By Neil Thompson
As summer rolls in, thousands of college students across the country start internships. These interns, especially those in technical departments, represent the future workforce. They come equipped with technical know-how, but there’s a vital piece of the workplace puzzle they often lack: soft skills, particularly communication.
Engineering curricula tend to emphasize coding, algorithms, and systems design, but rarely do they prepare students to speak about their work in clear, compelling ways. The result? Interns with excellent technical aptitude but limited ability to communicate their work to nontechnical stakeholders: executives, clients, or even colleagues in different departments.
This communication gap matters. Organizations don’t just need problem solvers. They need people who can explain the problems they’re solving and why it matters to the business.
So, what can organizations do to help? A high-impact, low-cost solution is to integrate a mini speaker training program into the summer internship experience. Here’s how to do it.
Step 1: Identify what the program should cover
The training should focus on the fundamentals of clear, confident, and audience-appropriate communication. Key topics might include:
- Engaging an audience: How to hook listeners at the beginning of a talk
- Balancing technical detail and clarity: Tailoring the depth of information to the audience (executives, clients, cross-functional teams)
- Slide design best practices: Creating visual aids that support, not distract from, the message
- Handling Q&A sessions: Especially how to respond when you don’t know the answer
- Structuring a talk: How to start with a strong opening, develop points logically, and end with a clear call to action
These are skills that interns likely haven’t developed in school—and ones they’ll be happy to have when they step into a full-time role.
Step 2: Develop & provide the program (in person or virtual)
Whether live or online, the format should be simple and practical. For instance, to teach speech structure, an effective approach is:
- Start with the call to action: What do you want your audience to do or think after your talk?
- Work backwards to build your content: Choose points that support the call to action.
- Hook your audience early: Open with a story or question to capture attention right away.
This structure helps to eliminate extraneous information you may have included.
Step 3: Provide practice & feedback opportunities
The most important part of the training? Giving interns a stage.
Create a showcase event near the end of the internship where interns present to company stakeholders. Let them explain what they worked on, what they learned, and how it connects to company goals. If possible, invite executives and decision-makers. When interns are seen and heard, it builds visibility and future opportunities.
These presentations also serve as a capstone experience, letting interns apply their skills in a real-world context while giving leadership a chance to see the ROI of the internship program in action.
The payoff
By investing in communication training, companies don’t just help interns, they help themselves. Interns who can speak confidently about their work are more likely to make an immediate impact if hired. They’ll also integrate faster, collaborate better, and advocate more effectively for their ideas.
For companies, this means better project outcomes and stronger talent pipelines. For interns, it’s a head start toward becoming the kind of employee every organization wants: someone who’s not only smart, but is able to communicate their smarts.
Image credit: KSChong
