If Google, McKinsey, Yahoo are taking interns too seriously for decades, why aren’t you? And mustn’t there be some good reasons behind it?
In the past one year, several times I would find entrepreneurs contemplating over a pros-cons set before hiring interns. And I would generally tell them the same benefits–the culture, the ease, the sleaze, the luxury, and some other added advantages of having interns in any organization. In return, very often (if not always), I receive the same we already know that look on their face. It’s clear that internship culture is not a rocket science or some hidden mystery to understand, and these facts are very familiar to you, too. But if we can’t recollect these facts in a right place at a right time, it’s never bad to revise–especially in a country where internship culture has been proving itself as a late bloom.
If you too have ever been stuck with a thought of having an internship program in your organization, these 6 reasons might just convince you to go ahead:
- Fresh perspective: Fresh perspective of looking at things–it’s a true blessing, granted that it comes with a courage to speak up their voice. If your interns don’t find enough space or feel uncomfortable sharing their novice thoughts with you, it goes vain. It’s surprising, though, that interns often have that courage to challenge your “Coz this is the only way to do it” attitude. They can see a new way of doing same old things which your manager might not anymore.
- Technology-Savvy: You’d agree at this point if you’ve ever been in a situation where your employees find it a tough nut to crack while editing a picture, taking print-outs, or just scanning a document! It’s a piece of cake for these freshers; and since you’re a young entrepreneur, you understand what plus it really gives to have a hand of such fellows.
- Leading towards something meaningful: For both- interns and company. Internship is a great way to judge candidate’s potential, skill-set, learning ability, and willingness to work as an intern, based on which, you might choose to bring them on board as a paid employee down the line. Also, from the perspective of an intern, this time is a span to explore the field and his interest, gain expertise, and develop a feel good factor for your company. A win-win situation, right?
- They help you: Like really! Interested candidates take your internship to add something valuable to their skill-set and resume both. You just give them real, meaningful work–anything which will make your organization run smoother, accomplish more, or be more successful–and watch all the important tasks getting done with a higher level of energy and innovation, and self-motivation too. Also, you get someone to assist you with all your additional (but important) tasks which you can’t find time for. They’re more or less your sidekick.
- Your brand advocate: They will spread the word about your company—whether you ask or not. And if you’re an impressive mentor, have amazing work-culture, and give them learning worth sharing, they will probably talk about the experience with their peers, friends, family, and a relevant audience to your business which is a sure-footed advertising for your company (but it’s free!).
- It’s safer than hiring employees: Hiring full-timers is always more risky (in terms of expenses), especially when you’re hiring from amongst the freshers without knowing their capabilities. Hiring interns, on the other hand, reduces this risk, involves lesser money, and most importantly, makes it easier to fire without actually having to do so–because they never were on a full-time role, right? It couldn’t get safer. But since your intention to hire him was to teach, assess and then retain the candidate, this part is a tough one. Still, it’s far better than firing a full-timer, you’d agree.
However, this doesn’t get over without the other side, that we witness day to day in some entrepreneurs. Don’t hire interns if:
- You need “cheap labour”: I work at a start-up too. And I understand how it would expedite your process at times by having one (or several) people who can finish all your tedious, unskilled workload. But hiring intern is a way too insightful process. Interns, who most of the times are freshers, join with a lot of expectations to learn. When they find that company doesn’t value them, it will only lead to unfinished tasks, lowering the motivation, or in an unfinished internship altogether. It’s rather better to hire a freelancer for this.
- You don’t have enough time: If you don’t have enough time to set quantifiable goals and help him succeed through the internship, and be a good mentor to him, this won’t benefit either party. You should know that if your intern isn’t benefiting in some way, your company likely isn’t either.
- You don’t have clear roles to assign: Again, this will lead to frustration in the new hires and a loss of money to your company. It’s equally important to have a clear goal in mind before hiring interns, as much as it is before hiring employees.
There are definitely other points which aren’t covered here. Please help cover them all in the comments and build a Wikipedia of all the reasons why one should/shouldn’t hire interns.
[About the author: Vinayak is an employee at Internshala, India’s leading internship portal and looks after Employer Relations and Marketing. Internshala has helped more than 5000 companies to find their interns through their online portal, mostly from tier-I colleges. He loves to share his opinions on internships and internship culture in India.]
Twitter: @Internshala
LinkedIn: in.linkedin.com/in/vinayakkhare
Website: www.internshala.com
asha chaudhry
love the arnab image vinayak – just hits the nail!
the don’t hire points are awesome. totally agree!!
and in the reasons – i kept nodding my head on 1,2,4!!
nice! keep them coming 🙂
ps: pls add ur twitter handle at the end
Vinayak Khare
Thank you so much Asha for all the commendations 🙂
Twitter handle added! And sure, I will keep trying to share more @trhs 🙂
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
The challenge is managing the interns. We have had quite a few in the past few years at games2win and these are the issues
– NOT MOTIVATED – lots of the rich kids just come there because their dad told them
– NO APPLICATION – even after you tell them what to do, they add less value
– DEPENDENCY – nothing at work really can be deadlined to them. They are not dependable.
Having said so, my own daughter interned at an Interior design firm and at media2win and she really came out shining…
I dunno if the firms received equivalent value!
Aji (Digital Marketing)
we hire fresh MBAs to do some of the work that is independent, any dependent work will not work, we use them for research, data collection and then weekly review … we stopped hiring techies as 2 months is too less to learn anything and apply. We get MBA interns from all institutes including the IIMs and IIFTs of the world. Generally good B-Schools have a professor following up with students, that helps as well. tx aji
Venkat Srinivasan
Alok,
On your post, Wouldn’t you say, though, that motivation & application should be factors you can try and evaluate before hiring? I know it is not easy, especially given the possible truncated hiring & evaluation processes people may follow for interns, but I still feel that it is possible to filter the genuine guys & gals from the riff-raff.
My firm has hired 8 different interns over the last 4 years. 3 of them were full-time interns who worked with us for 6 months each, and the rest were part-time interns who worked for varying durations.
Overall our experience has been positive in terms of the attitude they bring to the table. However, we have moved away from hiring interns now. Here’s my perspective:
Varun Miglani
Very well said, Even we hired an intern for our training & placement firm in Delhi, That too through Internshala.com (thanks Vinayak for this platform).
The intern was able to participate in almost every process of our firm, from sourcing candidate to screening, doing campus drive and meeting prospective college and institutes, from training candidate on interview skills to career counselling. She was full of energy and brought freshness and energy to the team.
After completing her internship, she called sometime back stating she doesn’t like her college and want to work with us :). This makes me feel happy (and proud) that we were able to impart as much knowledge and experience to this intern.
I hope she make good and big in career and this internship helps her in getting direction in career.