Mistakes interns make have consequences, but are also learning opportunities

It is not surprising that interns make mistakes when they join a company, given that they have little to no work experience.

But committing a blunder might cause frustration and add to the workload of other employees.

During his final-year polytechnic internship in the creative industry, Andre was tasked with setting up a website – a month-long project on which he worked on his own.

The 20-year-old, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “The website creation software was a new software (the company) was trying, so I had to figure everything out myself.

“The only help I got was from a full-timer who fine-tuned my project towards the end.”

Andre created the website, but his work was rejected due to “content errors, typos and technical mistakes”. 

“As it was past the deadline already, my producer had to (work) overtime with me,” Andre recalled. “In the end, we stayed in the office until (midnight) before we were done.”

Ms Clarice Chan, director of Aureus Consulting, a firm providing education, career and life coaching services, said interns in such situations should “own up to their mistakes fully and immediately” and offer a proper apology. 

“When you apologise to your colleagues, acknowledge the impact of your errors, such as stress and extra work for others. Thank them for their patience in helping you fix the problem, and do not make up excuses – such as it happened because you were rushing,” she said.

In fact, some bosses tend to be more understanding toward interns.

“I was very lucky to have a nice producer,” said Andre. “She didn’t blame me and said that I was in the intern role to learn from my mistakes.”

Mr Gerald Tan, a career counsellor and projects director at Avodah People Solutions, said it is important for interns to process their mistakes.

“The key is to find the root cause of the problem, whether it is competency or not understanding certain instructions, so that the students can reflect and do better from there,” he said.

Mr Tan, whose company offers career guidance and job transitioning support to individuals and organisation employees, added: “Saying ‘sorry’ would definitely help the situation, but I always tell my student clients not to say sorry too much, or else it becomes insincere.”

Not all interns encounter understanding supervisors and might lose the trust of their employers.

Stanley (not his real name), a 23-year-old who will soon start his university studies, had to repeat a week-long experiment as a research facility intern, severely delaying his report submissions.

“It was very easy to mistake one (experiment) parameter for another; after looking at numbers the whole day, they eventually lose meaning. In that state of mind, I picked the wrong number to set for the experiment,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity, fearful that his future work prospects might be hampered.

“I remember my supervisor telling me: ‘Go see the big boss and explain yourself’. In the end, my fellow full-time co-workers lost trust in me, as some of them were appointed to supervise me while I performed my experiments even though they were supposed to focus on their own projects,” he added. 

While Stanley was initially frustrated at his mistake, he decided to make use of the extra scrutiny.

“I ran all my plans through my supervisor, explaining the rationale behind every step. More than a month later, I managed to regain their trust and was allowed to run my tasks independently,” he said. 

He added that his improvement was even apparent in conversations with his colleagues.

“Though it was subtle, when they spoke about me (a month later), they implied that I knew what I was doing,” he said.

Mr Jeremiah Wong, lead career developer in career counselling and coaching at Avodah People Solutions, said that students with appointed supervisors “may not necessarily need to see (making a mistake) as a bad thing”, as learning from mentors could be a more “enriching experience”. 

Mr Tan added that lost trust could be slowly regained.

He said: “Supervisors may even give you more autonomy, when they see that you can better manage your work independently.”

Mr Tan said that students may be pursuing internships for different reasons, with some feeling the need to stack internships to appear more ready for their first job.

He added that this does not honour the learning and growth intent of the internship process. 

He said: “Internships are created to help students learn about work and work culture, learn about themselves, get acquainted with making mistakes and building skills for the future.

“The most important thing is to be open to absorbing new knowledge and gaining new experiences.”