How to Hire Interns in 2023 – Are You Using These 3 Techniques?

Hiring interns is an essential part of building a successful company. 74% of organizations end up hiring at least a portion of their past interns. Interns bring fresh perspectives, allow businesses to stay innovative and competitive in their industries, and are a great way to nurture new talent (90% of companies who hire interns rate the experience as satisfying). You will find great new hires through internship programs. Especially if you pair an intern with a mentor, you’ll be nurturing a new employee and building their loyalty to your organization.

You have to know where to look and how to interview interns in order to get the most impact from this fresh talent. Honing your skills and learning the best ways to interview and recruit interns will also give you a leg up on companies that aren’t trying to or aren’t able to hire interns effectively. But first, you have to be wondering, why is it important to hire interns at all?

I Have Full Time Openings I Am Trying To Fill, Why Should I Hire Interns? Aren’t they Just Short Term?

• Building your built-in employee candidate pool. Teaching and mentoring interns is the best way to build your internal candidate pool. After their 6-12 month stint at your company, you have an employee who knows the ins and outs of your company and has the technical skills to accomplish the work set out for them
• New perspectives. Interns offer a glimpse into how the next generation thinks and acts (and how they buy). Hiring an intern–and encouraging them to voice their opinions–will give you key insights.
• Mentorship opportunities. Pairing an intern with a senior employee can help both the senior employee and the intern. For the senior employee, they are able to share expertise, and for the intern, they’ll have a point person so they can ask questions and share ideas without fear.
• More employees at less cost. Interns are cost effective. They are learning, and their compensation reflects that. For projects that require more people on deck, hiring interns is a great way to cover all your bases while remaining on budget.

How to Find, and More Importantly, Hire Interns

Finding great interns can be a challenge, but there are several strategies businesses can use to attract qualified candidates.  They include:

• Using a Job Board: Posting intern positions on job boards such as Indeed or Glassdoor is a great way to reach a large pool of candidates.
• Reaching out to University Career Centers: Many universities have career centers that offer job placement services to their students. These centers often have internship programs that connect students with local businesses. Some businesses even have internal pools of internship candidates and will be able to send you any resumes that match your position’s requirements.
• Posting on Social Media: Social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn can be a great way to connect with potential interns. Using hashtags like #internship or #internrecruiting can help your posts reach the intended audience.

Screening Interns with Video Interviews and Interview Scheduling

Interns might not be available during normal business hours, making it difficult to schedule interviews and screen your applicants. By offering the option for them to take an on demand video interview, candidates can take their interviews from anywhere, at any time. Here are a few benefits of using video interviews and interview scheduling:

• Convenience: Candidates record their video interview on their own time, which leaves the hiring manager free to screen candidates on their own time. Imagine having 20 video interviews ready to watch at 9AM on Monday, after your internship candidates recorded their videos over the weekend.
• Flexibility: Video interviews can be scheduled outside of regular business hours, making it easier to accommodate scheduling conflicts like classes or work.
• Candidate-friendly: Video interviews improve candidate experience because they allow candidates time to practice and the ability to retake their video if they feel they didn’t present themselves well enough. Video interviews are also viewed as innovative (by 81% of candidates).
• Better branding opportunities: With digital interviews, you can modify the video landing page, interview interface, and add branding elements (like about us, welcome and goodbye messages, and custom logos and colors). It’s a unique and modern way to present who you are as a company, what your company is all about, and more information about the job.

Best Practices for Reviewing Interns’ Resumes

Look for experience, soft skills, and culture fit when reviewing resumes. Interns will not have much job experience, but you can look for related skills that may translate to the internship, any extracurriculars that jive with your company culture, and zero in on soft skills that they’ll need to thrive at your company. 

Soft skills like communication and teamwork are important for interns to have. But each company and position has different necessary soft skills. Make a list of these before screening each intern. 

A great way to find out if an intern has the right soft skills and company culture fit is to screen them with video interviews as an alternative to a phone screen. You can see a fuller picture of the candidate’s personality and, if you are asking situational interview questions, you’ll be able to see how they react to different common situations at your company.

How to Hire Interns with interviewstream

Hiring interns can be a great way for businesses to stay competitive and innovative. By using HR tech like video interviewing platforms and interview scheduling, you can find and screen the best interns for your open internship positions.

Try recruiting interns with interviewstream – fill out this form to see how we can help your screening and scheduling process.

About The Author

Caroline Chessia is the Marketing Operations Specialist at interviewstream. She loves color-coordinated graphs, hiking in the mountains, and every dog she meets—especially the Golden Retrievers.