“…an advanced student or graduate usually in a professional field gaining supervised practical experience.”
TheOxford dictionary adds that “an intern is a student or trainee who works, sometimes without pay…”
The University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Career Center goes on to say that “An internship is a professional learning experience that offers meaningful, practicalwork related to a student’s field of study or career interest.”
A couple of things emerge from these definitions.
· An intern exchanges labor in order to gain practical working experience.
· An internship can be paid or unpaid.
· The intern must be supervised and or mentored by a supervisor.
With that out of the way, let’s look at the benefits of bringing onboard fresh talent.
Benefit #1 Hiring interns provides you with a pipeline of future employees
If you don’t enjoy the process of recruiting and onboarding new employees, hiring interns just might be the answer you’re looking for.
In fact, leading auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) uses these internships as a dual hiring and mentorship process because90% of their interns are offered a full-time job after their internship.
43% of internships are not paid. Many tech businesses are ditching this perspective and opting to compensate their interns. Retaining skilled interns means they benefit from skilled labor at a fraction of the price of hiring full-time staff.
That’s why big corporations such as Facebook, Salesforce, and Amazon are all too happy to remunerate interns withgenerous monthly stipends. As an upcoming business, this might be a strategy worth considering.
Benefit # 3 Hiring talented interns can help you successfully complete projects
A new set of ideas can revolutionize a business and contribute to the success of a project. This is evidenced by the interns who worked on the blockbuster movie The Black Swan.
Their win set a precedent in the movie industry and today, interns in the film industry can anticipate fair compensation for their talent and ideas.
Benefit # 4 Hiring interns enables you to meet short-term staffing requirements
Interns work a minimum of 120 hours. This can be part-time or full-time depending on what is agreed upon.
Interns can also take on administrative or clerical tasks that can ease the workload of your regular employees helping you, therefore, satisfy any immediate staffing needs.
Benefit # 5 Hiring interns helps you stay up-to-date with the latest tech developments
Technology is developing at such a rapid pace companies stand to benefit a lot when they bring in younger, more tech-savvy interns.
For example, a perceptive intern can assist businesses grow and develop an online presence on trending social media platforms such as Tik Tok which enjoyed a record breaking 315 million downloads in Q1 of 2020 - the highest number of downloads in a quarter by any application so far.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that theaverage age across industries is in the 40s. If businesses have any hope of staying relevant and innovative they cannot afford to overlook the advantage younger interns would bring.
Conclusion
Hiring interns can be a fulfilling and rewarding experience. It’s mutually beneficial as you get to impart knowledge and skills to the next generation while your business, in turn, receives a boost in terms of labor and new ideas.
If you would like to schedule a consultation with one of our strategists to map a way forward for your business,contact us today.
