An open playbook for hosts

Intern with

You do not need a company, a budget or an HR team to take on an intern. You need one skill worth teaching, a few hours a week and a clear 12 weeks. This playbook shows you how to run it under your own name.

Go to the copy-paste kit

Type your name above and every template below fills in.

Intern with MaryIntern with JamesIntern with AylinIntern with Dmitri
Why this exists

One person teaching one person

Many teams hire fewer juniors than they used to, and a lot of the first-draft work juniors learned on now goes to AI. Young people lose the place where they used to find out how work actually gets done. I am not quoting a statistic here because I do not have a verified one. This is what I see around me, and you can test it against your own team.

Internship programs are almost always branded by a company. Almost none are branded by a person. A person can start next week, choose who to teach, and teach what they really know. That is the format here: Intern with Mary, Intern with James, Intern with you.

You get
  • A reason to turn what you know into something you can explain.
  • Extra hands on a backlog item you never reached.
  • A close look at how someone younger works with AI every day.
  • A public record of how you teach, which builds your name.
  • A first look at a possible hire or collaborator.
Your intern gets
  • Real work next to a senior person, not a simulation.
  • Feedback every week from someone who has done the job.
  • One shipped piece of work they can show.
  • A reference and an introduction or two.
  • A way to see how a field works before choosing it.
Are you the host

Who should run this

Go if
  • You have a craft you can explain: marketing, finance, design, operations, engineering, sales, research.
  • You can give about 2 to 4 hours a week for 12 weeks. This is my estimate, so adjust it to your life.
  • You have real work an intern can touch without risk to a client or a deadline.
  • You are willing to be questioned. Good interns ask why you do it that way.
Wait if
  • You are in a crunch quarter and the weekly call will be the first thing you cancel.
  • You want free labor for work you would otherwise pay for.
  • You cannot let someone else hold the keyboard.
  • You want a guaranteed hire. This format cannot promise one.
The playbook

Six steps, about 14 weeks door to door

Two weeks to set up, 12 weeks to run. Timings are defaults from one experiment, Intern with Ada, a three month program running since March. Treat them as a starting point.

  1. Choose what you teach

    Finish this sentence: "In 12 weeks my intern will be able to ___." Pick a skill, not a department.

    Run a partner outreach campaign from list to first reply.

    Read a startup's financials and write a one page view.

    Ship a landing page with AI tools and measure what it does.

  2. Set the shape

    Start with one intern so you can do it well. Fix a start date and an end date. Ask for about 8 to 15 hours a week from the intern, which is my suggestion; check it against their other commitments. Remote works. Book one call a week, 30 to 45 minutes, for all 12 weeks before you post.

  3. Open applications

    Post the seat, then ask five short questions and skip the CV. Ask for something they made, how they use AI, and what they want from the 12 weeks. Allow AI and ask them to say how they used it.

    Decide before you read what you look for. Three signals are enough: a specific example of curiosity, follow-through, and honesty about what they do not know. Reply to everyone, even with two lines. If you get more strong people than seats, introduce them to other hosts.

  4. Agree in writing

    One page, confirmed by email reply: what you teach, dates, hours, who owns what, confidentiality, pay or stipend, and an exit for either side after week 4. The template is in the kit for Intern with [your name].

  5. Run the 12 weeks

    Move the intern from watching, to working beside you, to working alone with your review, to shipping something real. Week numbers run left to right.

    Monday

    The intern sends three goals for the week. You read them in five minutes and reply only if one is off.

    Mid-week

    One message back and forth, in a shared channel. It keeps small blocks from sitting for days.

    Friday

    The intern sends a short log. You hold the weekly call and give feedback in three lines: keep, stop, try.

  6. Close and pass it on

    Hold a final review with both of you filling in the same questions. Write a reference. Ask the intern for a short public note on what they did and learned, and approve it before it goes out. Then ask them to teach one thing they learned to the next person. That is how Intern with [your name] becomes a chain.

If you have never taught

Six teaching moves

Think aloud

Do a real task while saying out loud why you choose each step. Then hand over the keyboard.

Show a finished example first

Before any task, show what good looks like. Most unclear work comes from an unclear target.

Review before rewrite

Comment on their draft and let them fix it. If you rewrite it yourself, they learn nothing about their own work.

Use AI in the open

Let them draft with AI, then ask them to explain every line and fix what is wrong. Set a ceiling on quality, not a ban on tools.

Feedback in three lines

Keep this. Stop that. Try this next. Short feedback gets used.

Protect the weekly call

If it keeps slipping, shorten the program instead of letting it fade out.

Protect both sides

Rules before you start

  • Learning comes first. The intern should not cover work you would otherwise pay someone to do. If the work has real commercial value to you, consider a stipend or at least covering their costs.
  • Money and law. Rules on unpaid internships differ by country, and I am not a lawyer. Check yours, and check school credit rules if your intern is a student.
  • Confidentiality. Decide what the intern can see and what they can publish. Put it in the agreement.
  • Younger interns. If your intern is under 18, check local rules, involve a parent or guardian, and keep contact in shared channels, not private messages.
  • The power gap. You are senior and they want something from you. Make it easy and explicit for them to say no, ask for a different task, or stop.
  • No promises. Say plainly that a job is not part of the deal. It may happen, but nobody can promise it.
  • What I do not know. I have no verified data on outcomes. Your first round will be rougher than the second.
Copy and paste

The kit for Intern with [your name]

Replace everything in [square brackets]. Your name is already filled in from the top of the page.

Announce the seat
I'm opening one intern seat. Intern with [your name].

> I teach: [one skill, one sentence]
> You work on: [a real piece of work]
> Length: 12 weeks, about [X] hours a week, [remote or city]
> Start: [date]
> Cost: free to join [or: stipend of X]

Fewer teams are hiring juniors, and AI now does a lot of the first-draft work juniors used to learn on. I would rather teach one person properly than watch that door close.

To apply, answer five short questions. No CV. Link in the comments.

If you can teach something too, steal this playbook and run Intern with [your name]: [playbook link]

Your turn.
Intern with [your name]

Pick the skill. Set the dates. Post the seat. Then tell the next person to steal this page and run their own.

Free to copy, adapt and rename. Built from the Intern with Ada experiment by Ada Raimova. Credit is welcome and not required. Timings and hours are suggestions from one experiment, not research results.