“We would strongly recommend Professional Pathways to other employers.”

How did hosting an intern via the Professional Pathways programme benefit you and your organisation?

We had two interns that both had different skills and interests. Despite this, they both brought strong research and analysis capabilities and willingly engaged with the project and the research we needed to complete. They undertook it with enthusiasm and identified both some immediate opportunities, but also built an approach and methodology that we can use in the long term.

Given the Professional Pathways internship is 35 hours in total, how would you recommend ensuring both you and your intern(s) gain as much as possible from the experience?

We invested time beforehand in clearly identifying the scope and objectives for the project and in discussing these with the interns. We followed this through with debrief sessions every other day so that we could flex and shape the project based on what they had identified and the lessons we were learning as the project progressed. We were also keen to give the interns the freedom to explore and find their own ways of operating. Together, these various approaches brought about an incredibly strong result for which we are very grateful.

Why would you recommend Professional Pathways to other employers?

We would strongly recommend Professional Pathways to other employers. Not only do you get a resource that can help you with a project, but you also get different perspectives, intelligent input and insight and enthusiastic people. Keep in mind the reality that it’s only 35 hours but it’s amazing what you can achieve in that time.