New Normal Internship: Impact of Virtual Internship

By Lim Foo Yen

Image courtesy from Ann Arbor Spark

Kuala Lumpur: Virtual Internship, also known as work from home internship is a new form of internship that existed to replace the traditional internships globally in the period of disruption due to Covid-19 issues.

Virtual internship provides interns an industrial training by shifting it into online. This revolution had impacted both companies and interns to face challenges.

Most of the companies had postponed their internship program during the pandemic to pare down the company expenses, yet the internship program still existed for some companies by turning into virtual internships.

Jing Theng, 26, is now working as a bank agent who offers virtual internships to those business and finance-related students. She mentioned that they had switched their program into a virtual internship since last year.

She stated that her companies had modified the internship program during pandemic from physical office work into online sales for interns.

“We evaluate the intern’s performance mostly based on their KPI (Key Performance Indicator) results because it is hard to evaluate the physical factors like their dedication and working attitude since they are working from home,” she said. “Therefore, interns are more stressful than common internships, because they need to hit their KPI.”

Jing also mentioned that virtual internships are easy to cause miscommunication with the intern, especially because it is hard to brief the interns via online meetings about the company’s product details that need to be sold by the intern.

“I can’t really bring them to the office and show our products one by one like common interns, so sometimes they will make mistakes in the product description when selling the products to their clients,” she added.

Jing’s company had modified the internship program when shifting into a virtual internship.

There is another situation we can see from the virtual internship in the advertising industry.

Evelyn, 26, currently working at a social media advertising platform, had stated that there are not too many changes when switching to a virtual internship.

“What the interns need to do is actually the same as a physical intern. like helping the company to find the potential clients and design the advertising poster, this can easily proceed at home,” she added.

Evelyn also said that the interns need to be self-disciplinary, they must commit to the deadlines themselves without supervision.

“We can’t even know what they are doing in their home, so the punctuality on meeting and deadlines for the task given is the only way to evaluate them.”

Evelyn’s (first from right) company doesn’t adjust too much for virtual internship

For the students who work for virtual internships, they are losing the chance to work outside and need to overcome themselves for both internal and external factors.

Wong Xue Cheng, 21, currently working as a video editor during her virtual internship had stated that she faces bad network quality during her internship and it affects her working efficiency.

“It is hard to fix some emergencies when having a bad internet connection since most of the things need to be done online, including the communication with my intern company,” she said.

She also commented that virtual internships had curtailed her working experience rather when compared to the traditional internship.

“If I go through with a common internship, I might have an outside filming opportunity to gain more experience,” she added. “But now, I can only just do the editing at home.”

Wong faces internet connection problem in her internship

Another intern, Liew En Tong, 21, who works as a multimedia designer for her virtual internship, also has the same concern about fewer learning outcomes during her internship.

According to her sharing about her internship routine, she will get an online meeting or a task list in the morning, and she needs to spend the day in front of the computer to complete the task given and submit.

“I feel like I am zero in working outside experience due to no guidance from seniors, but only just doing some tasks like school assignments in my internship,” said Liew.

Despite that Liew feels restricted in her internship, but she also mentioned virtual internship brings her in a flexible and safe working environment.

“I can adjust my time slot flexibly, and also can keep a good social distance when working from home,” she added.

Liew can’t gain too much experience on virtual internship

Lim Hui Ming, 21, an intern who works as an advertising designer for social media advertising pages, had recently shifted her internship from physical to virtual after the execution of MCO 3.0 (Movement Control Order).

She commented that virtual internship benefits her to cut down her spending besides flexible working time slots. “I can save my transportation allowance and no need to spend too much on outside food,” said Liew.

In the comparison between the two types of internships, Lim also concluded that self-learning and self-discipline are more important in virtual internships. Sometimes, it is really hard to focus due to distractions at home like temptation from food and disturbance from younger brother,” she added.

Lim saves her expenses in a virtual internship

Since pandemic occurs out of the blue, virtual internship is the only way by providing a safe learning way to the interns although with some limitations. As things stand, interns should be self-disciplinary and keep refining their skills for their career prospects.