Although this topic might raise some people’s eyebrows, hiring interns for your business can actually bring a lot of benefits. For one, interns can help your business improve as they can give fresher perspectives. Interns can also enhance your social strategy, apart from offering extra sets of hands.
Having interns in your team can open countless opportunities, but only if they’re hired correctly. Because interns don’t have professional experience yet, hastily hiring them can also lead to issues that can have adverse effects on your daily operations or brand.
For you to experience only the good things when working with interns, make sure to hire effectively by following these tips:
- Create A Clear Internship Process
Contrary to popular belief, the process of hiring interns shouldn’t start by posting job ads on different online and offline platforms. Instead, it should begin with a clear internship process. Before you invite interns to join your workforce, you should be able to determine what are expected from them once they start working with you.
Most companies hire interns and then bounce them around to work with different departments. Following the same when you hire interns for your own company can lead to problems as they won’t have a clear idea on what their goals are, and how the company can benefit from their skills.
For you to create a clear internship process, start by determining where you want your interns to work first, and inform them of the opportunities they can have down the road. Implementing an internship process will ensure that the parties involved—the company and interns—are on the same page before starting any work.
If you’re looking for effective time management tips when hiring interns, having a clear and robust process helps. When you have a process at hand, you’ll be aware of the dos and don’ts when hiring, allowing you to interview more interns during the day.
- Avoid Using Standard Questions And Resumes
Companies usually use standard questions when interviewing applicants. Depending on the nature of the business and people they’re hiring, companies will usually require applicants to undergo a battery of tests and interviews to see if their qualifications fit what is required of them. However, when hiring interns, it’s best if you steer away from standard questions and resumes.
If you want to assess how suitable the skills of an intern are to your business, don’t rely too much on the information stated on their resume or how they answer your questions during the interview. Instead, replace your common interview questions with ‘show me’ questions to allow interns to explain what they’ve done in accomplishing a specific task.
For instance, if you’re running a web development company, give interns a bug in your code and ask them how they’re able to find the bug during the interview. This way, you’ll be able to gauge their skills and assess if they’re a perfect fit to your company.
- Get Them Frustrated And See What Happens
The skills of the interns you’ll hire are important, but how they work under pressure also counts. Regardless of how skilled an intern is, if they don’t how to handle pressure, they won’t be able to perform at their best in your company.
Another way to effectively hire interns is to get them frustrated and see what happens. This is an untraditional way of recruiting people, but it works. You can start by giving interns puzzles or challenges to solve, and see how they would react, especially when they become impatient. Once done, allow the interns to explain their frustration.
Allowing interns to be frustrated is an excellent way for you to evaluate their ability to work under pressure. Ideally, you should choose to hire interns who can explain how they’re able to get the end solution as this can speak volumes on how they can continue to perform even in stressful situations.
- Check Their Willingness To Learn
Interns choose to apply and work for companies because they want to gain work experience. However, not all of them are truly interested to learn as some are in the program just for the sake of it.
When hiring interns, don’t forget to consider their willingness to learn. This skill can speak a lot about how flexible and openminded the intern is. Is the person willing to undergo online training for a month just so they can perform better at your company? Are they open to work with other people around different departments in the company?
An intern who shows the willingness to learn before or during an internship is a good sign as this can mean that you won’t have any problems teaching them the necessary skills to perform properly at work.
- Give Them Real Work To Do
One of the biggest misconceptions people have when it comes to internship programs is that interns only bring coffee to the bosses and only provide support to all of the departments of the company. This is how internship programs were defined back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and is something that you shouldn’t implement.
If you want to effectively hire interns, give them real work to do by treating them as one of your employees. This will give your interns a better idea on how your company works and what they can contribute to the company once they’re hired in the future.
If you’re going to welcome interns with background on human resources, get their opinion on how you can improve your recruitment process or employee retention strategy. When welcoming interns with web development background, ask them to critique your current website and what needs to be improved.
Giving interns actual work can be very beneficial in many ways—the company can utilize their skills, and the interns can actually learn something from the program.
Hire Properly
Opening your company’s doors to interns is a double-edged sword. This comes with several pros and cons. But, as an entrepreneur, it’s essential that you know how to make the most out of this opportunity, while being able to minimize risks.
If you don’t have any idea where and how to start, begin by effectively hiring interns. The information presented in this article will help you start on the right foot as you’re hiring interns so they’ll eventually become assets of your company, not liabilities.