How to recruit an intern – a complete guide

Experience will only come if we allow the interns to work, isn’t it? Hiring an intern for small businesses that are a little tight on a tight budget can work wonders. According to Economic Times, platforms like Internshala saw a 31% surge in internships during the pandemic. Interns may not have much experience to add to the workforce but they act as an asset who can learn and perform well under supervision. You may think that hiring someone from the outside might be more effective and cost-efficient. But in the long run, a passionate intern who is willing to give it his all might prove to be an asset to your company.

There are tons of interns out there, but finding the right one for your business that fits the need of your business should not taken lightly. Therefore, you should have a clear understanding of how to recruit an intern.

Summarise this post with:

What is an internship?

An internship is an opportunity for still-graduating students or freshers to get a real-world learning experience. It helps them to implement their knowledge practically.

As a recruiter, your job is far more serious when hiring any intern. You need to build a structured learning experience and good strategies to attract them. Through that, they will learn real-world industry trends and get credits from their colleges. Thus, internship programs are quite beneficial for any company and potential candidates.

Why you should hire intern?

There are several advantages of having interns on your team. You should hire them for;

Additional hand

You may not involve your interns in important projects, but they are useful when you need small tasks completed. These small tasks can help them build their learning and perform with great productivity. Also, you can be a good mentor to them eventually.

Fresh takes and different idea

Interns are fresh graduates. They have updated knowledge in the field. Including them in your interactive sessions can be beneficial for the company’s success. They often give new, creative and innovative ideas and help to generate new business strategies.

Hiring potential

Hiring interns can be productive when you wish to hire for permanent roles. According to a report, more than 500 companies retain 80% of interns for entry-level jobs. The time you invest in training and developing interns’ profiles can serve as a trial period. During the hiring process, it is easier to hire them as you know their potential.

Tech-savy

Today’s digital world demands social presence for recognization. Interns grew up with technology and social media awareness. Hiring them makes you more certain about advanced technicalities. Interns are more comfortable working with digital tools. Interns can help others to upgrade their knowledge of technical skills.

Mentorship

Your present staff will help in training interns. It serves as a great opportunity for existing employees to test their mentorship skills. According to a report, 77% companies observed that their existing employees show an increase in the potential to become managers or team leaders. Also, you can encourage your staff to exchange knowledge and expertise with new talents.

Spread brand awareness

Interns often talk about their work environment with their peers, friends, and family. It serves a great purpose for new startups. They help to spread your company’s name and can get you more candidates to join in.

Things to consider

Though hiring interns is quite beneficial, you should consider the following things before hiring them.

Increased expenses

You need to pay interns for their contribution. Thus, hiring them can increase your expenses.

Poor performance

Not every candidate you hire as an intern can perform their best. Some might not be skilled. Some might be careless about their responsibility. To avoid this situation, you can perform various skill assessment tests.

Fewer commitment

Internships are for short intervals. Therefore, some candidates may not be serious about their work commitments.

Time consuming

For hiring interns, you need to develop internship programs in your company. Developing it along with assigning mentorships to your existing staff can be time-consuming. This may affect the work productivity of your employees.

How to hire an intern?

You need to take mindful consideration before hiring an intern. You need to include things that will co-work with your company’s agenda. A carefully planned internship program for interns will help you to create a balance between the learning process and workload. You can follow the following steps while hiring an intern.

Identification of goals of the internship program

Internship programs is created to help interns achieve certain goals for your company. You need to be clear about what you want by hiring interns. Are you looking for new talents? Are you planning to train fresh graduates and retain them for the company’s benefit? Are new hires getting benefitted from your company? If you have positive answers to these questions, then you should start internship programs.

To create an internship program, you need to be clear about whether you want to offer paid or unpaid internships. Both can be beneficial individually. Therefore, it is essential to pre-decide the type of internship you want to offer.

If you are thinking of hiring interns, you need to work with the management team. They will be assigning trainers to work with interns. For that, they need to train those trainers through a comprehensive training program. Training will help them to learn how to evaluate interns’ performance and give them feedback.

Arrangement of internship program coordinator

The internship coordinator is responsible for managing the internship program from beginning to end. It includes designing the internship program structure, creating job descriptions, hiring interns, setting up the onboarding process, etc. They are also responsible for hiring interns. They need to keep a tab on the treatment and experience given to interns.

Having an internship coordinator is beneficial for the company. They ensure the smooth run of the internship program, therefore providing value to both company and interns.

Number Of interns need to be hired

The right number of interns will benefit the company as they feel more settled and comfortable with the working environment of the company. Similarly, hiring the correct number of interns will not burden the existing staff and they can focus on main projects.

Hiring the right number of interns is important as they give them enough opportunities to work and learn from the existing employees.

Budgeting your internship program

Budgeting is the most critical component of any internship program. It helps in forecasting internship programs by optimizing cost-effectiveness. Budgeting also helps in streamlining the financial strategies for interns.

Budgeting also supports the company’s mission and overall vision. You can forecast and plan. You can make sure of the expenditure you need to spend on each intern you hire.

Development of internship program

You need to create a robust training program for your interns. Interns need to get value through their internship especially if it is an unpaid or low-paying internship. Your training programme will give them valuable skills that will help them in the future.

Your mentorship and hand training program will equip interns’ will skill needed in the real world.

Planning of internship program

You need to be clear about planning your internship program. This includes

• Duration of the internship program
• Departments that need interns
• Number of interns that needs to be hired
• Project Managers for the interns
• The hiring process for interns
• Salary and other perks
• Defining the Ideal Candidate as an Intern

When you know what you want from your intern, your hiring process gets easier. Though they may not have real-world industry experience, you can consider the following things.

• College graduation
• Soft skills
• Relevant research experience
• Relevant hard skills
• Reference from college professors
• Outlining Evaluation Process of Interns

Interns can master their skills through constant improvisation. Your evaluation process will help them get correct feedback for their work. You can also include strategies that will include the implementation of improvement plans and personal and professional development training. These will help interns in advancing in their careers.

Conducting interviews

For hiring interns you need to conduct interviews with specific interview questions. You can design your questions to gauge their skills and knowledge about the trends in the industry.

You can conduct interviews based on initial orientation and can set the probation period for interns. Meanwhile, you can create more internship programs that are more relevant to your requirement. Pre-employment assessment tests can help you to scrutinize candidates even further.

Testlify hosts a wide variety of test libraries. You can select various test libraries according to your requirements and needs.

Tips for recruiting interns

Finding good interns is a hard task. After developing your internship program, you can initiate the hiring process. With the below-mentioned tips for recruiting interns, you can hire the best candidate in the market.

Partner with college

Most college offer job placement at the end of their curriculum. You can get in touch with such a college and explain to them about your internship program. This way you can have direct access to the potential crowd.

Social media

You can use all social platforms to spread awareness about your internship program. Nowadays, college students are more inclined towards social media. Presence over it can help you to attract candidates for your internship program.

Online advertisement

Job portals are beneficial for posting online advertisements about internships. College and fresh graduates often refer to various job portals for such opportunities. To get the right candidates, you need to include the correct keywords in your job descriptions.

Referral program

Your existing staff and interns can get you, new interns, by using a referral program. You can offer them various perks for using the referral program.

Best practices while hiring interns

You need to follow certain things that are considered to be best practices while hiring the interns:

• Assign them smaller tasks
• Give them objectives that will give them knowledge of essential skills needed to advance in their careers
• Provide them with deeper knowledge about the company’s vision by making them part of development training
• Provide them valuable feedback each time to boost their confidence
• Mentor them with the best industry knowledge

Things to avoid while hiring interns

You need to avoid certain things while hiring interns:

• Assigning them too many tasks at one time. It will lead to confusion and they can produce work with errors
• Exposing them to various professional development at the same time. By doing so, you will overwhelm them
• Not motivating them with correct feedbacks

Conclusion

Hiring interns can do wonders for your company’s overall growth. Interns are energetic, full of new ideas and have a hunger for more knowledge. You can train them to get the best out and use their talent for your success. Hiring the right interns can give you the chance of converting them to a full-time employee in the later stage.

You need interns to close the skill gaps in your company. Testlify can help you with some amazing test libraries that you can use while the hiring process.