Employers

Providing interns with real work is number one to ensuring your program’s success. Interns should be doing work related to their major, that is challenging, that is recognized by the organization as valuable, and that fills the entire work term. You can guarantee that hiring managers provide real work assignments by checking job descriptions, emphasizing the importance of real work assignments during a manager/mentor orientation sessions, and communicating with interns frequently throughout the work term to determine how they perceive what they are doing.

*Note: The best practices presented here assume the organization’s goal is to convert interns to full-time hires and is therefore paying its interns. Unpaid internships present a number of problems for organizations focused on intern conversion, not the least of which is legal issues that arise if the unpaid intern is given real work assignments.

It’s important that everyone “be on the same page,” so to speak. Make this happen by holding an orientation session for managers and mentors as well as a session for students. Orientations ensure that everyone starts with the same expectations and role definitions. This is time well spent—the effort you put into these sessions will pay off throughout the program.

Whether in paper booklet format, or presented as a special section on your website, a handbook serves as a guide for students, answering frequently asked questions and communicating the “rules” in a warm and welcoming way. A separate intern website serves many of the purposes of the handbook, but has the advantage of being easy to change. You can use your website as a communication tool, with announcements from the college relations staff or even articles of interest written by the interns themselves.

Few employers can afford to provide fully paid housing for interns, but you’ll find that you get a lot of appreciation if you offer any kind of assistance toward housing expenses. If that’s not possible, provide assistance in locating affordable housing: For those relocating to the job site, the prospect of finding affordable, short-term housing can be daunting. Easy availability of affordable housing will make your opportunity more attractive to students, broadening your pool of candidates. If you can pay for all or some of your interns’ housing, be sure to design (and stick to) a clear policy detailing who is eligible. This will eliminate any perceptions of unequal treatment. In addition, be aware that employer-paid or employer-subsidized housing is considered a taxable benefit. Check with your internal tax department on exceptions to this. You will also want to consider the issue of relocation, which is separate although related to housing. Many organizations pay some or all of their interns’ relocation expenses to and/or from the job site.

Pairing a scholarship with your internship is a great way to recruit for your internship program—and this is especially true if you are having difficulty attracting a particular type of student or student with a specific skill set to your program. Attaching a scholarship can increase your pool of candidates with the desired qualifications.

Students mention flex-time as one of their most-desired features in a job. (A flexible time schedule during their internship eases their transition to the workplace.) If you think about how students spend the day on campus (varied schedule each day, with varied activities such as work, class, social time), you can understand that 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday is a bit of an adjustment for them. A flexible schedule can make them feel less chained in by an unchanging routine. Other work arrangements that have been found successful with students include keeping them on as part-time, remote employees after they go back to school (depending on the type of work they do for you and whether they have a willing manager), and having them come back and work over school breaks for a couple of weeks. These are excellent ways to keep communications open and build a stronger bond.

Having a dedicated manager for your intern program is the best way to ensure that it runs smoothly and stays focused on your criteria for success. Unfortunately, the size and resources available to most internship programs mean that this isn’t always possible. If your program isn’t big enough to warrant a dedicated full-time staff member, an excellent short-term solution is to hire a graduate student (look for a student working toward an advanced HR degree) to be your intern, and put this college relations intern in charge of the daily operation of the internship program. This gives the interns a “go-to” person, and gives you and your staff a break from the many daily tasks involved in running a program of any size. For this to work, you have to plan the program structure in advance (don’t expect your intern to do it), and be very accessible to your college relations intern.

Involve your college recruiting teams—whether they are “volunteers” who participate in college recruiting, staff members dedicated to college recruiting, or some combination of both—in your intern program. They can sponsor social or professional development events, and help to orient the interns to your company culture. In my experience, college team members served as cooks at intern picnics, hosts at speaker events, and drivers for social outings such as ball games.

Although some programs—especially those that are very structured on the university side—make visits by career center staff and faculty a regular practice, most do not. In general, career center staff and faculty members have relatively few opportunities to visit employer work sites to see firsthand the types of experiences that their students are getting. By inviting them to your site, you will build a better working relationship with these groups, which can lead to more student referrals, enhanced campus visibility, and increased flexibility on their parts when your business needs dictate it.

New-hire panels are one of the best ways to showcase an organization to interns as a great place to work. These are panels of five or six people who were hired as new grads within the last three years. They act as panelists in a meeting of interns, giving a brief summary of their background and then answering questions from the intern audience. Your interns get insight about your organization from your new hires—people who they perceive are like themselves and who they consequently view as credible sources of information.

In these meetings, I’ve found that the interns consistently bring up the same topics: Why did you choose this employer over others? What was your first year like? How is being a full-time employee here different from being an intern? Do you recommend getting a graduate degree? In the same field, or an M.B.A.? Is it better to go straight to graduate school after the bachelor’s or better to work a while?

It’s also fairly consistent that the new hires will offer other types of advice to your interns, such as how to handle finances those first couple of years out of school. (Their typical advice: Don’t run right out and buy a new car, and, Start contributing the maximum to your savings plan as soon as you are allowed.)

College relations staff should attend these sessions, but should remain unobtrusive, staying in the back of the room so as not to stifle the conversation. By being there, you stay aware of what is on the minds of your target group, and you can answer any detailed questions that may come up, such as those related to benefits.

One of the greatest advantages to students in having internships is the access they get to accomplished professionals in their field. Consequently, speakers from the executive ranks are very popular with students—it’s  a great career development and role modeling experience for interns. Having a CEO speak is especially impressive. Best scenario: Your CEO speaker is personable, willing to answer questions, and willing and able to spend a little informal time with the students after speaking—your interns will be quite impressed.

For you, having your executives speak to interns is another way to “sell” your organization to the interns, and get your executives invested in (and supporting) your program.

Providing students with access to in-house training—both in work-skills-related areas, such as a computer language, and in general skills areas, such as time management—is a tangible way to show students you are interested in their development.

You may also want to consider providing interns with information about nearby community colleges: Many students will be interested in attending during their work term to take care of some electives and/or get a little ahead with the hours they need to graduate. If you have the budget, you may also want to consider paying the tuition for courses they take while working for you, but, as is the case with housing, any assistance you can provide—even if it’s just providing them with information about local schools—will earn you points with students.

Conducting focus groups and feedback surveys with these representatives of your target group is a great way to see your organization as the students see it. Focus groups in particular can yield information about what your competitors are doing that students find appealing.

Students work very hard at completing their work and are generally proud of their accomplishments. Setting up a venue for them to do presentations (formal presentations or in a fair-type setting such as an expo) not only allows them to demonstrate their achievements, but also showcases the internship program to all employees.

Whether face-to-face or over the telephone, a real-time exit interview done by a member of the college relations team is an excellent way to gather feedback on the student’s experience and to assess their interest in coming back. Having the students fill out an exit survey and bring it to the interview gives some structure to the conversation.

-Courtesy of the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

To ensure your interns get valuable exposure to the different areas of your organization, consider developing an internship program schedule populated with activities for interns to connect more deeply with the company, build skills, and bond with one another.

One of the keys to developing an effective internship program schedule is to start early. It takes time to develop a comprehensive schedule, and to enlist the people and obtain the resources you need. A reasonable allotment of time is five to six months so you will be ready when your interns arrive.

Following are more tips for developing and implementing an internship program schedule:

• Develop an orientation—This could include a welcome from your CEO, a team-building activity for interns, time with managers to review specific objectives and see the work area, sessions such as an assessment focused on communication styles and time management, and more.
• Plan a community project for interns—If you do a group project, be sure to include on the schedule the weekly meetings and the final presentation to senior management. Send invitations to all attendees as early as possible to ensure strong attendance.
• Look to have an event at least once a week—Be sensitive to any days the interns may be tied up with normal work events, e.g., interns may have work assignments every Wednesday and Thursday, so schedule intern events for Mondays, Tuesdays, or Fridays.
• Plan events during which interns will be all together so they can bond—Be sure to plan at least one big social event. Invite the interns’ assigned mentors or buddies when appropriate.
• Understand what the interns need to be successful—Don’t just develop the skills they need for their internships, but for the long-term as well. Provide interns with skills they can use in the real world or if they join the organization full time. For example, offer weekly leadership skills training, which could include sessions on personal accountability, communication skills, and presentation skills.
• Ask your training and development team what training it has that would be beneficial for the interns—If they don’t have anything that fits, see if they can build it. This is one of the reasons why you should start early. Doing so gives your training and development team the time to develop training if needed.
• See what training, presentations, or other events the organization as a whole is offering during the intern program—Incorporate into your internship program schedule organization-wide events, such as company picnics and “lunch-and-learns.”
• Get management involved—Invite your president, CEO, and senior management team to participate in intern orientation and events. They may be available to host an executive reception during the first week. Book these dates as early as possible to ensure a good turnout.
• Set dates for interns’ mid-term and final evaluations—Set goals and expectations, and provide interns with honest assessments of their performance. Send reminders the week before meetings so the evaluations are completed.
• Include a “shadowing day”—Giving your interns an opportunity to shadow an employee gives interns exposure to another potential career path within your organization.

– Courtesy of the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

The successful college recruiting program looks at the long haul, not just short-term results, and is built on strong relationships.

Most college recruiting professionals identify the career center as their “base.” These typically offer career fairs, job-posting services, on-campus recruiting, and other options for connecting with students. Plus, career center staff can provide you with intelligence about their campus—its culture and traditions, specifics about their students’ attitudes and behaviors, and such—which you can use to tailor your strategy. Career center staff also can help you develop relationships with other key campus contacts, including faculty and administrators.

The reality is, no college recruiting program can guarantee job openings for new college grads every year, but organizations achieving the greatest success don’t abandon campus when they aren’t hiring. Instead, they find ways to maintain their ties, such as continuing their internship program, taking part in mock interviews, or performing resume critiques. This is where career center staff can be especially helpful: They can tell you what options are open, and what will and won’t work for their campus.

True story: At a meeting, a group of recruiting professionals toted up their respective hiring goals for a specific major, and found that their collective goal exceeded the number of candidates available. Consider that they represented just a portion of the employers seeking this major, and you’ll see the problem with setting goals that aren’t fact-based. Base your goals on supply, demand, and related factors. How large is the potential pool? Where are the candidates? Who are your competitors? What are they offering? Do this work up front, and you’ll be better able to set reachable goals.

Most college recruiting professionals say they build their target school list around majors available, quality of programs, experience recruiting at the school, and school location. This requires research and careful tracking, so you can see which schools are working best for your organization.

In researching which schools offer the majors you seek, be wary of “best schools for” rankings; it’s tempting to use these as a shortcut around real research, but be aware that rankings are based on criteria that may not match up with your organization’s needs.

Would you approach a career fair booth if the booth staff looked bored? Would you be impressed by a representative who told you to check the company website to get answers to your questions? How comfortable would you feel in an interview if the recruiter asked you for a date? Unfortunately, this is how some company reps have behaved on campus.

Don’t take great pains to build a brand only to negate it by sending a “warm body” to campus. Research shows that who you send to campus is critical: Your reps have the most influence on how students view your organization. Send well-trained professionals who are equipped to answer questions, address concerns, represent your brand, and sell your organization.

Students need to know what the steps are in the selection and hiring process. Keep them apprised of what’s happening, what they can expect, and when they can expect it. Follow up with students you have talked to at a career fair. Keep in touch with interns after they have returned to campus.  Let students know promptly about their status.

Track how many hires you make, yes, but also track your interview to offer, offer to acceptance, and retention rates. These can help you identify where you’re having the most trouble, so you can adjust.

For example, a high number of interviews but few offers can tip you off to a problem with screening in candidates for interviews. Is your job description too vague, meaning candidates can’t screen themselves out? Are you unclear about what you want in a candidate? Similarly, if you are extending many offers but getting few acceptances, you can zero in on what’s going on in this part of the process. Where are the snags? Are your salaries competitive? Are you taking too long to extend the offer—and losing candidates to other organizations? (In this case, you will want to gather information from students who have turned you down to identify what went wrong, but you should also find out what prompted acceptance among those who agreed to come work for your organization. Both can be illuminating!) Once you have identified where you are having trouble, you can take steps to adjust your process.

You also want to benchmark against others involved in college recruiting, to compare “apples to apples.” (For current benchmarks, see the highlights from the latest recruiting benchmarks survey.)

An internship program is one of the most effective recruiting techniques, helping you build a relationship with potential hires early in their college career (before they are “on the job market”) and gauge their fit for your organization. An internship program can also help you achieve better retention: Research shows new college hires who have served an internship are more likely to stay with the employer. (For more on internships, see “15 Best Practices for Internship Programs”).

-Mimi Collins is director of content strategy for the National Association of Colleges and Employers.