The tale of an internship in a small company or how Kontur and I competed [Part I]

This year, for the third time, I will be a mentor on the contour summer internship, but I got my first experience in internships in a small company before Contour. Now, almost four years later, I want to share this experience and draw some parallels with the internship in a large company. I hope, having read this text, you also decide to organize an internship. I would be glad if my experience will help you with this!

Under the cut, the first part of the story, from which you will learn why we decided to conduct our small internship, as we saw it and planned. For each item I will try to give comparative examples, how to answer similar questions in the Contour, somewhere we were limited in resources, in some ways we lacked experience, and for some stages of the internship our approaches coincided.

In the second part I will talk about how everything turned out in reality, what conclusions we made and what we learned. Here is a continuation of the article.

Prehistory

The beginning of 2013. In a small company, they assemble a team to develop their Java startup project. By spring, a team of five programmers is ready for a “full day” and three more programmers for part-time. All developers are from Ekaterinburg.
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Why internship

Active development started essentially in March. The management made ambitious plans, so it was necessary to increase the staff. There were many interesting tasks at the start of the project, but the team could not be quickly expanded:

• due to the uncertainty of the company it was difficult to attract experienced professionals;
• we followed the fullstack development approach, which raised the input threshold;
• we had client code on TypeScript 0.8, which is just gaining popularity;
• The main client framework was chosen then completely undistributed Angulyar.

By the end of April, it became obvious that we did not have enough resources to advance in accordance with the plan, and at that moment a bright thought came to our heads: if we cannot find ready-made specialists, we will prepare them ourselves! So we decided to conduct our own internship campaign.

And how in a big company:

While for a small company, an internship is a challenge, for a large one, a well-established mechanism that is set in motion by a dedicated team aimed at attracting interns, organizing the learning process and adapting to the company.

Plan

In the first approximation, it may seem that the plan should be like this:

1. Find students.
2. Teach them to our stack technologies.
3. Profit!

However, during the discussion in Skype, various questions arose that were to be thought about:

1. Who will be a mentor?
2. How many trainees will we take?
3. Who are we looking for?
4. Where are we going to look?
5. How are we going to look?
6. How will we select for an internship?
7. What will we learn?
8. How are we going to learn?
9. What are we going to teach?
10. How to understand that the internship is passed?
11. What if the internship is not passed?
12. What tasks to give after the internship?

And how in a big company:

Most of the above questions need to be answered by a large company, the difference will be in the answers and the appearance of new questions that small companies do not face. We will analyze further in detail.

1. Who wanted to become a mentor

Since the idea of ​​organizing an internship originally belonged to me, for the most part I had to take the rap. I had two colleagues with me, as much as I was interested in new specialists, so we had to train in addition to the main work.

And how in a big company:

The choice of mentors is greater, the teams are wider, and there are many of them, so it is easier to reallocate tasks and take time to train new people. The principle of making a decision about mentoring is the same: each mentor and team themselves decide whether to involve trainees. My team has the principle of continuity, when last year's interns help newcomers and supervise their work: when you yourself have completed an internship, you know better than anyone what help and advice the intern will need. I believe that this practice is followed in other teams.

2. How many interns we wanted to take

Since there were three mentors, the interns were supposed to take from three to six. More than two interns per mentor, we would not have mastered.

And how in a big company:

In the Contour, it is empirically established that a mentor cannot physically pull more than two trainees. Or he should devote all his time to them.

3. Who we wanted to look for

Since the main task for us was to prepare cadres here and now, it was decided to hold an internship for senior students and graduates so that after successfully completing the internship they would become full members of the team. Senior courses - past the equator, 3+ course.

And how in a big company:

Some teams are ready to take students only for the summer, so there is an opportunity to recruit both undergraduates who will most likely remain on a permanent job, as well as first and second year students. This approach allows you to work not only to attract juniors, but also for the long term (3-4 years), when younger students will grow up and return to the company juniors. The experience of the Contour shows that all those we want to return are returned.

4. Where we wanted to look

We had to close the positions of the developers, so the choice fell on local universities, where mathematics and computer science are taught at the faculties: first of all, the Ural State University's Department of Mathematics and Mechanics and the UGTU-UPI Department of Radio Engineering.

And how in a big company:

The number of required students is growing every year by about a third for each IT company, and universities do not have time to prepare students at the same rate. It is necessary not only to work with local children, but also to go to other cities and regions, to invite students from there, which causes additional difficulties.

5. How we wanted to search

We chose the following channels to attract interns:

• Personal connections
• Announcements in VK in groups of faculties
• Announcements on USU Matter
• Ads on job search sites
• Announcements through USMAT teachers
• Announcement on UGTU-UPI RTF

And how in a big company:

In addition to these more or less standardized advertising channels, Contour holds a huge number of activities for students in order to pre-train and increase the loyalty of participating students. For example, industrial design schools: ShpoPa and Kampus . Three years ago Pavel xoposhiy Egorov, Exit Programming School , wrote about one of such events.

6. How we wanted to select

We were ready to begin collecting applications from the second half of May. It was planned to finish this stage in a month, shortly before the end of the session, in order to have time to conduct interviews and start from the beginning of July.

Algorithm of work with the application:

1. The application is sent to the mail to our HR.
2. HR contacts the candidate by phone and asks him questions from a previously prepared list, the answers to which are written by the humanities (this is important) without loss.
3. The results of the survey are recorded in the Google-plate.

I’ll stop here and give a list of questions:

1. Ratings for JavaScript, Perl, OOP, LDP and the like.
2. What principles of OOP do you know?
3. What principles of von Neumann do you know?
4. What LAN topologies do you know?
5. What is the average computational complexity of the bubble sorting algorithm and the quick-sort sorting algorithm?

On the first question, the arithmetic mean value was taken (if offset, it was equal to 5). For the rest of the issues, each item named gave another point.


Thus, the maximum possible score was 20 points, correctly answering all questions. The conditional minimum passing score was chosen to be 12.


The next stage was to have an in-person interview with the team leader and three future mentors.

And how in a big company:

In a large company, as a rule, the flow of applications is much larger, and the main problem is to eliminate all unsuitable candidates at the first stage. To do this, use the test assignment that precedes all the qualifying stages: introductory technical course, interview with HR and future mentor. For example, in 2017, test cases look like this: back-end , front-end .

7. What we wanted to teach

Ideally, we would like to talk about the features of our stack and application architecture, but we understood that everything will not be so simple:

• First, we did not know what technical level our trainees would have.
• Secondly, we did not know that they would be familiar with the tools we used.

We knew absolutely nothing about our future interns, so we were not ready to answer this question.

And how in a big company:

For those participants of the internship who did not pass through any of the preparatory activities, a special Creshcourse was organized - preparation before working in the company.

Creshcourt allows you to tighten all internship participants to a single level, to teach the main features and rules of writing code in the company, to introduce the technologies and rules adopted in the development.

8. How we wanted to teach

It was supposed to break all the training (the plan of which was not yet) into topics, sort them out between the mentors and read in the form of an accelerated theoretical course, combined with a number of practical tasks (this is in the second part) . Each of the interns could freely ask for help from any of the mentors.

And how in a big company:

Taking into account the fact that a lot of preparatory work is being done in relation to the interns, after a little introductory work, they can be immediately immersed in practical tasks - all the nuances and additional technologies of the projects are rapidly being studied on the ground. Thus, the summer months are used with maximum efficiency.

Another of the features of a large company: it is important that trainees like the corporate culture, build connections and interact with each other. For this purpose, several events are held, the most interesting of which is a conference where they tell other guys and colleagues about their work.

9. What we wanted to teach

When you are a small company, the issue of iron (more precisely, its absence) can get up very sharply. During the internship period we had four possible options:

1. Iron as a central server with thin clients
2. Own mobile interns trainees
3. Flimsy systemists
4. Shaky laptops

The first option was much more expensive than the others and difficult to maintain. The second was good because it would be easier to start an internship on your familiar gland, but it could not be for everyone. Thus, of the possible options remained two flimsy. As a result, we stopped at the last one so that the trainees could continue to study outside the office.

And how in a big company:

In the Contour, each intern has his own workplace - a full-fledged, like a new employee.

10. As we have seen a successful internship.

For us, the criteria for success were the following trainee achievements:

• Solves practical problems
• Growing independence
• The complexity of the questions asked is increasing.
• Joined the team
• Interested in project
• Knows what he will do tomorrow

And how in a big company:

Here, perhaps, the least difference. The set of points is the same, the only thing is, for each mentor or team, the importance of these points relative to each other may vary, but the essence remains the same.

11. What would we do if the internship failed

We didn’t want so much to admit that we didn’t answer this question. But to be completely honest, we did not know how to part properly.

And how in a big company:

The main thing in this situation is to part with the intern on a positive note so that there is no unpleasant residue. The reasons for parting can be very different: he did not get along with the team for personal qualities, lack of knowledge and others.

In a small company, the issue of parting should be solved by a mentor, whereas in a large company they will help give the right feedback and not leave unresolved issues. For example, in the case when an intern does not have enough knowledge - it is important to give him an incentive and motivation for development, to show directions for growth.

12. What tasks we wanted to give after the internship

Each mentor was ready to take on his help one juna and share tasks with him. Where to put the rest - we did not know yet (I remind you that at that time we didn’t have any interns yet) . It is important to understand that students with the beginning of the school year can return to school and are unlikely to be able to work more than 3/5 of the "rate".

And how in a big company:

Usually in projects there is so much work that such a question simply does not arise. But, if for some reason the trainee did not find any tasks in the team where he was interning, he can move to another: this allows you to save the employee and find a place for him.

Present plan

Having answered most of the questions, by mid-May we received such a plan:

1. Preparing text ads for search.
2. We run ads on all selected channels.
3. A little wait.
4. HR conducts telephone interviews.
5. In mid-June, we conduct face-to-face interviews.
6. Based on the results of the interview, we select 3-6 trainees (ideally 5-6).
7. We develop a plan of lectures, taking into account the technical level of interns.
8. We come up with practical tasks for each topic.
9. By the beginning of the internship on July 1, we are preparing laptops for beginners (we were doubly lucky, since July 1 was on Monday).
10. We are launching a two-month internship.
11. We follow the progress of the interns.
12. If necessary, we analyze some topics in more detail.
13. In early September, sum up the internship and make appointments to the team.

Instead of conclusion

I’ll save the conclusions of our internship for the second part, where I’ll show practical results.

However, I note that four years ago we realized it was a bit late about the internship - the process started only in May. Do not repeat our mistakes! For comparison: the summer internship in Contour also starts from July 1, selection starts from February 1, and preparation for it begins from November of the previous year. On the other hand, we did not have a choice then - the decision to conduct an internship was desperate, spontaneous, but the result was more valuable for us.

UPD: the second part of the article is published - Tale of a small internship in a small company [Part II] .