James' World 2

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I have an intern who is book-smart and a very hard worker. But there’s one big problem — he’s bad at things he thinks he’s a superstar with. A few examples:

• He thinks he’s an amazing writer, but his writing is awful. He misspells words, leaves out words, has no organization, and generally writes in an unprofessional manner.
• He thinks he’s great at public speaking. In reality, his presentations are disorganized. He speaks very quickly and loudly and uses a lot of insider language that most other people don’t understand. He’s also completely clueless about when he’s lost his audience.
• He thinks he’s good at digital. In reality, the social-media posts he’s written are cringe-worthy. His attempts to edit websites have often resulted in me spending hours fixing his work. His photos and videos are blurry, have bad lighting, and aren’t framed well.

I’ve tried talking to him about slowing down and being more thorough with his work. I’ve also gone through all the changes I’ve done to his work, so he understands why they were necessary. I’ve put him on different types of projects that he claims to be brilliant at, so I could find his strengths and make sure that he is lightening my workload instead of doubling it (which is what is happening now). It’s not working.

Even worse, he’s applied for a full-time job with my company and is convinced he’s going to get it, but his interview was awful and he failed his writing test.

I work in a creative industry. I think he has a lot of potential. But I fear he’s just not a good fit for our industry. Any suggestions on how to manage him for the rest of his internship? Is there a tactful way to let him know I think he’s great, but he’s just not good at this work?

Green responds:

When you say you think he’s great, but he messes up everything he tackles and has no sense of his own abilities, I have to wonder if you really think he’s great or if you’re saying that because it feels like a kind thing say.

There’s nothing wrong with being kind! But I suspect it’s muddying your thinking here, because you have an intern who’s screwing up left and right, and you haven’t told him that, and you need to. So let’s talk about what being kind really means in this context.

Being kind in this situation would mean giving clear and specific feedback about where he isn’t currently strong and needs to work on improving. That’s true for anyone you manage, but it’s especially true for interns, who are supposed to be learning. He can’t learn if no one will tell him where he’s falling short and what it would look like to do better.

Being kind also would mean giving him some feedback on his interview so that he’s not thinking he’s about to be hired when that’s so far from the truth.

It is not kind to let him continue thinking he’s fantastic at things you’ve seen he’s terrible at. He’s going to pitch himself to future jobs based on an inaccurate self-assessment, and if he bluffs his way into a job based on those things, he’s likely to end up getting fired. Maybe repeatedly!

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Photo: Getty Images

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