Recruiting a PhD intern - best practice

Since the PhD Intern will count towards each department’s headcount, approval needs to be gained ahead of the recruitment process. The Careers Service can help you manage this process as all Employ.ed for PhD internships are pre-graded at UoE Grade 5. Once the Careers Service have approved your job advert and description, the hiring manager or your School/department administrator (SDA) can proceed with the recruitment approvals process in your area.

Once the internship is live through People and Money, we will also advertise the internship on MyCareerHub and promote the opportunity directly to PhD students, including sending targeted emails if necessary. We can send a recommended shortlist of candidates to you after the closing date of the advert if you receive a large number of applications.

When preparing for interviews we recommend looking at the University’s guidelines. Remember to take a copy of the passport at the interview. If you wish to receive further support, we are more than happy to sit down with you ahead of the interview or support you at the interviews.

We ask you to follow up with all applicants who attended an interview. Where possible, please provide students with constructive feedback as this will be extremely valuable to them when applying for other opportunities. We can follow up with candidates who were not selected for an interview, unless you wish to do it yourself. We can also offer support to unsuccessful candidates on topics such as CV and cover letter tuning and interviewing skills.

The appointment of the selected candidate is subject to two references. We ask you to complete this, but will send you suggested wording. Once these have been received, your department will appoint the chosen candidate on People and Money. All students should be offered a “Fixed term contract”. Guidance on these contracts can be found on the HR website.

Please let us know who you have selected to make sure that all other candidates have been contacted.

We have resources available which have been designed specifically for PhD students to encourage self reflection and to gain the most from their internship experience. We will contact your chosen intern to share these resources. There is no requirement for the intern’s manager to be involved in this, but please do feel free to discuss and support your intern with their personal and professional development throughout their time with you. Please see the Careers website for the support and guidance we provide for PhD internships so you can support your intern if you wish.

Once you have appointed an intern, we recommend reading through our Managing Your Intern guidance.