How Having an Intern Benefits your Business

As I write this I am currently starting my second week as an intern at artXchange. Internships are brilliant- they provide students with work experience in their desired career sector, allowing them to put the theories they have learnt in the classroom into practice.

Internships are not only beneficial for the intern, but can also be extremely beneficial to businesses also. If you have not considered it already, here are some reasons you may want to think about finding an intern

Find future employees

Internship can be a very effective way of finding future employees. Meeting the candidate early in their career journey means that you can build a good rapport and potentially swoop up a brilliant piece of talent before the competition does. Internships also act as way of pre-screening candidates, allowing you to see how the candidate fits into your team and whether they would be a good employee. When you next come to hire, you may well find that you want to take on someone who is already familiar with the business and proven to be a good worker.

Collaborate with a further education provider

With a common interest, an Internship can allow a strong and lasting connection to be developed between your business and local University or College. You may be able to assist with developing employability skills of undergraduates, for example.

A fresh pair of eyes

Interns come into your business with fresh eyes and brand new ideas, they are likely to ask questions that you may not have thought to ask yourself and may see a way of doing things that you had not considered.

Increase productivity

Interns are an extra pair of hands to help you ease your work load. This is especially true of small or start-up businesses that may not have the funds to support a big team of staff. Utilise that extra person!

Great with social media

Every business is aware of how important having a great social media strategy is, however lots of businesses may struggle with the ins and outs and may not know how to utilise it properly. Take advantage of having someone younger and perhaps more tech-savvy around and ask them to improve your social media presence.

Feel good factor

Your business, and you personally can have a lasting impact on an individual, the intern, much like a good teacher would. By opening your doors you can provide the opportunity to improve their skills and add experiences in all sorts of areas - business, communication, planning, time-management - via work experience, networking and related workshop or short courses.

Low cost labour

If you are a SME, you may not have the funds to take on as many members of staff as may be ideal. Having an intern allows you to benefit from extra labour without having to pay any wages. There are also plenty of universities that run internship schemes where they will pay the intern themselves. Teesside University have ran such a scheme this year, and it may well be worth looking into schemes near you that do this.

So, what are you waiting for? Go and find yourself an intern!