The Little Internship Book for Supervisors.
A practical guide to helping students learn at work. Written for workplace supervisors, with a shared starting point for the coordinators, education providers and employer partners who support them.
I am preparing the full English edition of my Dutch book, now in its third printing. Read the free English sample and let me know if you would like to hear about the first English printing. The interest button opens a prepared email for you to send.
Dutch originalThird printing
Published in Dutch.
Now being prepared in English.
This is the original book, already used by Dutch readers and now in its third printing. I am preparing the full English edition for supervisors and the organisations supporting them. You can read the opening material and Chapter 1 in English now.
The complete book, with 22 practical dilemmas.
Opening material, Chapter 1 and a desk card.
Register interest in the first English printing.
You organise the placement. Who supports the supervisor?
You find employers, agree learning outcomes and step in when something goes wrong. Much of what happens in between depends on the colleague helping your student learn at work.
This sample gives you something concrete to discuss with those supervisors. Share it with employer partners, choose a passage for a supervisor meeting or use the desk card to try one conversation with a student.
A placement agreement can describe the learning. Someone still has to help it happen.
A book that behaves a little like the work itself.
Most books about mentoring begin with a framework and proceed calmly towards a conclusion. Mentoring rarely has that courtesy. The student is late, the customer is waiting, the school calls and somebody has moved the assessment form.
This book begins with those situations. It combines stories from the workplace with research into motivation, learning and mentoring. You can read it from beginning to end or open it when something happens that makes you think: right, what now?
It is a pocket knife, not a policy manual. Both have tools. Only one fits in your pocket.
Useful before the next conversation, not after the next reorganisation.
Recognisable dilemmas
The intern who never asks a question. The mentor who gives too much freedom. The colleague who sees the student mainly as an extra pair of hands.
Something to do next
Conversation prompts, short scans and practical choices. Small enough to use in the working day, when there is also actual work to do.
Research without the fog
The ideas draw on research into learning, motivation and mentoring. The evidence is there. The ornamental jargon stayed at home.
The questions mentors actually encounter.
The complete Dutch book explores twenty-two dilemmas. They also form the basis of the full English edition now being prepared. Here are six of those situations; the free English sample introduces the framework used to examine them.
How do I keep in touch with the school?
Without turning every call into an inspection or every problem into an email chain.
What if the student never asks for help?
When waiting looks like disinterest but may be uncertainty, overload or an unclear invitation.
What if my expectations are too high?
How to check what the student can already do and what still needs explanation, practice or support.
What if the team sets a poor example?
The student also learns from colleagues. Including the things nobody intended to teach.
What if feedback gets an angry response?
How to understand what happened and make the next conversation useful.
What if it simply does not work?
When to adjust the task, change the support, involve the school or have the difficult conversation.
A three-stage rocket. Without the launch committee.
The full English edition is being prepared around the foundation, dilemmas and practical tools of the published Dutch book. The free English sample already gives you the opening material, Chapter 1 and a desk card for your next conversation.
The basics
Three roles, five lenses, five batteries and a web of learning. These ideas help you examine what a student needs. You will meet them in the English sample.
The practice
Twenty-two dilemmas about expectations, motivation, feedback, responsibility and school contact form the practical section of the Dutch original and the basis of the English edition in progress.
The toolbox
The full Dutch book includes practical tools. The English sample gives you a desk card with prompts you can use in the next conversation.
Give the question somewhere to land.
“What have you learnt today?” can be surprisingly difficult to answer. The sample shows how a concrete moment helps a student explain their experience, and helps you choose what to do next.
“Show me the last step that made sense to you.”
Start where the student can show you what happened. Explore what they expected, choose your role and agree the next attempt. The desk card brings those steps together.
For coordinators: invite an employer partner to try this with one student. Discuss what it helped them notice and what support they still need.
Choose your role for this student, on this task.
The sample introduces the Emergent Internship Framework, developed by Maarten Brand: three roles for the supervisor, five lenses for understanding the work, five batteries for exploring motivation, and a web for making connections between experiences.
Manager
You clarify the task, standards, boundaries and expectations. Freedom is useful after someone knows what the work requires.
Coach
You ask, listen and help the student think. Not every silence needs to be filled with your own excellent answer.
Adviser
You share experience, context and professional judgement. The student borrows your eyes until they learn to see more themselves.
The Dutch original is now in its third printing.
These comments concern the Dutch book. The quotations are translated from Dutch.
“A very accessible, useful and inspiring book.”
Author and speaker · Managementboek review, 3 September 2026
“Supervising an intern is not an extra task alongside work; it is professional work in its own right.”
Psychologist · Managementboek review, 24 August 2026
“A delight: full of humour, handy, helpful and readable.”
Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences · Reader comment
Twenty-five years inside more than a thousand workplaces.
Maarten Brand works where education meets the workplace. He has visited more than a thousand training companies, spoken with thousands of mentors and written seven books about internships and workplace learning.
His earlier book for employers became a bestseller in the Netherlands and was nominated for Management Book of the Year. He now works as a researcher, adviser and speaker through Bureau Brand.
He is part of LEO-NET and has given talks in Lithuania, Portugal, Belgium and Spain. Those conversations bring different education systems into view, alongside the familiar daily questions of workplace supervision.
- Research and advisory work
- Keynotes in Dutch and English
- Workshops for mentors and educators
- Founder of Stagebooster
Before you put it on the team reading list.
What is available in English?
You can read the free English sample now. It contains the opening material, Chapter 1 and a practical desk card. The full English book is currently being prepared. Email me for updates about the first English printing, as a reader or for your organisation. A publication date has not yet been announced.
Who is the sample for?
It is written for people who supervise students and newcomers at work. Educators, internship coordinators, team leaders and HR professionals will also recognise the situations and can use the tools.
Can we use the book with a whole team?
Yes. Share the English sample with colleagues and employer partners, choose a passage for a supervisor meeting or use the desk card together. For a wider programme, discuss a workshop or register your organisation's interest in the full English edition.
Can Maarten speak or run a workshop in English?
Yes. Keynotes and workshops are available in Dutch and English, online and on location across Europe.
Who supports your supervisors?
Use a situation from the sample as the starting point for a session with your institution or employer partners. Or let me know if you are interested in the first printing of the full English book.
Who Teaches the Student at Work?
A 40–45 minute talk for education providers, employer networks and conferences.
Helping Workplace Supervisors Help Students
A 90-minute workshop with the three roles, practical cases and participants' own questions.
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