Not every personality is good for managing and hiring an intern. We’ve had paid and non-paid interns and have learned lots so that it’s a win-win internship program. I’ll share the 5 things that have helped us the most.
5 Steps To Set Up An Internship Program:
- List Out Projects
- Create Weekly Challenges
- Know Your Company Mission & Guiding Principles
- Market Your Internship Program
- Interview and Onboard
When you market that you are looking for interns you will have lots of applicants however if you don’t have clarity in these 5 areas your intern will slack off and you’ll end up letting them go. I don’t want you to waste your time or energy when you start the process of hiring an intern. You can set up an internship program that is profitable and fun for everyone.
Hiring An Intern And Setting Up A Fun Program
We used to only do non-paid internships and I used the company Acadium but it was just hard to find quality interns in the US. You’d think with the pandemic and more people at home learning they’d be able to complete the 10 hours of work a week and communicate if something comes up but to have interns you hired ghost you are annoying.
Here’s the grim reality of unpaid interns…
“An estimated 500,000 to one million Americans work as unpaid interns every year.”
“Around 43% of internships are unpaid.”
“In the US House of Representatives, 61% of legislators do not pay their interns.” – Intern Stats
The best interns are ones from church or someone who interned for one of our clients. For 5 years, I typically have 1 intern and the most I’ve had at one time was 3.
I talked to friends with marketing agencies who have interns and most are non-paid since so many universities require so it’s a high demand but one pays $500 per semester. So this is what we will be trying out and I already have it up on our internship website page.
Here are the 5 things to do so that you have a successful internship program.
List Out Projects
These projects need to have a clear SOP (standard operating process). An intern wants to learn, they need extra patience, and they want to finish the internship feeling confident in the skillset.
This is a screenshot of one section of an internship landing page we created. Most people are looking for internships to complete their 2 requirements for college so make sure if you want a page up on your website like this you get it up by November or July before the semester starts.
Each semester we have 4 positions available for 4 interns. They don’t learn EVERYTHING on the list, but when hiring an intern but we do have SOPs for each item.
It’s hard when an intern says, “I want to learn anything and everything about marketing”. So keep asking questions to learn what they are interested in learning so that you don’t hire someone who gets bored or just doesn’t care about doing good work.
I hired an intern once who was in their third year of graphic design school. His first task was making carousel graphics for Instagram.
He didn’t follow our personal branding guide or the style of our Instragam.
I kept guiding him with Loom videos for 2 weeks.
It was frustrating when he’d argue with me and wasn’t coachable. I thought I asked all the right questions while interviewing and he had all the right answers. So don’t feel bad if you have to let someone go.
Even though I thought I picked the MOST simplest thing to do when it comes to graphic design and using Canva that already has templates it just didn’t work out.
But when I hired an interior designer and gave her the same task, BOOM she has an eye for design and was probably the intern that surprised me the most with her gifts that she didn’t even know she had but I pulled them out of her during the internship program.
When the intern tells you what skill set they’d like to master within the next 3 months. Pick 1 or 2 from your list and make sure you have SOPs.
Are you still thinking of hiring an intern? I know you can make it a fun experience. Keep reading.
Create Weekly Challenges
Having SOPs will help you to create weekly challenges or to-dos when hiring an intern. Your internship can’t be boring! Make it fun. You can even add something like watching “The Social Deimema” on Netflix (so another documentary in your industry) and comment on this social media post.
Yeah, they will take a couple of hours to not do client work for you but this helps them grow and think more creatively, strategically, or out of the box.
Most college internships are 12 months for 10 hours per week.
I’ve had interns from Point Loma High School and those range from 2 to 4 hours a week.
Now that you know how many weeks you are hiring an intern for and how many hours list out a weekly challenge that ends with them being proficient in the 1-2 things they said they wanted to accomplish.
When you do this right your intern will feel confident and acknowledge you at the end that you helped them achieve that goal.
Make them simple starting from easy tasks to harder ones. This allows you to test out their skills and how they follow the SOPs. When hiring an intern, just give them 1 task at a time. I never show them all the challenges so they don’t get overwhelmed. This also gives your room to make changes if they are moving along quicker or need extra time to complete a to-do list.
Know Your Company Mission & Guiding Principles
This should probably be the first one thing to consider when hiring an intern, but I didn’t think it sounded sexy and I wanted you to keep reading. You need to have a clear vision and mission so that you lead your employees and interns well.
You may be thinking yeah I have a mission statement… I challenge you. Ask your employees what it is. Ask your stakeholders. I’m sure they don’t have it memorized.
“If you start with a good mission statement, you can conquer the world.” – Donald Miller
If you’ve been following us for the past couple of years then you know we are big fans of StoryBrand and they have online courses to help grow your business.
Business Made Simple University has “Mission Statement Made Simple” this is different than your BrandScript or OneLiner.
This will inspire your intern and it will help you only get applicants who line up with your mission. This makes hiring an intern easy.
Market Your Internship Program
Pick a couple from this list when hiring an intern. If you can get 3 people to apply then you’ll be able to pick the best one.
- Make a “We’re Hiring Interns” graphic in Canva & make all the right sizes for each social media
- Post on social media – Instagram Stories, LinkedIn Company, and personal page, post it up everywhere
- Put it up on Craig’s List
- Speak at universities and end with a CTA (call to action) of “apply for an internship by going to …”
- Ask people in your Bible study class
- Make an internship page on your website
If you like having interns and you do a great job then your interns will refer their friends. Eventually, you’ll have a list of universities and individuals who would be great candidates or great referral partners to decide from when hiring an intern.
Interview and Onboard
I already talked about asking the right questions during the interview when hiring an intern. One of our REBEL core values is Relationships Matter. This means that we get a feel and trust our gut or intuition on the call. I always pray that red flags will show up on that call so I don’t hire the wrong intern.
Hiring an intern is exciting but you’ve got to immediately onboard them in a simple way.
Onboarding Process for Hiring an Intern:
- Send welcome to the team email – this has the new company email details, how to log into Basecamp so they can see the to-dos/weekly challenges, and I ask them if they’ve taken a personality test like Strengths Finder, Myers Briggs, or Enneagram.
- Schedule first training call – this is where I go over how to use the software tools they will use, I show them how to use the SOPs, and I assign them their first-week to-dos.
- Schedule weekly check-in call – we go over what worked, didn’t work, and what they need from me to move the project forward.
We don’t ever promise to hire them for a regular paid position. But I’d never considered hiring an intern if I didn’t see the potential and didn’t have the budget to hire them once their internship is complete.
Think about it they do amazing work but you just let them go even though they want to keep working for you. Yeah, that is weird and doesn’t feel good. I normally move them up to 20 hours a week and whatever the going rate is here in San Diego if it’s someone local.
Take Action!
Like I said earlier, if you don’t know your mission and guiding principles for your local business then you won’t attract hiring an intern that’s irresponsible and they won’t stick with you once the 3 months are complete.
You need a clear company culture.
That starts with your mission statement.
I take leadership teams through this over a series of 3 calls. Click on the red button at the top of this page to schedule a call to see if we are a good fit.
Or you can go through the course at Business Made Simple University if you are more of a DIY business owner. It only takes you 4 hours.
I think this is the one missing thing that makes hiring an intern fail.
What Are The Benefits Of Hiring An Intern?
There are many benefits of hiring an intern for both the intern and the company that hires them. As someone who took on two internships within two different industries at the end of this past year, I’ve gained some wonderful experiences and knowledge. Here are five benefits and some things to think about before you move forward.
- A trial period for both the company, its current employees, and the intern
- Help with tasks and projects
- New and fresh perspectives
- Low-cost labor
- Enhance leadership skills in the employees you already have
Once we’ve been doing anything for a certain amount of time, we can easily get stuck in a rut and just keep on with the same old boring game plan. Bringing on a new intern can be a great way to shake things up with some much-needed freshness, not just for you as a business owner, but also for your team as a whole. Let’s dig deeper to talk about the advantages of hiring an intern.
#1 A Trial Period
This is a trial period for the company, its current employees, and the intern. A trial period is always great when hiring an intern as it’s a fantastic way to test the skills of new talent while also getting a front-row seat to see how they interact and work with the team you’ve so carefully put together. And it’s just that. It’s a trial period. Nobody needs to commit to anything long-term. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all went into dating this way? I digress.
It’s important to know how people are going to work with each other. This matters for interpersonal relationships as well as for overall productivity. It’s great when people enjoy what they do but there are always the ‘have to’ tasks that nobody in their right mind enjoys. When you have people that like each other and work well together in a team environment, even those not-so-fun checklist items will be less cumbersome. That makes for better and more enjoyable work all around.
#2 Help With Tasks and Projects
When hiring an intern, it’s important to not just give them the grunt work. Give them real work. They’ve likely sought out this type of work in order to test-drive the work in addition to the company as a whole.
I don’t know about you but I’ve never test-driven a car without trying to see exactly what it can handle. I want to know what the ride feels like. I want to know how it truly operates. Okay, I haven’t necessarily opened the hood to look underneath; I wouldn’t know what to look for anyway. My point is that I want to know what I’ll be getting myself into should I decide to jump in headfirst in the near future.
As for the company, when hiring an intern, the importance of handing them real work as opposed to sending them on coffee runs and pointless errands will give them a chance to show you how they can be of service in the long-term. You will see first hand how they handle pressure as well as how they interact with people. Interpersonal skills can only be tested in real-life scenarios.
#3 New and Fresh Perspectives
Hiring an intern will likely bring in new perspectives and will potentially carry in skills that your organization lacks; specifically in the area of social media. This can be wonderfully beneficial for a company looking to grow in any number of areas. This will be especially true when it comes to younger interns.
My own experience is a little bit different. I have many years of hospitality and special events experience. My techy and social media experience is lacking, however, years of work dealing with many different personalities and family dynamics gives me a leg up on my competition in many ways. After many years of management, I heard something I never forgot. Hire character, train skill. Skills can be learned.
Character can be difficult to find these days, espescially when hiring an intern. I think we can all agree that good character takes years to form and build. Once properly formed it’s difficult to break. You want to fill your team with people that can offer fresh ideas and bring new perspectives, but even more important is to have your team composed of those with good solid character.
#4 Low-Cost Labor
Hiring an intern is a great way to take advantage of low-cost labor while testing the skills of new talent. However, this shouldn’t be the reason you ‘onboard’ an intern. It’s nice to save money but there should be a very clear purpose for both your company wanting an intern and for the intern to want to be at your company.
It should be a win/win so that everyone walks away feeling like they’ve accomplished something. By the end of the internship, it’s important for the intern to feel as though they’ve gained skills they otherwise would not have and for the company to feel they’re ahead of where they would have been otherwise.
#5 Enhance Leadership Skills In The Employees You Already Have
Many times young talent will come straight out of university with their hard-earned degree in hand while they sport that sometimes obnoxious prideful smile. When hiring an intern, it doesn’t take very long to figure out they lack the soft skills that can only come from the cold hard reality of real-life experience. Soft skills can include basic communication, listening, non-verbal communication, presentation, writing skills, and negotiation.
There are many others but let’s be honest here by mentioning that while some of these seem incredibly basic, they can be hard to find in younger talent these days. My first response is not great. I usually want to blame someone. The kid, the parents, the school. But, really some skills just need a little push once operations in the real world have commenced.
This brings me to my next point. I think it’s imperative that you, as the head of your company (or the person making the decision to bring on an intern), communicate your expectations for your current leadership with regard to handling interns. They are the ones who will be leading and guiding the intern during their experience with your company.
Of course, you want anyone that walks through your doors to have a positive experience. When hiring an intern, this will start with the people acting as their trail guides. You’ll want your guides to know what is expected of them. Be sure to make time for regular updates from both your leadership as well as the intern. This will help keep the lines of communication open on all sides.
Remember, the interns are there because they want to learn something, but the company may learn some things along the way too.
A couple more things to think about before you move forward with the implementation of an internship program. Take the time to think about the following before hiring an intern:
- Have clear goals and direction for the program in addition to knowing the time-frame. Is it 90 days or longer?
- Is it a paid internship or non-paid? Remember that knowledge and the development of skills are sometimes more valuable than monetary compensation. Be sure that your decision is known and clear to any internship applicant so that they can make the most informed decision for themselves.
- Be sure to be ready to ask your applicants what their expectations are. What do they want to learn? What do they want to walk away with having gained once the internship concludes?
- How will your current team be introduced and how should they expect to be involved? What are some things that they will want to gain from this experience? Who is the point person and what is the hierarchy? It’s important to be respectful of the people in charge and the intern will need to know in order to avoid any messy situations.
Now that you’ve read about what we think are some of the benefits of hiring an intern. Take some time to think about how your company and team can specifically benefit. You’ll be thankful you did!
We Have Marketing Internships Available
Each semester we have four internships; social media, content creation, local SEO, and podcasting. Apply at LizCortes.com/Internship