Hiring an intern can give a business extra support on a project, introduce new skills to the team and help identify potential future employees. But a remote internship needs more planning than sending a new person a list of tasks and inviting them to a weekly video call.
Without regular contact, clear responsibilities and someone willing to provide guidance, interns can struggle to understand how their work fits into the business. Managers may also spend more time correcting mistakes than expected.
For small businesses and startups, the answer is not necessarily a large, formal internship scheme. A focused program built around a real business need, a defined learning plan and regular feedback can be a practical starting point.
Here is how employers can set one up.
Start With a Business Need, Not a Job Title
Before advertising an internship, decide what the business needs help with and whether an intern is the right person to provide it.
A marketing team might need help researching competitors, organizing campaign data or preparing a content calendar. A software company might have a contained testing project. An operations team could use support documenting internal processes.
These tasks can give an intern useful experience while producing something the company can actually use.
The University of Washington’s guide to creating internships recommends identifying a meaningful project, setting clear objectives and assigning a manager who has time to support the intern’s development.
That last point matters. A project that looks straightforward on paper may require considerable explanation, review and correction. If nobody on the team can provide that support, the company may not be ready to bring an intern on board.
Employers should also distinguish between work that helps someone learn and routine responsibilities that simply need another pair of hands. An internship should have a clear educational purpose, not just fill a staffing gap.
Design the Internship Around a Specific Project
A useful internship has a defined beginning, end and set of responsibilities. The intern should understand what they are expected to learn and accomplish before the placement ends.
Instead of advertising a general marketing internship, for example, a business could offer a 10-week placement focused on researching a target market, preparing a content plan and measuring the results of a small campaign.
A project brief should cover:
- The objective: What business problem will the intern work on?
- The deliverables: What should they complete by the end of the internship?
- The learning goals: Which skills or areas of knowledge should they develop?
- The timeline: When will the project start, and what are the main milestones?
- The support: Who will answer questions, review work and provide feedback?
The exact duration depends on the project and the intern’s circumstances. A shorter placement can work for a tightly defined assignment, while a more complex project may require several months.
The important thing is to set realistic expectations before recruitment begins. Employers should not promise an experience built around learning and then fill the schedule with unrelated administrative tasks.
Choose a Manager Before Recruiting an Intern
One of the most important decisions is who will supervise the intern.
In a small business, that person may be the founder, a department manager or an experienced employee. They do not necessarily need to spend hours in meetings every day, but they must have time to explain assignments, answer questions and review progress.
Remote interns cannot rely on the informal guidance that often happens in an office. They may not know when it is appropriate to interrupt a colleague, where to find a document or whether they should keep working when instructions are unclear.
The University of Washington’s guidance on remote internships recommends creating a work plan with specific goals, defining the scope of assignments and establishing regular check-ins.
For employers, that means deciding on a few practical arrangements before the first day:
- Schedule a regular one-to-one meeting with the intern.
- Explain how to ask questions and flag problems.
- Identify the person who can provide backup when the supervisor is unavailable.
- Agree on how work will be submitted and reviewed.
- Make sure the intern knows which decisions they can make independently.
A supervisor who is unavailable most of the week is unlikely to provide a good internship experience, even if the project itself is worthwhile.
Make Remote Onboarding More Deliberate
A new intern should not have to piece together the company’s working practices from old messages and scattered documents.
Before the start date, prepare the equipment, software access and basic information they will need. This might include a company overview, a team directory, communication guidelines, task instructions and examples of completed work.
A short orientation should explain how the company operates, how decisions are made and where the intern’s project fits into the wider business.
Employers should also establish expectations around working hours, time zones, availability and communication. If the team operates across several countries, agree on a reasonable window for live discussions rather than expecting everyone to be available throughout the day.
Documentation is especially useful when the intern and supervisor do not work at the same time. Written instructions let interns keep working on familiar tasks without waiting for a reply, while reducing repeated explanations for managers.
The aim is not to document every possible situation. It is to give the intern enough information to get started and a clear route to help when something is unfamiliar.
Give Interns Meaningful Work, With Room to Learn
An internship should contribute to the business, but the intern also needs opportunities to develop skills.
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) includes meaningful assignments among its recommendations for effective internship programs. Its best-practice guidance emphasizes work that is relevant to the intern’s field, challenging enough to support development and valuable to the organization.
That does not mean handing an inexperienced person a high-stakes project and expecting them to manage it alone.
Start with a manageable assignment, explain what good work looks like and review an early version before the intern invests too much time. As their understanding grows, give them more responsibility.
For example, a content intern might begin by researching sources and organizing material. After receiving feedback, they could prepare a first draft, suggest improvements and eventually manage a clearly defined piece of content with less supervision.
The same principle applies in other departments: explain the reasoning behind a task, not just the steps required to complete it.
Employers should also avoid assigning interns work that requires access to confidential information or systems they do not need. Provide the permissions necessary for the project and explain how company and customer information must be handled.
Help Remote Interns Become Part of the Team
A remote intern can complete assigned work without ever feeling connected to the people behind it. That makes it harder to ask questions, understand informal expectations or see how different departments work together.
Employers can address this without filling the calendar with video calls.
Invite interns to relevant team meetings, introduce them to colleagues they will work with and explain how their project affects other people. Arrange occasional conversations with employees outside their immediate team when those discussions would help them understand the business.
NACE’s internship research also highlights the importance of workplace connections. In its analysis of factors linked to intern-to-full-time conversion, 81.6% of respondents in the Class of 2024 graduating-student survey said they felt a sense of belonging at their internship employer, while 85.1% reported receiving enough supervisory support.
These findings describe students’ reported experiences; they do not establish that remote internships will produce the same results. They do, however, show why support and a sense of connection deserve attention when designing an internship.
A simple introduction to the team, regular opportunities to ask questions, and a manager who follows through can make a meaningful difference.
Set Up Feedback Before Problems Appear
If an intern receives feedback only at the end of a placement, there may be little time left to act on it.
Agree on a review schedule at the beginning. For a short internship, a weekly check-in and a midpoint review may be enough. Longer placements may need more formal progress discussions.
Feedback should cover both the work and the learning process. Is the intern meeting agreed deadlines? Are they applying earlier feedback? Do they understand the purpose of their assignments? Are they getting enough guidance to work independently on the next task?
The intern should also have a chance to explain what is working and where they are struggling. A missed deadline, for instance, might reflect unclear instructions, an overly ambitious workload, or a problem the intern didn't know how to raise.
Employers should use these conversations to adjust the plan where necessary. The goal is to help the intern improve while keeping the project on track.
At the end of the placement, review the finished work, discuss the skills developed and ask the intern what could have been better. That feedback can help the business improve the next internship rather than rebuilding the process from scratch.
Decide How You Will Measure Success
A successful internship should deliver more than a completed project. Employers should consider what the intern learned, how well the supervision worked and whether the program achieved its original purpose.
Useful measures may include:
- Completion of the agreed project and milestones.
- Quality and accuracy of the work.
- Progress toward the intern’s learning goals.
- Feedback from the intern and supervisor.
- The time managers spent on training and review.
- Whether the company would benefit from running the program again.
If the internship is intended to help identify future employees, employers can also track whether interns apply for suitable vacancies or accept offers when positions become available. But a full-time hire should not be the only measure of success: some interns will return to school, pursue another opportunity or be interested in a different career path.
NACE recommends tracking internship-program data to understand how effectively employers recruit, support and retain early-career talent. Its internship best practices provide a useful starting point for deciding which results to monitor.
Get Compensation and Legal Requirements Right
Before publishing an internship, determine what compensation is appropriate and what employment rules apply.
Pay requirements depend on the jurisdiction and the actual relationship between the intern and the organization. Employers should not assume that calling a position an internship, offering academic credit or making it remote automatically permits unpaid work.
In the United States, the Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet #71 on internship programs explains the factors used under federal law to assess whether an intern at a for-profit employer must be treated as an employee for minimum-wage and overtime purposes. Other countries have their own requirements, and international remote arrangements can raise additional questions.
Before recruiting, check the rules that apply to the employer and the intern’s location. Put pay, expected hours, duration, supervision, and any educational arrangements in writing. Small businesses should also establish clear workplace policies covering responsibilities, working hours, communication, and data protection before bringing interns on board. Where necessary, seek advice from a qualified local professional.
A transparent offer also helps candidates decide whether they can realistically commit to the placement.
Find the Right Candidate for Your Internship
A remote internship can help a business complete a defined project and introduce an emerging professional to the work. But the results depend on what happens after you post the vacancy: the project's quality, the manager’s availability, the training provided, and the feedback the intern receives.
Start with a specific need, make the learning goals clear and build a structure that gives the intern a fair chance to contribute. Keep the program manageable, review the results and improve it based on what the business and the intern learn.
Looking for early-career talent for your remote team? Online.jobs helps employers connect with candidates for remote roles.
Sources
- National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) — Best Practices for Internship Programs
- NACE — Key Factors Leading to Intern Conversion
- University of Washington Career & Internship Center — Developing Remote Internships for Employers
- University of Washington Career & Internship Center — How to Create Internships
- U.S. Department of Labor — Fact Sheet #71: Internship Programs Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
This article was prepared using publicly available research and employer guidance reviewed in October 2026. Legal requirements vary by location; employers should verify the rules that apply to their specific arrangement.