Getting the Most from Your College Internship Investment: Finding the Right Intern

September 2009

Internships may very well be the best way to hire new employees, bar none. You get to see the intern's performance in training, on the job, interacting with peers, customers, and management, and under a variety of circumstances that you can engineer or that happen by chance. The intern gets to learn new skills, polish up their resume, and try on your work environment to see how well it fits their personality.

by Brenda Wells, Ph.D., CPCU, AAI

At the end of the internship period (typically 8 to 10 weeks), you can part company without any hard feelings. Or, you can mutually agree to continue the arrangement on any newly agreed upon terms you wish.

From March to May of almost every year, at least a dozen employers will call or write me, inquiring about finding a summer intern. That sounds simple enough, until I have to break the bad news to them: they've already started their planning pretty late in the game to ensure a successful outcome. Here, I share a few of the most important secrets to designing a really successful summer intern program that will attract the best candidates.

Why Do You Really Want an Intern?

If you want someone to cover the phones and fetch donuts, you don't need a college intern. If you are looking to fill one or more permanent positions that are coming open in the next year, or you have a seasonal need for skilled professional help, then turning to the college market for your talent needs is a smart move.

Internships are a great way to "try out" an employee without a long-term commitment on your part, but they are not very successful or useful if you don't have a clear reason for needing that employee in the first place. Make sure you have enough real work for the intern to do to justify hiring them. When students report back to me about their internships, I rarely hear them say, "I stayed too busy. I worked too hard." I have heard plenty of them say, "It was boring. I didn't have anything to do."

Plan Early

The established summer internship programs that you'll be competing with for the best talent begin recruiting in September and October for the following summer. That doesn't mean you cannot find someone if you wait until spring, but it does mean some (though not necessarily all) of the best candidates have already been spoken for before you get word out that you're hiring. So, in a perfect world, you'll plan that internship at least 8 or 9 months ahead of time.

Treat It Like a Permanent Position

It's a waste of your money and resources—and the intern's time—if you aren't treating the internship program as having a potentially permanent role in your organization. If you're going to do the work to create and define a position, make it something that is useful in the long run to the organization. Plan it as if you will repeat the internship every year, assuming your budget allows. Also, plan an evaluation and feedback system that will allow you to improve on the experience each year.

Pick That Professor's Brain!

Getting to know the professors at the local university is one of the most important things you can do to find the right internship candidates. Few people can tell you those students' strengths and weaknesses better than the professors in the students' major field of study. The more unique a candidate you need to find for your organization, the more it helps to have that academic connection in which candidates can be identified early on and routed to you directly. I have been relatively successful in placing student job candidates over the years not because I am inherently good at it, but because industry veterans took the time to educate me on their needs, and then gave me feedback (both good and bad) on the results obtained from my selections.

You Get What You Pay For

An average college student in an average college town can easily make $10 an hour bartending or waiting tables. They can wear jeans, have a short commute, and probably get free food and drinks in the process. So, why would they want to give that up to put on business attire and drive to your office for the same money?

In the 20 years that I have taught at the collegiate level, I have seen more and more students working during the summer because they have bills to pay, and not because they need beer money for the upcoming football season. It is a mistake to think that college students are working "just for the experience."

To get a starting point for the right pay range, ask the professors at the school where you are recruiting the student from. Survey students before you start hiring. And yes, ask the candidates themselves what they would reasonably expect, in terms of a pay range, but give them the freedom to be honest about what they'll take. Don't be offended if they ask for more than you had planned on paying. Don't rule out a candidate who comes in asking for too much—remember, they are interns, and it's a learning experience for them, so perhaps you can give them their first lesson in expectations versus reality.

The cost of living and tuition varies from place to place, so it's difficult to give a magic number that works for all jobs and all cities. Unless you're in a very, very low-cost area, I would start at a minimum of $10 per hour.

The best internship pay I've seen in recent years was $25 per hour, offered by one of the national direct-writer insurers. That pay came with a company car and a gas allowance because the job involved a great deal of driving. Needless to say, the company had no shortage of internship applicants.

The worst? I once saw a job posting from a major stock broker in the Dallas area that said, "Of course, this is an uncompensated opportunity." When I read it to my students, "of course," they all laughed (hysterically). I'm just saying that your chances of finding someone who is qualified for the position who can also afford to work for free—or even cheap—are extremely remote.

Spread the Word

Maximize the chances of finding the best candidate for your position by distributing your internship posting to as many outlets as possible. Tap every available network, including colleagues (CPCU, RIMS, CLU, etc.), clients, agents, suppliers, local universities and community colleges, and even local high schools (keep in mind that a portion of those students will be moving into college immediately, and may become repeat interns for several summers if you find the right person).

In my next Expert Commentary, I'll talk more about the details of internship programs, especially the qualities you'll want to incorporate to maximize your satisfaction with the internship process.

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