Interns: Equal Benefits for All

The benefits of interning are clear: you get the college credit you need, experience in the workplace and an awesome addition to your resume that employers will take notice of over a candidate without it. While the intern knows that having real-life experience in an office is going to give them the edge they need in order to face the rat race towards career stability bliss, what does the employer get out of hiring an intern?

There are five advantages a business gains by hiring an intern:

1. Gaining potential future employees – Having an intern gives you the chance to train someone to work in your office. You’ll not only teach them the necessary skills to be successful in the workplace, but you’ll also teach them how to be successful in your workplace. According to the Harris Interactive Survey, “more than 80% of employers want new grads they can hire who have completed a formal internship.” Just imagine the advantages of hiring an intern who has completed a formal internship within your company.
2. Obtain new concepts – Having a fresh pair of eyes and ears helps energize a project. Someone who has not been working on the same project or staring at the same computer screen for hours offers original thoughts and ideas when all of yours have been exhausted. The project will receive the boost it needs to move to the next level.
3. Increase efficiency within the workplace – Having an extra set of hands to pick up the little pieces of work that pile up on your to-do list makes all the difference. You’ll have more time to focus on the bigger tasks at hand, allowing for a more productive and efficient day. The intern will benefit, too, because he/she will gain more knowledge from helping you with a wide variety of projects.
4. Low-cost employment for highly motivated workers – It’s not a secret that interns are either paid very little or not at all. That in itself proves how ambitious an individual has to be in order to work for nothing. Looking for a job can be a scary thing, especially in today’s economy. Interns who are either still in school or right out of school are highly motivated to do a good job because they want a glowing recommendation when they apply for jobs or they want the next job that opens up at your company.
5. Finding employees with staying power – As a business, you don’t want to have to look for new employees every few months. Having to conduct job interviews after a short period of time halts the work that you could be doing in lieu of those interviews. “According to NACE’s 2009 Experiential Education Survey, almost 40% of employers reported a higher five-year retention rate among employees they’d hired via their internship programs.”(internships.com)

As an employer, hiring an intern can mean an extreme improvement within your company. You’re increasing productivity for all minor or major tasks, including coming up with fresh ideas for future projects. There really is no loser in this scenario – the intern learns more about the workplace and what will be expected of them once they’re out in the real world, and businesses profit from having revived enthusiasm in the office as well as from helping future candidates prepare for the reality of what employers are looking for.

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