Every year, young Wall Street hopefuls jockey for internships at banks like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley.

But Business Insider spoke to some incoming summer analysts who told us they care less about which bank they end up with, and more about the team they join within that bank.

That's where the real prestige lies.

"People choose banks based on what group [inside the banks] they can get into," one analyst said.

Groups are the specific teams that each intern is assigned to, be it an industry group like real estate or healthcare on the investment banking side, an advisory group like mergers and acquisitions, or, on the trading side, a commodities, foreign exchange, or equities trading group.

Bad groups, according to the summer analyst, are the ones that don't get a lot of deal flow.

Sometimes interns get to rotate across a multiple groups, but usually, going in, they have a few top choices in mind.

So how do they get into their first-choice groups?

In the same way that interns play the banks off of one another to leverage interviews and score initial offers, they also leverage which groups they get into in order to land even better ones.

The first analyst did not end up at Goldman, JP, or Morgan Stanley. But she did score a spot in an M&A group at her bank, which was the team she wanted most.

After accepting an initial offer at her bank, she began networking with a contact in M&A at Credit Suisse, a rival bank. Then she used her conversations with that contact as leverage to land the M&A offer at her own bank.

"The most important thing for me was that I wanted to be in a good group, whatever bank I ended up in," she said.

Did you land a Wall Street internship this summer? How did you decide which offer to accept? Send us an email at pcrowe@businessinsider.com. We can keep you anonymous.

SEE ALSO: The key to scoring a top internship on Wall Street

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NOW WATCH: Sallie Krawcheck's Advice For Wall Street Analysts

Investment banking interns are go. They are elite and they are determined. At Goldman Sachs, the interns are so keen that they are reportedly being forced to leave the office at night.

We’ve already identified some of this year’s exceptional interns in London. Here are a few more from around the world. This time we’ve included interns who are interesting people as well as those who are just frighteningly well qualified.

1. Nicholas Ang is interning at JPMorgan, in the TMT Group in New York

Who is Nicholas? Nicolas is an accounting and finance student at the Leonard Stern School of Business at NYU. This is the second summer he’s joined JPMorgan’s technology, media and telecommunications group in New York. He was there last summer too.

What makes him special? Nicolas has amassed the sort of past experience that would make most interns blanch. As well as working for JPMorgan previously, he’s interned at activist hedge fund Clinton Group, at private equity fund fund MTN partners (both in NY) and at Citi in Singapore and Blue Edge Advisers, a Singapore-based global macro hedge fund. Ang isn’t exactly interesting, but he’s impressive.

2. Karan Parekh is interning at the Blackstone Group in New York

Who is Karan? Karan is a student at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

What makes him special? Like Nicolas, Karan is well equipped with finance internships. He’s already been a summer intern at Evercore and GE Capital. More interesting, however, is the massive number of finance related competitions he’s entered and done well in. These include: the MIT Trading competition (5th place), the Bloomberg Aptitude Test (top 5 all time score), the Business Today International Competition (first place) and the Credit Suisse Case Competition (2nd place). There are plenty more…

3. Oranda (Xinyuan) Hou is interning in IBD at JPMorgan in Hong Kong

Who is Oranda? Oranda is a student at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Wharton School. On one hand, she’s studying a B.A. Music at Upenn. on the other she’s studying a B.S. Finance at Wharton.

What makes her special? Alongside the interesting duality of her studies, Oranda displays an interesting duality of work experience. On one hand, she’s been a private equity summer analyst at Standard Chartered. On the other, she’s been an assistant editor at Walt Disney and a publicity intern at Universal Music. Most finance applicants these days live and breath finance. Oranda lives finance and breaths music, it seems. Most interestingly, she’s a poet and came second in a poetry tournament.

4. Alyssa Maharani is interning at the Blackstone Group in New York

Who is Alyssa? Alyssa is studying finance and accounting at Wharton.

What makes her special? Like Oranda, Alyssa’s experience is not restricted to finance. Yes, she’s also interned at Citi, but alongside that she’s worked in TV and for teen magazines. For three and a half years between 2008 and 2011, she was a reporter for "High School" and "Teenlicious", both Indonesian TV shows.

5. Connie Chen is interning in IBD at Jefferies in New York

Who is Connie? Connie is studying a BS in Economics at Wharton.

What makes her special? Connie may be interning in IBD but her real passion is…the environment. She’s co-founder of sustainability consulting firm The Environ Group. She’s also been a summer intern in the environmental crimes department of the U.S. Department of Justice.

6. Josh Goldman is interning at Morgan Stanley in London

Who is Josh? Josh is studying maths and economics at the London School of Economics.

What makes him special? Josh is chairman and former president of the LSE Alternative Investment Conference. He’s on track for a 1st class degree and achieved three A*s at A level – including 100% in all four core mathematics modules. He was head boy at school and has been a ‘scholar’ at Deloitte. Basically, he’s formidably bright.

7. Freddie Nagel-Davis is interning in fixed income trading at JPMorgan in London

Who is Freddie? Freddie has a first class degree in philosophy and maths from the University of Bristol. He also has four A levels, all graded A*.

What makes him special? Freddie is clearly a clever fellow and he’s already had plenty of prior finance experience (eg. summer analyst at Armajaro Asset Management, fixed income sales at BAML.) What’s most interesting, however, are his non-finance activities. He’s been an off cycle intern in ‘kidnap and ransom sales’ at Hiscox insurance brokers. He’s been an assistant martial arts instructor. And he’s spent nearly three years as an events manager for Vesper Black, an up-market party organiser which runs, “Exclusive parties in London, affiliated with film, fashion and media.”

8. Coral Hall-Casserly is interning in credit sales at JPMorgan in London

Who is Coral? Coral is a maths student at the University of Warwick.

What makes her special? Coral is special because of what she hasn’t done. Unlike some interns who’ve spent their previous summers interning at hedge funds and brokerage firms, Coral has had limited finance experience and seems normal. She spent three years working in a farm shop near Windsor, although she has been a spring intern at both Barclays and JPMorgan.

9. Ravi Prasad is interning in investment research at Goldman Sachs in London

Who is Ravi? Ravi is studying economics at Cambridge.

What makes him special? Ravi hasn’t just interned in banking, he’s also interned at the Times Newspapers, where he contributed to a blog and was a member of the data team covering the UK elections. He’s also interned at UNICEF. He got the top GCSE maths grade out of 251,000 people in the whole country in 2010. He has 4A*s at A level and was head prefect at school. He came 2nd out of 750 entries in a competition run by the Royal Economics Society for an essay titled, ‘A breakup of the euro provides the best hope of a durable recovery for the European Economy. Discuss.’

10. Alex Serin is interning at Goldman Sachs, in the natural resources group in New York

Who is Alex? Alex is studying a Bachelor of Business Administration at Zicklin School of Business in Baruch College, City University of New York.

What makes him special? Firstly, Alex isn’t studying at a Harvard or Wharton – he’s studying at Baruch, which is up and coming but outside the Ivy League. Secondly, Alex has grit. In summer 2014 he was a summer analyst at Legend Securities by day and worked nights at the Surf Lodge, ‘a high volume restaurant’ in Montauk by night. None of the other interns we’ve come across has shown this kind of determination.

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As the founder and CEO of Training the Street, Scott Rostan has been teaching financial-training courses to interns and analysts at Wall Street firms as diverse as Credit Suisse, UBS, and the Blackstone Group for more than 15 years.

Before that, he was a new hire himself on Merrill Lynch's investment banking team.

So he's got a lot of insight on who the banks are hiring these days, and how the demographic has changed.

Rostan shared some of his observations about this year's crop of Wall Street interns with Business Insider.

They're smarter.

Most notably, Rostan said, "the students are definitely getting more sophisticated."

They're coming in with much more capital markets knowledge and corporate valuation knowledge than they did 10 or 20 years ago.

Rostan attributes that "dramatic shift" to the proliferation of news and information available to young people wanting to learn about finance.

When he graduated from college in 1995, he said, new Wall Street recruits came in cold. Now, he added, new interns are fully aware of important companies, deals, and market-moving news. Often they already have an opinion on it, too.

Rostan said a lot of financial news relates to technology and products that young people use in their everyday lives, which helps to boost their interest. Plus, he noted, the dotcom boom in the late 1990s really brought investing to Main Street and into the mindsets of young people.

While the new interns and analysts may not have perspective, Rostan added, that's something they will pick up from experience. And in the meantime, they're consuming tons of financial news and increasingly learning the practical skills in school.

They're younger.

Traditionally, students head to Wall Street for internships in the summer after their junior year of college.

But now, Rostan said, there is a growing percentage of students in each intern class who have just finished their sophomore year of college.

He said there's been a "noticeable uptick" in younger interns in the classes he teaches.

There are more of them.

Rostan said that Wall Street banks, pretty much across the board, hired more interns this year than last year. For some, the numbers are up as much as 15%.

That, he said, is a sign of the uptick in capital markets we've been seeing, from M&A to IPO to leveraged finance activity.

"There's a lot of deals, so therefore they need alot of juniors to be able to handle the client executions," he said.

"It is still predominantly a lot of white males."

While interns still tend to be mostly white and male, Rostan said, this deficit of diversity is not for lack of trying. The banks, he said, "would like to become more diverse" and are actively trying to recruit more women and minorities.

He did note there are more women these days in the intern classes than in previous years, but still, "not as much as there should be."

SEE ALSO: How to get a job at Goldman Sachs from a non-Ivy League school in 8 steps

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Interviewing with any Wall Street bank is not going to be easy. But there's one type of firm that may be even tougher than the others.

Business Insider spoke with a Wall Street intern who interviewed with a ton of banks, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Jefferies Group.

The toughest wasn't any of the bulge brackets, but the boutique bank, Jefferies.

That was by far the most technical interview, the intern said.

"I think it's a general consensus that smaller firms tend to be a lot more technical," the intern said, because those firms have fewer resources for training.

"So they expect people to have a decent amount of technical knowledge before they go in."

Meanwhile, the bigger banks asked behavioral questions in addition to a few "standard" accounting questions — nothing that you wouldn't be expecting if you consult guides like Wall Street Oasis or Mergers and Inquisitions, according to the intern.

Those banks can afford to be more focused on fit, the intern said, because "if you’re not good at modeling or financial accounting, or have never touched it, that’s something they can teach you because they have the resources to."

From what we've heard about training at the bulge brackets taking place this month, there are actually quite a few incoming interns who have no background in accounting or finance. They tend to come from prestigious universities and are expected to learn quickly on the job.

As for the smaller and midsize banks, it wasn't just the one intern who found them to be tough: "For Jefferies, when I talked to my friends, literally all of my friends were like, 'I bombed that interview. If banking is anything like this, I can’t do banking,'" the intern said.

Have you been through the Wall Street interview process? Which did you find toughest? Send us an email at pcrowe@businessinsider.com. We can keep you anonymous.

SEE ALSO: There’s one thing Wall Street interns care about more than which bank they get into

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Interns at SpaceX aren't making copies or grabbing coffee for higher-ups — they're helping build and program rockets to launch into outer space instead.

Each year, SpaceX hires over 700 interns who get a taste of what it's like on the cutting edge of space travel. 

According to the internship listing, only the most driven candidates need apply.

It reads: "If you’re undaunted by the impossible, actively seeking out insanely challenging projects under tight schedules, and want to work with a remarkable organization pushing the envelope of human exploration, then you will want to be part of the SpaceX legacy." 

Interns are hired in a number of different departments — avionics, dynamics, launch operations, manufacturing, propulsion, structures, and enterprise information systems — in SpaceX's headquarters on Rocket Road in Hawthorne, California.

The company also hires a smaller number of interns at its rocket launch facility in McGregor, Texas and at its launch facilities in Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base, as well as at its offices in Houston and Washington, D.C. 

We spoke to three former SpaceX interns who told us what the experience is really like. 

Getting the job

The usual intern hiring process includes two in-depth phone interviews. One former intern, who worked in guidance control at the rocket facility in McGregor before accepting a second internship at HQ, had to get through three phone interviews. During these interviews, he was asked highly technical and brain teaser-style questions.

"They want to see how you reason your way to an answer," the intern, who wished to remain anonymous, told Business Insider. "For example, if you were in a boat in the middle of a lake, and you had a bunch of rocks in the boat, if you threw them in the water, would the water level rise or fall?"  

(The answer, in case you're curious, is that the water level would fall because rocks are more dense than water.) 

Blake Robbins, another former intern who worked at SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, said he was given a few hypothetical situations to reason his way through. 

"One of the questions they asked me was, 'If Elon said to you something like, 'I need hundreds of this one part by the end of the week,' but the supplier says they need three months to make it, what would you say?'" Robbins said.

Grueling hours and burnout

Interns might not have the title or salary of a full-time SpaceX employee, but they often work like one. 

One intern joked, "The best thing about working at SpaceX is the flexibility. You can work whatever 80 hours a week you want."

Some interns might stay late or even put in some time over the weekend. A former intern who recently got a full-time offer from SpaceX says he expects his responsibilities won't change much with the promotion. 

"SpaceX does have a culture of working hard with a focus on efficiency," he said.

Another former intern added: "The work-life balance is a little off. People who work there are more driven to work than they are driven to go home. They get burned out really quickly."

Overall, though, work hours depend on each intern's level of motivation. 

"It depends on the time that you’re there, and it depends on what department you’re in. I happened to be in [the department working on] Dragon during the worst time to be there. We were behind schedule," former intern Jonathan Sanders told us. "It can be stressful, and you do have your nose to the ground, but it’s also really great."

"It was really surreal." 

SpaceX interns are compensated generously, but some said that the work experience was a much better motivator than the paycheck. 

"Most people didn’t really care if they got paid or not — they'll say things like, 'I’ll wipe the floors if you want me to,'" Sanders joked. 

"Not many people get to work on hardware that goes into space. You definitely feel like you're doing something that could change the world," another said.

All of the interns we spoke to said that witnessing rocket launches from the HQ's mission control was a major highlight of their time at SpaceX.

"There’s this feeling like, 'Holy crap, we all built that together, and now it’s in space,'" Robbins told us.

"People are jumping up and down, going crazy, and we can't believe we did it. It was really surreal." 

Intern perks

Interns get a few other enviable benefits while working at SpaceX. 

In addition to relocation costs, SpaceX provides interns with housing and even pays for their first month of rent, which costs about $915. 

In 2013, interns at SpaceX headquarters shared two-bedroom apartments at the Oakwood in Marina del Rey. Shuttles would run every 30 minutes between the apartment complex and the office. 

"I would get into the office around 8:30 and stay until 7:30 or 8," a former intern said. "Some of my roommates stayed even longer. The shuttle made it easy to do that." 

Current SpaceX interns are housed in furnished apartments at Fountain Park in Playa Vista. The complex has multiple swimming pools and laundry machines in-unit. 

Like many other tech companies, SpaceX also has an awesome cafeteria serving heathy meals at a discount. Coffee, tea, and frozen yogurt were free, and lunch was a perfectly affordable $5. 

"Most meals consisted of a meat, starch and vegetables, and there was also a large salad bar and drinks, sides, and desserts available," an intern told us. "I remember the dishes often had a fun rocket-themed title."

Los Angeles is a hub for the aerospace industry — Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin all have facilities in the area.

Each year, all of the companies come together for a day of friendly competition with the "Aerospace Summer Games," held at Dockweiler Beach. Activities typically include everything from volleyball and dodgeball to tug-of-war and ultimate frisbee.

Meeting Elon Musk

All of the interns got to interact with Musk in some capacity. Many said they had followed his career closely before applying to work at SpaceX. 

Musk works in a cubicle at the company's Hawthorne headquarters. 

"He runs a tight ship. It's hard to say no to his requests," a former intern said. "My understanding was that he would work at Tesla in the morning, then come over to SpaceX in the afternoon and stay there until midnight or so." 

SpaceX hosts a series of Q&A sessions for interns, where they can ask executives, including Musk, any questions they have about the company or space travel in general. Interns said that Musk made himself very accessible to anyone who wanted to speak with him. 

"Even standing in the same room with him, you’re struck by how smart he seems. It’s like, 'Wow, I have no idea what you just said, but it sounds amazing,'" Robbins told us. "He could sell you on the mission. You could really feel like it would happen."

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk's first wife explains what it takes to become a billionaire

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How much will you earn as a banking intern in London this year? Quite a lot, actually.

Front office interns at leading banks in the City of London say they’re earning “close to £1k” ($1.6k) a week for their 10 weeks in banks this summer. This is up from around £865 a week last year.

“I’ve received a revised contract increasing my pay,” says an incoming intern at a European investment bank. “It was supposed to be £45k pro-rata, now it’s been increased to £50k.”

The increases are understood to apply at top US banks like Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs, as well as at European banks like Credit Suisse and Barclays.

The hike in interns’ pay reflects recent increases in pay for analysts in investment banks. First year analysts in most investment banking divisions (IBD) can now earn salaries of £50k-£55k. On a pro-rated basis, interns are now paid equally – although analysts receive additional bonuses and interns do not. Analysts’ bonuses are expected to decline in proportion to the increase in their salaries, however interns have just received a straight pay rise.

However, the generous pay packages come at a price. It was recently revealed that Goldman Sachs have had to tell their employees to stop sleeping in the office overnight, encouraging them to work 17 hour days maximum. The move comes as many banks are seeking to stop their interns, who see internships as a ladder to a lucrative career, from working unhealthy hours.

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You made it to New York City!

Summer internships in the Big Apple are really exciting, whether they're in finance, media, or even in the arts.

But as the initial excitement starts to wear off, you might find yourself feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Like, how are you supposed to work all day, feed yourself, do your laundry, and keep your apartment from turning into a complete disaster?

Business Insider is here to help. We've compiled a list of life hacks to get you through that summer internship.

Check them out:

Pool your Seamless vouchers.

If you're interning on Wall Street this summer, then you've almost definitely been alotted a certain amount of money for Seamless dinners. Lots of other companies do this too.

Make the most of those vouchers by pooling them with 3 or 4 colleagues and getting a family-size order that serves 6 or 8 people.

And if your company doesn't offer you Seamless...

Try ordering from Eat24. The company was recently bought by Yelp and has a lot of restaurants that you'd also find on Seamless. Plus, they have a ton of weekend coupons.

Don't even try to doing laundry yourself.

Send it out instead.

If you live in a building that doesn't have a washer and dryer in-house (which is pretty common in NYC), the amount of time, effort, and money you will spend trekking to and from the laundromat, sack in hand, is simply not worth it.

In many neighborhoods, it doesn't cost much more to pay your local laundromat to wash your clothes for you.

Or, try Fly Cleaners. They pick up your laundry, clean it, and drop it off for free if your order is over $15, and they have a handy app.

Internship programs are now well underway on Wall Street, and the resident office rookies are finding out the truth about their prestigious jobs.

We've all heard horror stories about sleepless nights at the office and midday root-beer-float runs for senior bankers in the summer heat.

But what are things really like for this year's crop of summer analysts?

Not very difficult.

One investment-banking intern at a bulge-bracket bank told us his days were usually packed with busywork, which is never very tough.

The intern spends most of his time researching potential companies that his team might be interested in working with and helping to write company profiles.

A big project for him may involve making a PowerPoint presentation for more senior bankers on his team.

Even then, his deadlines are not very tight. He is able to run everything by the first- or second-year analysts before anyone more senior sees his work.

But the hours are pretty long.

That may sound disappointing for, say, a straight-A student with a background in finance and experience building complex free-cash-flow models. But it does keep the interns busy.

The analyst we spoke with said he was staffed on a project at 10 a.m. on his very first day — and another that evening. He wound up working until 2:30 a.m. his first night.

Most days, however, he leaves by 10:30 or 11:30 p.m., and he is not expected to work more than one weekend in a row.

So not quite the 100-hour workweek you may hear about for young Wall Street. But still not enough time to go out to the bar every night.

That, the intern said, he reserves for Friday and Saturday nights.

Are you a Wall Street intern? What are your days like? Reach out to pcrowe@businessinsider.com. We can keep you anonymous.

SEE ALSO: There’s one thing Wall Street interns care about more than which bank they get into

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At the end of June, Anna Seacat finished her master's degree in marketing and with "laser focus" tried to get a job at IBM, she told Business Insider.

Seacat chose IBM because she feels that it "empowers" its female employees, it doesn't force workers  to commute to an office, has room for advancement, and it eats its own dog food, using data to help make business decisions, she said.

She knew her best shot at a full-time job straight from school was by doing an internship.

One problem: At age 34, Seacat wasn't the classic intern, a lot older than the college kids interns she was competing with.

She thought she might even be IBM's oldest intern.

Another problem: "IBM has a thick HR wall," she told us. "I have been applying for jobs with the company, but have not had any successes by going through its HR portal."

Having just finished a degree that specialized in social media marketing, she decided to try some of that social media magic to help sell herself to IBM.

IBM sells a lot of social media analysis products and it uses them internally itself. It is definitely watching Twitter, LinkedIn, news media, and other sources for people talking about the company.

So she posted an essay on LinkedIn called "IBM's Oldest Intern" in which she explained her reasons for badly wanting a job at the company, and asked everyone to email it, retweet it, and generally help her get an introduction to IBM HR.

It worked.

The post was viewed by over 600 people, retweeted, and emailed around.

"A friend of IBM's CEO emailed me and shared my story on his LinkedIn network. At one point, my story was trending on Twitter in Indiana," she said.

Low and behold, two days later, an HR person from IBM actually called her. "He was very kind and acted genuinely interested in my background," she said. "He said he would be doing some work on his end to get a phone interview set up."

Unfortunately, that was nearly two weeks ago and she's still waiting for that phone interview, or for any follow-up from the company.

IBM isn't known to move at lightening speed when it comes to this sort of stuff. The company is going through a major transition with its workforce, shedding jobs, selling business units, retraining workers, and carefully hiring only in the hottest new IT areas.

But in a world where it can be hard for an older college grad to get noticed, Seacat definitely found a way.

SEE ALSO: The 12 best internships in tech and their crazy-high salaries

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Accepting an internship always feels like a little bit of a gamble.

On one hand, you could be signing onto a valuable experience where you'll learn directly from those in charge and build a strong network of professional contacts. On the other hand, you may have to deal with crazy requests you could have never anticipated, ones that definitely weren't listed in the job description.

If you happen to find yourself in the middle of a less-than-stellar internship, take a look at these terrible tales and take solace in the fact that you are most certainly not alone.

Picture perfect

"I interned for a small European magazine once and had to help with distribution. I was instructed to hang out around metro stations and take pictures of random people while we handed them magazines.

It turns out random people are not thrilled to have their pictures taken.

One guy cussed me out in French after I took his photo, and since my French is terrible, I just said ‘désolée' and then cried over a baguette in the park like a much more fragile Anne Hathaway. Intern advice: Carbs make everything better."— Julia, 22

Super Soaker

"One of my most intense internship experiences was the semester I spent at a major news agency in Belgium, where my boss was known for making interns cry.

One day, I was covering a protest in Brussels with one of my favorite cameramen and the situation on the ground was getting pretty rough. Shortly after getting back, my boss told me to go back out and find my cameraman again because she wanted more footage. By that time, the protest had gotten even worse, half the trains in the city were shut down, and the police had started using water cannons and tear gas on the angry protesters.

I luckily managed to catch a metro to the right stop. However, I got off the train right as the protesters were getting really violent. Someone hurled a brick at the police officers who were forming sort of a perimeter wall around us. They immediately responded by spraying the crowd with tear gas and, as we all staggered backwards, hitting us with a hard blast from one of their water cannons.

By that point, I was pretty angry. My eyes and throat were burning, I was completely soaked, and I had no idea where my cameraman was, and had no way of getting around the police line to find him. I finally decided to just give up and go back to the office. When I got back, my boss threw a cursory glance in my direction and asked, "What took you so long? Did you not get the film?"

I spent the rest of the day shamed, in soaking wet clothes, editing footage and trying not to be noticed."— Kate, 22

Ruff day

"When I was interning at a women's magazine, a very particular editor-in-chief gave me a list of things I needed to do that day. Most of them were errands. I had to go replenish the office ‘drug store' supply, which meant buying Aspirin and tampons (they HAD to be Playtex — no Tampax allowed).

I remember standing in front of the tampon aisle and marveling at how many types there were. Would it be offensive if I got ‘super'? (I got a variety pack to be safe.) After I did her errands, the last thing on the list was to go to her house and feed her dog. It went fine — I just filled up the bowl and took the dog outside, but, then again, that isn't really something an office intern should be doing!"— Allison, 23

Knock out

"One morning, my supervisor mentioned that he had to go the hospital later that afternoon for a scheduled surgery. The surgery required him to be unconscious, so his dad was coming to pick him and take him there. But in a crazy turn of events, the president ended up being in town, resulting in all the major roads being blocked off and rerouted.

My boss awkwardly approached me after getting off the phone with his dad and asked if I could take him to the hospital. I agreed, and then had to wait at the hospital until his dad got there because someone had to be present in the case that anything went wrong! When his dad arrived, my boss introduced us.

Feeling incredibly awkward about the whole situation, I turned to my boss and said ‘Don't die!' before bolting out of there. Hopefully the anesthesia blocked that memory out of his mind, but the image of his face dropping, already pale in fear, as I said the one thing you're not supposed to say to someone about to go into surgery, will live forever in my mind."— Jacqueline, 20

Clean crew

"When I applied and interviewed for my internship, I was told that I would be working in the resort's Food and Beverage department for a 12-week period, learning how to manage and supervise while interacting with guests. Since the resort was just opening that summer, we would be expected to help out wherever we could to get everything up and running. Little did I know what we would actually be doing.

For the first four weeks of my internship, the interns were on their hands and knees scrubbing toilets, bathtubs, showers, and the entirety of the 465 rooms of this new resort — without running water. Every scuff mark and speck of dirt needed to be removed, and they checked each room we cleaned. Before we were allowed to move onto the next room, it had to be approved. Otherwise we had to reclean it!" — Machaela, 20

In high demand

"At this one place I worked, my boss used to make me order his groceries for him. Usually he'd just ask me to call a delivery service, but one time, he sent me on an errand to buy things for an event and added his own personal shopping list to it — and it was a LOT of stuff.

I didn't have a car and the company wouldn't reimburse cab fares, so it was a nightmare carrying over $250 worth of stuff using public transportation. He was also super passive-aggressive and would assign work to me at all hours of the day and night and expect me to get it done immediately.

At my high school graduation, which I had taken the day off for, I got a text from him telling me to get a lengthy errand done by that afternoon. By the way, this was not a personal assistant job — it was a regular internship. Needless to say, I wasn't at that job long."— Anne, 21

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My name's Savannah Graybill, I'm 27 years old, and I'm the new CEO of Adecco Group North America, a human resources solutions provider that employs about 5,000 people.

Well, at least for the next month anyway.

Confused? I thought so. Let's take a second to back track and get you all up to speed.

Two weeks ago, I traveled down to Jacksonville, Florida, to Adecco's North American headquarters to compete head-to-head against six seriously incredible finalists in a week-long boot camp.

The prize? A once-in-a-lifetime internship opportunity to shadow Adecco CEO Bob Crouch and many other top Adecco executives for a month.

The boot camp was intense: It was jam-packed with activities, competitions, presentations, and seminars during which each finalist was evaluated on their leadership qualities and their embodiment of the Adecco core values.

At the end of a chaotic, but amazing week, I was selected as the winner of the internship, which pays $10,000 for the month. I felt honored to receive the gig, especially considering there were over 2,000 applicants and all of the finalists were wonderful. We all had an amazing time bonding and I wish they could continue the journey with me. 

I'm a little bit of an unconventional intern. I graduated in 2010 from American University and shortly after, I was encouraged to consider either Skeleton or Bobsled as a sport and loved Skeleton.

I took a leap and haven't looked back.

Since graduating, I started working on my MBA from DeVry University's Keller Graduate School and I've spent the past four years on the US National Skeleton Team and I'm an athlete in the US Olympic Committee's Athlete Career and Education (ACE) Program.

Last spring, I joined the program as a way to start preparing myself for my eventual life-after-sport, and to find a part-time, flexible position that I could take on while training.

Instead of worrying about my future, I decided to do something about it. The ACE Program helped me to get my résumé together and perfect my interview skills. Adecco is a sponsor of the USOC and that's how I learned about the CEO For One Month internship opportunity.

The first week on the job has been pretty overwhelming.

As an athlete, I'm used to hard work, risk, and travel. After all, I hurl myself down an ice shoot hitting speeds of 75-plus miles per hour, there's not a whole lot that scares me. However, the corporate world is completely foreign to me. I've never seen the inner workings of a business, or worked so closely with such important people.

Because of such, the most nerve-wracking part of starting this internship is being unsure of what my role will be and where I'll fit in. I'm obviously very, very green in this situation and although I certainly don't want to be a passive observer, I clearly don't have the experience to be fully engaged either.

I do feel like I added value to some of the client meetings I've attended thus far and luckily I've had fantastic leaders and mentors who have made me feel comfortable, who have answered all of my questions, and who have challenged me along the way. I don't think I've been pushed so far outside of my comfort zone in quite some time, but I'm excited to roll with it.

This week had a pretty heavy travel schedule (four major cities on both coasts) and my first meeting of the internship was at eBay Enterprise. (Did you know that the holidays happen in Kentucky? The employees in the Louisville factory are the ones who pick and pack your orders!) As you can imagine, a lot of planning goes into their busy season and it was an eye-opening experience to see what it takes to make this happen. After that, I was off to the West Coast for a series of other meetings.

Fortunately, I wrapped up my first week in Colorado Springs to meet with executives from the USOC. At last I was on home turf. After breakfast, we headed to the Olympic Training Center where we took a great tour and I even got to challenge Adecco's CEO Bob Crouch to a little competition. It was a fantastic way to end the week before jet-setting back to the East Coast.

The most important lesson I've learned this week came from the President of Adecco Staffing, Joyce Russell.

She always says that no matter what company or line of business, it's all about the "who": the people. When it comes to building a team and creating a sense of community with one's organization, it's not always about finding someone with the perfect skill set, it's about finding the right people. The people who best align with the company culture and values, and to whom you can offer the best experiences and opportunities are the ones that often succeed the most for a company.

Next week's adventures include a live TV interview with WJXT, a local news station in Jacksonville, meetings in North Carolina and Michigan as well as a quick weekend trip to my home town. I'm definitely looking forward to the interview on Monday. As a broadcast journalism major, all things television related are right up my alley.

If you're interested in following my month-long journey, feel free to check out my Twitter (@savannahjane1) and Instagram (@sgraybill25) accounts.

Savannah Graybill is a graduate from American University (2010) with a degree in broadcast journalism. She is a resident athlete at the United States Olympic Training Center and is training to compete for a spot in the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Winter Games. As Adecco's intern CEO, Graybill will write about her experience every week on Business Insider.

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NOW WATCH: 7 clichés you should never use in a job interview

Savannah Graybill, 27, was selected from more than 2,000 applicants to be the "Intern CEO for One Month" atAdecco Group North America, a human resources solutions provider that employs about 5,000 people. She is being paid $10,000 for the month. Here's what she experienced in week two on the job. (Read about week one here.) 

Similar to last week, my travel docket as CEO for One Month took me to many new places.

After spending the weekend training, catching up on sleep, and conducting research for business case studies I’m working on, I felt ready to take on week two.

Monday morning started off with a live TV interview on WJXT 4 in Jacksonville with Adecco CEO Bob Crouch to discuss the Adecco CEO for One Month internship program.

After a quick interview with reporter Ashley Mitchem — three minutes on TV feels so much longer than it is! — we headed over to the corporate office so that I could spend the day learning from the marketing team and seeing all that they do.

I also got to meet Paola Ospina, last year’s Adecco CEO for One Month Global winner. Paola spent a month last year interning with Adecco’s Global CEO, so it was great to be able to swap stories and experiences with someone who’s been in very similar shoes before.

Tuesday began with a 4 a.m. wake-up call as I headed to Asheville, North Carolina, for an Adecco Staffing Divisional meeting. I met up with Adecco president Joyce Russell in Charlotte and together we made the trip.

During the car ride, Joyce helped me go over and understand operating statements that would be addressed during the meeting. As someone who is currently in an MBA program, and has begrudgingly completed managerial and financial accounting classes, it was exciting to be able to apply those learned concepts in the field.

After very quickly inhaling some southern barbecue on the way back from the meeting, Joyce dropped me back off at the airport just in time for me to catch a flight to New Buffalo, Michigan, for a day and a half of leadership meetings with Accounting Principals, Adecco Group’s finance and accounting staffing arm.

Here I met up with John Marshall, the president of the business unit, to learn more about his role within the company and the businesses he runs.

One of the best aspects of these meetings was a discussion and presentation on leadership led by these these five concepts:

1. Keep a spirit of caring for others
2. Be curious, not callous
3. Never stop the yearn to learn
4. Be flexible and able to adjust
5. When opportunity knocks, GO FOR IT

The concept that resonated most with me was the last one: When opportunity knocks, take it.

One must put fear and self-doubt aside and seize the prospect. In the athletic world, this is something I face every day. Between the training, racing, and uncertainty I constantly face, I continually risk it all to try and realize my dream of competing in the Winter Olympics.

I fully embraced this concept when applying and competing for this internship. I’m well aware that at the age of 27, it looks as though I’m a little late to the game regarding my career. What you don’t know is that I have been working and sacrificing for the past four years (while working on my MBA), because for a long time I thought being an athlete and developing a corporate career were mutually exclusive.

I’m trying to prove that it doesn’t have to be that way. 

I can’t believe that this experience is halfway over. It feels as though it’s only just begun. But for now, I’ll enjoy my quick trip home this weekend to Pennsylvania to visit my friends and family. I haven’t seen my family in three months because of my travel and training schedule, so I’m excited to spend the weekend with them.

Next week’s adventures include a visit to an Adecco office in New York City and a quick client visit in Portland before heading back to Orlando for leadership seminars with Soliant, Adecco Group’s healthcare recruiting business..

If you're interested in following my month-long journey, feel free to check out my Twitter (@savannahjane1) and Instagram (@sgraybill25) accounts.

Savannah Graybill is a graduate from American University (2010) with a degree in broadcast journalism. She is a resident athlete at the United States Olympic Training Center and is training to compete for a spot in the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

SEE ALSO: Meet the intern who has been named CEO of a 5,000-person company for a month

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NOW WATCH: 8 things you should never say in a job interview

An unpaid intern at the United Nations, who says he lived in a tent because he could not afford the high rent in Geneva, quit his job on 12 August.

David Hyde from New Zealand has been spending his nights in a tent mounted on a patch of grass near Lake Geneva since he started his internship, according to Swiss newspaper Tribune de Geneve. Reading out a written statement to media gathered in front of the United Nations headquarters, Hyde said he had decided to quit his internship of his own accord, because it would be too difficult to continue in his role.

The 22-year-old has a degree in international relations and spent a semester at French university Sciences Po in Paris before coming to Geneva, the Tribune de Geneve reported. Hyde said he had been turned down from intern placements in the past when he admitted to not having sufficient resources to finance himself.

"After graduating, I began to apply for jobs, but all I could really find was internships. And in every interview, the same questions always came up towards the end: 'Can you afford to fully fund yourself for the duration of this internship?' When I answered this with an honest 'No', my application was declined," he said.

"And so, when I applied for this role with the UN, I did not fully disclose my true financial situation. I said I had enough to support myself when really I didn't. And I got the job," he added.

Hyde said he knew what he was signing up for when the UN specified his job would be unpaid with no additional perks.

"The UN was clear about their internship policy from the start. No wage or stipend, no transport help, no food allowance, no health assistance. I understood this and in that regard I have to take responsibility for accepting the internship in the first place," he said.

Hyde said the system of unpaid internships was unfair and that interns all over the world need to come together and push for the recognition of their value and equal rights they deserve.

"As the declaration of human rights states so clearly: Everyone, without discrimination has the right to equal pay for equal work. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration. I hope to see the United Nations become a role model for all on the issue of internships in the future," he said.

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Every major investment bank offers an internship program — it's an opportunity for students to test out the profession and for the firm to scout future employees.

We got the opportunity to follow Sophie, a University of Cambridge economics student, as she went through a day of her 10-week summer analyst internship.

She's one of hundreds of interns working at the investment bank during the university holidays, who are essentially following the same program, whether they're in London, Hong Kong or New York.

If previous years are anything to go by, a majority of the summer intake will be offered positions at JPMorgan for when they finish studying, becoming high-flying and highly paid investment bankers.

This is how Sophie's day went.

It's an early start. Sophie has to be at her desk at 6:30 a.m., in London's Canary Wharf.

JPMorgan's London headquarters is this 31-story tower on Bank Street. The bank bought the tower in 2010 — it had previously belonged to Lehman Brothers.

Sophie, the intern we're following, works in global equity sales. She's there for 10 weeks this summer, having completed other internship periods at the bank already. The desk essentially sells shares from around the world to largely UK-based clients.

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Savannah Graybill, 27, was selected from more than 2,000 applicants to be the "Intern CEO for One Month" atAdecco Group North America,a human resources solutions provider that employs about 5,000 people.She is being paid $10,000 for the month. Here's what she experienced in week four on the job. (Read about weeks one, two, and three here.)

This morning I presented my final presentation to the Adecco Group North America leadership team. I talked about my experience as the most coveted intern in America, and different ideas that I had for the company — you know, if I were the real CEO.

It's hard to believe my internship as CEO for One Month is finally coming to an end. The past four weeks have been a life-changing experience, and one that I will never forget. Though I've been traveling all over the country, this internship certainly hasn't just been gallivanting across America networking and meeting with clients.

At the beginning of the internship, I was assigned two business case studies to be completed by the end of my tenure as the CEO for One Month — one of which enters me into the a global CEO challenge.

The Adecco CEO for One Month experience is occurring globally; there are 33 other young adults like myself shadowing the Adecco CEO in their respective countries, and we were all assigned the same business case study to earn a spot in the boot camp for the global competition.

If we have one of the 10 best case studies, we'll be invited to the boot camp in Europe for a chance to become the global CEO for One Month and shadow the Adecco Group Global CEO in Switzerland.

My last week as CEO

Prior to the start of my final week as "CEO," I thought to myself how lucky I was that I hadn't really endured any travel issues considering I've been coast-to-coast and everywhere in between. Well, that sort of thinking got me into trouble.

I started off the week in Jacksonville, Florida, at the Adecco Group North America headquarters, getting down to business on my case studies. I drove myself to the airport Monday afternoon to catch a flight to Omaha, Nebraska, to visit Modis, Adecco's information technology staffing group.

My trip out to Omaha was a long one — travel delay upon travel delay got me there well after midnight. It really made me realize how hard Adecco Group NA CEO Bob Crouch works and the travel delays that he must endure on a continual basis in his position. Being CEO is about more than just making big decisions; it's about meeting with colleagues from across the country, in different positions, and trying to find the best way to create a culture where people love what they do.

Tuesday morning, I met Modis Senior Vice President Gregg Schmedding and President Jack Cullen to learn from the Omaha crew.

Here I learned the true ins and outs of a staffing company. I spent time with recruiters, business development managers, and the sales department; I watched morning huddles, sat in on an in-office interview with a candidate and shadowed a recruiter.

We met with associates from Kiewit and Lease Team and met with executive coach Liz Miller. For Liz, culture is key — CEOs and top executives must lead the way to create change and create a strong organization. I had a great time learning from her as well as the rest of the Omaha crew.

On Thursday I made the trip to Dubuque, Iowa, to the first of two Entegee offices, an engineering staffing company. I met Vice President Jim Kieffer at the office for a quick tour and then we were off to John Deere.

John Deere has been in the biz for over 175 years and takes pride in maintaining a strong culture throughout its business. John Deere's quote, "I will never put my name on a product that doesn't have in it the best that is in me," can even be found in large print in the factory.

Friday went by in a blur as I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to head to — you guessed it — the airport on my way to Minneapolis to meet with another Entegee group. Senior Vice President Tom Hentges greeted me at the airport and we were off to visit his branch. After a quick introduction and tour of the office, we spent the day visiting a client that truly exemplifies the huge ways in which science and technology are revolutionizing our day-to-day lives.

I found myself back in the airport Friday afternoon and in a similar situation as Monday. Both my initial flight and connection were delayed, and I didn't get into Jacksonville until about 2 a.m.

During the extra time I had between layovers, I began thinking back to all of the amazing experiences that I've had over the past month.

My journey started in San Francisco, then took me to Louisville, Kentucky, New York City, Omaha, and then, in the end, Minneapolis.

In just one month, I was able to travel the entire country, get to know the Adecco family and meet with Adecco colleagues who really do love their jobs. It has shown me what a positive impact one company can have on so many lives.

In talking with each leader that I met this week, a recurring theme became apparent; the most effective way to be a successful leader and CEO is truly to employ the best people underneath you. It seems like such a simple concept, but each leader stressed the same thing: Finding the right people is hard.

I am so grateful for the time and effort the Adecco associates, executives, and clients that I met over the course of this past month took to engage and educate me. It's an experience I'll never forget and will hopefully continue on to Switzerland — fingers crossed.

Savannah Graybill is a graduate from American University (2010) with a degree in broadcast journalism. She is a resident athlete at the United States Olympic Training Center and is training to compete for a spot in the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Winter Games. Follow her on Twitter (@savannahjane1) and Instagram (@sgraybill25).

SEE ALSO: Meet the intern who has been named CEO of a 5,000-person company for a month

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A former mental health intern at New York's Rikers Island jail system is suing the city after an inmate fractured her face and broke her jaw in an attack, her attorney said on Monday.

Stephanie Procell, 24, said Rikers should have done more to protect her from an unprovoked punch by prisoner Joseph McRae at the jail's George R. Vierno Center in April 2014, attorney Michael Ronemus said.

"We're claiming their negligence led to conditions that allowed this to happen," Ronemus said.

Corizon Health, one of the largest U.S. for-profit prison healthcare providers, which serves Rikers, is also named in the lawsuit seeking undisclosed compensatory damages.

McRae, who was serving a 30-month sentence for assaulting another woman, struck Procell while the two stood in a jail office together, the complaint said.

The city and Corizon failed to ensure the area where Procell worked was properly secured and staffed despite previous similar attacks at Rikers, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit, filed last year in New York state court, was first reported by the New York Daily News on Monday.

A spokesman with the city's law department said the lawsuit would be reviewed. Corizon could not immediately be reached for comment.

Rikers Island, which can house as many as 15,000 inmates in 10 jails, has been plagued with claims of inhumane treatment of inmates including routine beatings by guards and the excessive use of solitary confinement.

Corizon has also been mired in controversy, with the city releasing a report in June saying the company had hired doctors and other staff for Rikers who had criminal convictions including murder and kidnapping, the New York Times reported.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he would not renew the city's contract with Corizon when it expires at the end of the year.

SEE ALSO: Rikers Island inmates file a $10 million lawsuit alleging they were beaten, pepper-sprayed, and held in frigid temperatures

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NOW WATCH: This was just voted the best place to travel to in the world

A summer internship is an opportunity to test drive a career without making any serious commitments. It's your chance to see what it would really be like to work in a particular industry, and whether you're a great fit. 

And, perhaps most importantly, a good internship provides you with experiences, lessons, and tools you'll need to get a full-time gig in the future. 

Here are a few examples of things you can take away from an internship that may help you land a job down the road:

1. New/improved skills

One of the most important things you can take away from an internship is your new found knowledge, which includes knowing how to fulfill tasks relevant to your desired career path. Not only that, but you should have also spent time sharpening and honing the skills you already possessed. 

"I always tell students to begin with the end in mind," says Ashley Strausser, the associate director and internship coordinator at the Center for Career and Professional Development at Otterbein University. "Having a sense of the skills and experiences you want to gain from an internship at the start allows you to be intentional in working towards your goals."

2. A more complete (and impressive) résumé

It's pretty obvious, but one of the best things about completing an internship is being able to add it to your résumé.

Don't just include the job title, company name, and all the the responsibilities you had — also highlight your contributions to the company and how you added value.

That's what hiring managers in the future will care about most. They don't really pay attention to the fancy company name or the fact that you "completed 10 big projects." They want to know how you managed to get those assignments done, the impact your work had on the company, any problems you solved, and your impact on the bottom line. 

3. Recommendations

If you did a superb job and made a favorable impression on your manager and colleagues, you'll have no trouble coming up with references for future jobs you apply to. Just be sure to politely ask your boss or any coworkers who you made a great impression on if they'd be willing to recommend you for a job down the road. And then once that time comes, reach out to them again to get their permission.

You wouldn't want to assume they're still willing to be your reference. Plus, it's beneficial to everyone to give your former manager or colleague a heads up that a new potential employer will be calling, as to give them time to think about all the great things they want to say about you.

Also: Make an effort to maintain a relationship with each of these people. Don't just use them as references. Make them part of your network, and even consider asking one to be your mentor.

4. New connections

In addition to those people who you hope will act as references in the future, you should walk away from an internship with a handful of new connections: senior employees, clients, fellow interns, etc.

These people can provide guidance and advice, help you in future job searches, and may even become friends. But it's up to you to stay in touch with these connections, keep them in the loop on where you are in your career, and offer to help them whenever you can.

Upon finishing your internship, be sure to formally thank each of these people for their help and support.

To ensure you'll actually have people to thank and stay in touch with, you'll need to make an effort during the course of your internship to build relationships with people around the office. Strausser suggests joining the company's summer softball team, or inviting colleagues to lunch or coffee.

"Take the time to get to know as many people in the office as possible," says Kim Heitzenrater, the director of Career and Leadership Development at Sewanee: The University of the South. "Ask for their knowledge and advice; learn everything that they can teach you. Then, say thanks and keep in touch."

5. A greater sense of professionalism

Working in an office environment (or any kind of professional setting) can be difficult to get used to — and the best (perhaps only) way to learn how to navigate the working world is through real life, hands-on experience. After your internship, you should have a better idea of the appropriate way to behave as a professional and a sense of how to play the game of office politics.

"For many students, an internship is their first exposure to a professional work setting," says Strausser. "Often students comment about how much they appreciated the opportunity observe workplace culture and see how professionals interact with one another and conduct themselves."

6. More confidence in your career direction

"An internship is an opportunity to test out a career field of interest," Strausser says. By the end of it, you should have a clearer idea of whether or not you really do want to enter that field or pursue that occupation.

Realizing that it's actually not the right job for you isn't as terrible as it seems. Think about it: It's better to learn that you'd be unhappy sooner rather than later. Plus, if you come to this conclusion, you can spend the next few months exploring other areas of interest and jobs that might be a good fit, then you can begin working on securing an internship in that industry. 

But you want to be 100% certain. "If this happens, take the opportunity to reflect on the experience and ask yourself: 'Why didn't I enjoy this internship?' 'Was there something that I could have changed or done differently?' Use that information as you assess your post-graduation plans," advises Strausser.

7. Completed projects/presentations/etc.

Besides new knowledge and better business etiquette, you should be able to walk away with tangible evidence of what you've accomplished. For example: presentations you gave, articles you wrote, campaigns you worked on, or designs you created. 

Whenever possible, try to have some kind of physical or digital place to showcase your work to future potential employers. A portfolio or website, for instance, are ideal platforms.

8. Feedback

The best way to learn from your performance is to ask for feedback from those with whom you worked. Remember not to get defensive. If you actually listen to the constructive criticism and take it to heart, you'll be an even better employee in the future. And if you know what you're doing well, you can use those attributes to sell yourself as a strong candidate to employers later on. 

SEE ALSO: This is what a day in the life of a JPMorgan intern is like

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NOW WATCH: 7 smart questions to ask at the end of every job interview

Interns can be highly valuable resources to your company. They may help you complete everyday tasks, assist your workers, add to the diversity of your office, give you an insider look into a younger generation, and eventually end up working for you as a paid employee.

According to research from LinkedIn, 61 percent of students who have internships secure job offers by the end of their senior year in college. If you want to be among the many employees who have had luck with finding great interns, you need to know how to spot the best candidate for the job.

The following are some pointers from internship advisors across different industries on how you can tell who’s going to be the perfect intern for you.

They know your company 

When prospective interns come into your office for their interviews, they should be equipped with knowledge about your company.

“I ask them why they want to work for the company,” says Lavera Wright, who runs an accounting services and financial consulting firm out of WeWork Commons. “Based on some of their responses, they’ll show me if they took a look at the website and researched the company they want to work for. Did they look at the mission statement? Do they know who is on the board of directors?”

If a prospective intern doesn’t bother to research what you’re all about, then he or she is not really interested in the position. You want an intern who’s going to be passionate about the job and possibly working for your company down the line

They’re personable

When hiring an intern, you don’t want a robot who’s just going to be good at making copies and Excel spreadsheets. Instead, you should be on the lookout for someone who is going to make a positive contribution to your workplace.

Briana Darensburg, talent and culture coordinator of Omaze, says that she always looks for interns who are “really well-spoken and can articulate their ideas.”

“We’re a creative company and we do a lot of brainstorming,” she says. “We value their ideas.”

She also factors personality into her hiring decision, because it can affect the whole company.

“The perfect intern comes in with a great attitude every day,” she says. “It brightens up our office.”

They have goals

If this seems like it’ll just be another job for your interviewee or a selling point on his or her resume, don’t make the hire. You want interns who have goals and dreams. They should know where they want to go, and how you can help them get there.

“During an interview, I’ll ask them where they see themselves in the next three months, six months, or maybe a year,” says Wright. “I’m looking for those who don’t want a job. They want to build a career.”

They have some experience

The best interns are going to have a background related to what your company does. They may be working towards a degree in your field, perform similar extracurricular activities at their school, or have on-the-job experience.

“We require that interns have at least one previous internship,” says Darensburg. “That really catches my eye.”

If you hire interns who already worked at companies in your industry, it’s going to be easier to train them. Also, they’ll know pretty much what you expect, and how to conduct themselves in the workplace.

They survive your training

Unlike Wright and Darensburg, Jeff Pan, who designs hostels and works out of WeWork Soho, can’t figure out whether or not an intern will be great based on one meeting.

Instead, he conducts training to see what they’re made of.

“We had seven interns from New York University, and we put them through the two-day boot camp,” he says. “They started from the very bottom, organizing their emails and putting on filters, and seeing how to use Trello.”

If you’re like Pan, and you’re hiring interns who have absolutely no previous internship or work experience, come up with some duties they can take on either before they start or in their first few days on the job. The ones who are still interested will stick around, and might even become assets to your company. Out of the seven interns he put through his boot camp, Pan ended up offering a job to one of them at the end of the internship.

Even if you think you’ve made the perfect hire, you still need to set expectations and goals, and check in with your interns. After all, they’re new to the industry and probably the workforce in general, and they’re looking to you for guidance. If you’re there for them, and help them flourish, it will benefit your company in more ways than you can imagine.

SEE ALSO: These are the awesome intern perks at Silicon Valley's biggest companies

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NOW WATCH: More trouble for Subway's Jared Fogle...

When you think of New York Fashion Week, images of glamorous models, famous designers, and impeccably dressed celebrities spring to mind.

But who keeps the shows running smoothly behind the scenes? For big-name designers like Nicole Miller, it's public-relations powerhouse Alison Brod.

Brod's army of publicists and interns are the muscle behind some of the biggest fashion and beauty brands that make Fashion Week tick (think Kerastase, Beauty.com, Nails Inc.). In their black dresses and high heels, they never break a sweat.

To find out what it's like to work for the award-winning agency during New York Fashion Week, we shadowed Tori Oliva, a student in the first week of her fall internship with Brod. Keep scrolling to see how it went.

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On day two of spring 2016 New York Fashion Week, Oliva started her day as usual, arriving at the Alison Brod office at 9 a.m.

The office is clean, bright, colorful ...

... and decked out in comfy couches and metallic décor.

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Most graduates and students consider themselves lucky if they land an internship where they do more than make coffee and file documents.

But the interns heading to Silicon Valley have got it made. Not only are these young hopefuls working with some of the tech world's most innovative organisations, they get to take advantage of some of the coolest intern perks around.

From free gym memberships to secret concerts by some of the most famous musicians in the world, these interns will have a summer to remember.

While the perks shouldn't be the sole reason for applying to an internship, they can definitely be a pull factor.

Check out our list of Silicon Valley's coolest intern perks below, inspired by the "Which Silicon Valley company has the best intern perks?" thread on Quora.

Facebook — "A college campus on steroids."

Facebook was voted the No. 1 company to intern for by Glassdoor — and it's easy to understand why. Former intern Elizabeth Gregory told Business Insider that Facebook's offices are like "a college campus on steroids." 

Interns get to attend regular cocktail parties, feast on free food, compete in dodgeball tournaments, and even sit in on meetings with creator Mark Zuckerberg.

Microsoft — Free gadgets and secret concerts

Microsoft keeps its interns motivated with a plethora of perks, including early access to its latest tech.

But perhaps the best perk is the company's "Intern Signature Week." Interns are flown to the main campus in Redmond, Washington, where they are treated to Q&A sessions with execs, gourmet food, and outdoor activities.

The entire week builds up to the "Intern Signature Event." On the final day, the interns are herded onto coaches and taken to a mystery location. One Quora user was taken to a secret concert at the Boeing headquarters — opened by Macklemore and finished by Deadmau5. And to top it off, each intern left with a 256GB Surface Pro. 

This year, Maroon 5 entertained the interns.

Google — Luxury boat cruises and gourmet cuisine

Aside from top-notch accommodation, Google interns can take advantage of the flexible work hours, which allow them to come and go as they please.

They also receive credits for the massage chairs scattered throughout the campus and go on luxury intern boat cruises in the San Francisco Bay area, complete with a free bar and casino tables.

This is all on top of being able to use the nap pods to sleep at work, and access any of the 20 gourmet cafeterias on campus. Seems pretty cushy. 

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