the expenses only, don’t extend it unless they start paying you a proper wage.
Should the interns be paid?
Most of the interns that are working for companies who make a profit, should be paid for at least the minimum wage plus any overtime hours. Paid interns are actually temporary employees and protected by the labor law. There are few cases in which can be employed unpaid interns.