Hiring a College Intern

I don't have any experience with Interns but I sure wish I was eligable right now this is a great oppertunity for some lucky college person.

Yes I have experience with interns (both good and bad). The key is the same as hiring any employee, you need to find the right one. As much prep, and research and interviewing I've found its hit or miss. When its good its great, when its not, it can really stink ;-)

I had a couple... Hit or Miss? They were both misses...

I plan to hire someone locally here on Long Island. I'm not looking for a virtual assistant. But thanks.

I've been pretty lucky - only one bad apple over a decade. At Nortel I usually had 1/2 my staff as co-ops and interns and they worked out well. They do take a bit of hand holding starting out since they do not have a lot of 'real world' office experience - and working at McDonalds is not the same. But I've found them hard working and willing to go the extra mile to learn and do things. Now all my interns and co-ops where computer science majors not marketing/business so not sure how different majors will impact things.

I've also hired interns in my daily business. The last one came from my Alma Mater and I had recommendations from his teachers - teachers I had when I was in College (and not on life support these many years later ;-) ).

I would recommend the same for you Ron - contact your alma mater and see if you can get some recommendations from your contacts there - or from others in local universities - NYC has several great ones and I'm figuring with the trains in the area of the country you could expand out.

By going to the professors and skipping the college recruitment office/ intern offices I've found I get better intel. Professors are not going to send you a lemon (unless you pissed them off in the past ;-) ) but the goal of the recruitment office is to just place folks. Also - even if the university has a formal co-opt/intern department I've found them mostly targeting large Fortune 500 firms and not small businesses. I've had to sweet talk the heads of a few departments too in order to get the folks some credit - that's a bigger effort if there's no formal co-opt program - and if you go outside the process you'll run into the old 'Not invented here' syndrom as well - or at least I have. You would think they'd have the student's best interest at heart - and they usually say that in their brochures - but human nature always trumps propeganda in my experience.

so - as I've said I've had a great experience with interns and co-ops over 15 years. I would have one this year but thought our intern from last year was coming back - but his dad got him a position at the big company he works at- more pay for the kid, plus he does get to experience working as a cog for the MAN vs the heavenly experience of working for me ;-)

Highly recommended (co ops, not working for me that is),

--Jack

In order for them to get college credits for their internship, you'll have to get the internship approved with the college. It'd be interesting to see how a college reacted to an "internet marketing" internship. You're probably in a situation where you could get one approved. But if someone is doing affiliate marketing and wanting to hire an intern to be an article writer, web master, etc., they'll probably run into more resistance.

Also, are you looking to offer a full time internship? I would think that would be the best way to go, so they aren't trying to focus on their job duties AND their school work at the same time.

The biggest thing to reduce the "hit or miss" aspect would be to make sure you have all your processes and systems fully documented ahead of time. That way you can train them and put them to work. Otherwise, you'll have to do a certain amount of "babysitting" and or damage control even if you hire an A player.

You could even hire an intern to help you document and/or improve your processes and systems. I did a summer internship for a Fortune 500 company when I was in college. My sole focus was process improvements.

They paid me all summer (quite well) to shadow and interview employees in each role of a specific division. I'd watch work flow and ask questions about why things were done, done in that order, etc. I'd also ask what would make their job easier, what processes needed updating, what ideas they had for improvement, etc. Then I'd compare what I'd learned to the current processes and systems. I'd document the employees' concerns and suggestions and report my findings to the division manager.

Nothing happened by accident there. Everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing and they were pretty dang good at it. But as a company, they were committed to staying on top of things to make sure that their processes and systems were always optimized.

Sorry, I rambled a bit.