This summer, for the first time in over a decade, I’ve hired college interns for my business.
Look around and you’ll notice many college interns at businesses — especially big corporations — this summer. There’s a good reason: the competition to hire quality college graduates is intense, and one way to recruit future employees is by hiring them as interns while still in school.
Even for small businesses and companies not looking for future employees, there are many good reasons to hire college interns — whether for the summer or during the school year. But hiring interns is not for every business.
Your Responsibilities
When thinking about hiring summer interns for your business, consider:
Pay: Most people believe, wrongly, that interns are not paid. Not true. Unless interns receive academic credit for working for you, which they must arrange with their college beforehand, or yours is a nonprofit agency, interns are covered by regular employment laws. However, as temporary workers, you may not have to give them benefits such as health care or paid time off.
Job responsibilities: Interns are there to learn — not just to do filing or be a source of cheap labor. If you’re looking for inexpensive workers for menial work, advertise your opening as a temporary job, not an internship. Instead, before you start looking for interns, sit down and come up with a realistic, detailed job description and set of duties. Interns are particularly well suited for handling specific projects they can finish by the end of summer.
Supervision: Interns take time. Even if you hire college juniors or seniors, they’re still much less experienced than others on your staff. Someone on your staff must be in charge of training, supervising, and managing the interns throughout the summer.
Hiring: Many students start looking for summer internships in April or May though you can still find some as late as June, even July. Next year, while school is still in session, contact college career centers to list your internship as well as advertising your opening on newspapers’ job boards.
Hire two or more: Hey, to students, even the 31-year-old on my staff is old. It’s a better experience for them if they have other students to relate to.
Their Desires
Once you decide you have some meaningful and necessary work for interns to do, why would college students want to work in your business for a summer?
Experience in their field: Students are particularly interested in finding internships that relate to their field of study. Our interns, Jessica and Blaze, are both business students, interested in marketing and economics, perfect for the tasks we need them to do.
Resume building: Students with some experience have a definite advantage with potential future employers.
Money: They get paid — usually at least as much as waiting tables or delivering pizza.
Adult experience of business: Our interns are learning about the publishing industry first hand. And Jessica and Blaze both remarked that they enjoy being in a real office environment.
Your Rewards
What’s in it for you and your business:
Enthusiasm, energy, and new ideas: Good student interns are eager with fresh perspectives. It’s definitely beneficial to bring that new energy to your business.
Exposure to young demographic: With interns, you’ve got a built-in focus group for new products or marketing approaches to help you reach the important younger market.
Time to tackle projects: If, like us, you have some important projects, interns provide you with extra workers to get that job done.
Potential future employees: If you and your interns have a great experience, they may want to come to work for you once they graduate. You may even hire them for part-time work once school is back in session.
Rhonda Abrams is the author of “Six-Week Start-Up” and “What Business Should I Start?”
