Many companies approach hiring interns all wrong. Hiring interns for your company means more than just finding someone to get coffee or run errands for full-time employees. Interns can be the future of your company.
Last year, nearly 60 percent of internsjoined their companies as full-time hires.
Properly run internship programs become invaluable recruiting pipelines because they provide the company with field-tested employees. You don’t have to worry if the interns can do the job or will fit into the company culture; they’ve already proven their abilities.
Hiring the best interns, however, isn’t always easy and making sure they accept your full-time offer can be even more difficult ―especially if they’re talented. So here are three of the best ways to find the right candidates for your internship program and ensure that they accept a full-time offer if and when you make one.
Seek out creativity when hiring interns
It is 2013, so why are you still hiring like it’s 1980? If you want creative interns, you probably need to consider creative ways of attracting them to your company. You need big ideas to keep your company moving forward, and people with vision and enthusiasm are attracted to companies willing to take calculated risks.
Hackathons have become one of the more visible and creative ways that technology companies are recruiting top technology talent. Evernote, for example hosted its first Hackathon in Koreain an effort to recruit top Korean students. One advertising firm had interns apply to their position using the mobile app Draw Something. Candidates with the most creative drawings were selected to move forward in the process.
Tests like these allow employers to see the practical and creative skills of potential interns. Hackathons, for example, push potential interns to quickly solve problems and work within teams, sometimes alongside full-time employees.
Social media is another great way to attract interns. If you are not using social media as part of your intern hiring strategy, then you are missing out, as 26 percent of college students are using Twitter. Using media directed at certain schools or course focuses can help to quickly create attention for your company.
Consider paying your interns
With the high costs of hiring full-time employees, bringing on unpaid interns sounds like a magic bullet, but this is far from true. You are likely to come across hoards of potential interns who are begging for experience and wouldn’t hesitate to work for free. But going this route can have detrimental effects on your internship program and can put your company in legal hot water.
With the job market in a shaky place, it is becoming more common for postgraduates to be taking internships with potential employers. These postgraduates have real expenses, and taking unpaid internships can deter many of them from joining your company. Even if they do accept, 3 to 6 months of no pay can put them in a very difficult financial situation and may ruin the internship period. Receiving a paycheck also gives your interns a better sense that the company values their skills.
Furthermore, from a legal standpoint, it is extremely difficult to have unpaid interns these days, and many companies are getting burned for running free intern programs. Since 2011, there has been a surge in litigation surrounding the use of unpaid interns. The most recent example is the suit against Fox Searchlight Pictures, which is a huge blow to the media and entertainment industry that has traditionally been reliant upon unpaid interns. Apparently, the 2008 “500 Days of Summer” and 2010 “Black Swan” films used unpaid interns for secretarial and janitorial support. Not exactly a learning experience.
Most attorneys would recommend hiring an intern as a part-time employee with salary at least equal to minimum wage. Part-time employees generally have limited or no company benefits, such as health benefits, vacation and sick time, paid holidays, and unemployment compensation, unless required by state labor laws and/or company policies.
Treat your interns like full-time employees
Like any employee, interns want to feel like they are a part of the company. Many employers adopt the mentality that their interns are not real employees and therefore slack on making them feel like part of the team or adopting standard legal practices to onboard them.
One of the biggest errors that companies make when bringing on interns (especially in small organizations like startups), is to not properly inform their full-time employees how to treat interns. This may sound juvenile, but a one-hour informational session can make all the difference. One of the biggest topics to cover is how the interns will be managed. One of the biggest complaints of interns in 2012 (other than having to work for free) was that they were given menial tasks by their supervisor. Give your interns real tasks and challenges. This also helps you as an employer determine whether the intern can handle real challenges as a full-time employee.
Many companies also neglect to have their interns sign up to the usual legalities of part-time or full-time employees. This puts your company at legal risk and can misalign expectations. When onboarding employees, you should at a minimum ensure they agree to the following:
Offer letter
Invention assignment &confidentiality agreement
Equipment agreements
Employee handbook &training (safety, harassment, etc) if offered to full-time employees.
The documents you use for interns, however, cannot just be standard employment agreements; they must be specifically geared towards your interns. For example, you must specifically state in your offer letters that the internship is not a guarantee of employment.
Nurture your internship program and it will produce results
Hiring the right intern candidates for your company is crucial. Approximately 62 percent of full-time employees recruited through an internship program are still employedby the company five years later. This is almost a 15 precent bump in retention over other candidates hired from outside sources. Having a great internship program is no easy task, but if done correctly can become a competitive advantage that you will not regret.
据Venturebeat网站6月8日报道——很多公司对处理实习生招募的想法完全错误。为你的公司招募实习生，不仅仅意味着找一些人来为正式员工买咖啡或是跑腿，实习生可以成为你公司的未来。
去年，有将近60%的实习生转正为正式员工。
准确地实施实习生计划变成了积极珍贵的招募渠道，因为公司可以实地考察这些员工。你不必需要担心实习生是否能做这份工作，或者是否能适应公司的文化；实习生早已经证明了他们的能力。
然而，招募到最好的实习生并不总是容易的，而且要他们接受你的全职雇佣可能有更大的困难———特别是如果他们有才能的话。所以这里有三个最好的办法，为你的实习生计划找到适合的候选人，万一你找到了，或者你已经找到时，他们能接受正式员工的使命。
招募有创意力的实习生
现在是2013年,那为什么你们还依然像现在是1980年来招募呢？如果你想招到有创意的实习生，你可能需要有创意的方法来吸引他们。你需要大创意来保持公司前进，有眼界和热情的实习生乐意承担一些预计中的风险。
黑客马拉松（Hackathon）已经成为技术公司在招募顶尖技术天才的方法之一。比如，印象笔记（Evernote）在韩国举行它第一次的黑客马拉松，努力招募顶尖韩国学生。在一所广告公司，有实习生使用手机应用程序画画猜词（Draw Something）来申请他们的职位。在这个过程中，画作最具创意的候选人将被筛选出来。
像这样的测试使雇主看到有潜力的实习生，他们具有实践性和创意的技巧。比如，黑客马拉松推动有潜力的实习生快速解决问题，在团队中工作，有时与正式员工一起。
社会化媒介是另一个好办法来吸引实习生。如果你没有将使用社会化媒介作为实习生招募策略之一，你将会失去那26%在使用推特的大学生。使用定位于某些学校或课程重点的媒介有利于迅速制造公司吸引力。
考虑给实习生薪水
在支付正式员工高薪的同时，发展无薪实习生听起来像是一个魔术弹。但这事实远非如此。你可能遇到有潜力的实习生，他们渴求经验，不会犹豫去免费工作。但是沿着这条路线，可能会对你的实习生计划有坏影响，并且会将公司置于法律的水深火热中。
研究生接受一份来自有潜力雇主的实习，这已经越来越普遍了。这些研究生有实际的支出，没有薪水的实习会阻止大部分研究生加入你的公司。即使他们真的接受了，3到6个月的无薪将他们置于经济十分困难的处境，这可能会毁了这段实习期。获得薪水也给实习生一个更好的印象，公司承认了他们的技术。
进一步说，从法律的角度看，现在接受无薪实习的确十分困难。许多公司引火上升，实施免费实习生计划。从2011年以来，关于无薪实习的诉讼在激增。最近的一个例子是，福克斯探照灯（Fox Searchlight Pictures）这家在媒体和娱乐有着强大影响力的公司，它早有无薪实习的传统。显然，2008年的《和萨莫的500天》和2010年的《黑天鹅》电影，福克斯利用无薪实习生来做秘书和门卫工作。这不完全是一个学习的过程。
大部分律师建议，将招募实习生当做招募有薪水的兼职，至少与最低薪水持平。除非地方劳动法和公司规章要求，兼职员工通常没有公司福利，或者有很少的福利，比如健康福利，休息日和病假，带薪假日和失业补偿。
像对待正式员工一样对待实习生
像所有的员工一样，实习生希望能感受到他们也是公司的一份子。许多雇主拥有这样的心理，他们认为实习生不是真正的员工，因此忽略了使实习生感受为公司的一份子，或是让实习生接受正规法定培训。
其中公司犯的最大一个错误是当发展实习生时（尤其是小公司，如创业公司），没有正确地通知正式员工该如何对待实习生。这可能听起来幼稚，但一个小时的信息会议让一切都不一样。2012年最大的抱怨之一（除了免费工作）是上级给实习生低级任务。给实习生真正的任务和挑战。这也会帮助雇主决定实习生是否能像正式员工一般应付真正的挑战。
许多公司也忽略了让实习生签订正常的法律协议，那些兼职和正式员工也会签订的。这会将你的公司置于法律的危险中，并有错误的预期。当招募实习生时，你应该至少确定他们同意一下协议：
聘请通知信
发明转让&保密协议
设备协议
提供给正式员工的员工手册及培训（安全，骚扰等）
然而，这些为实习生准备的文档并不能只是正规的雇佣协议；雇主一定要对实习生有特别的准备。比如，你必须特别在聘请通知信中指出，实习不保证雇佣。
培养你的实习生计划，这一定会有回报
对你的公司而言，招募合适的候选实习生是必要的。在5年之后，通过实习生计划雇佣的正式员工，将近62%依然留在公司里。这对从外面渠道招募的其他候选人，几乎保持有将近15%的冲击。拥有一个好实习生计划不是容易的任务，但如果做得好，你不会后悔的，这将是公司一项有竞争力的优点。