Question: Other business owners I know have been hiring college interns for years as a source of good, low-cost temporary or summer help. For the most part, they say it's been great. We plan to contact local colleges about hiring interns, but are there other solutions we should try?
Answer: You bet! Internships have long been an excellent source of help for businesses of all sizes, and a great way for students or recent grads to learn about business. With summer approaching, the internship market is heating up fast. College and vocational school job placement or career offices are one good place for small businesses to look, but there are also some excellent Web sites and organizations that can help you create and list your internship position. Here are the best of the group:
Business owners can quickly and easily set up an account and place free internship listings at InternshipPrograms.com, a service of WetFeet.com, a leading online career site. You'll reach over 250,000 job seekers each month and can also search a database of candidate profiles and resumes. This well-run site is one of the largest internship communities on the Web and is a great way to find and screen interns. See the site or e-mail: internshipprograms@wetfeet.com. Phone (415) 284-7900.
MonsterTrak.com - a division of Monster.com - is a link to over 1,200 college career offices. With this service, you can target individual schools in your area. Listing with one school costs $25, or select from package deals that range up to $395 for reaching all of the 1,200 participating campuses. Click "For Employers" at the site or call (800) 999-8725.
Internships.com publishes a series of regional and category-specific internship and part-time employment directories and offers online internship listings. You can place your internship listing on the site and also have it published in the hard-copy National Internships Guide. Search the database of screened student resumes for eligible candidates. Signup is easy. Provide your name, e-mail address and business name, and you're ready to go. A 90-day listing is $30 and will appear under a regional heading you choose. Even if you don't want to pay for an online listing, you can still sign up and have your job included in the print publication. Listings are free to non-profits. Phone (301) 474-2834.
At Rising Star Internships (www.rsinternships.com) you can list an internship free for a week. After that the cost is $9.95 per month. Your listing reaches thousands of internship seekers and will also be e-mailed to pre-screened students and grads. You can also search their intern database. E-mail: info@rsinternships.com or phone (410) 974-4783.
InternJobs.com is a national database of internships for students and recent graduates where small biz owners can list an internship position for free and reach scores of potential candidates. InternJobs.com accepts internships for high school and college students as well as recent graduates. You must provide full contact information, including a valid e-mail address, when listing your internship. All postings must include details about the position and are screened for validity before they are put online. Click the "Post an Internship" button on the main page. E-mail info@internjobs.com.
Vault, Inc. (www.vault.com) is another leading career site where small businesses can post internship positions for free. Just register at the Web site and start posting.
If you have an unusual or adventurous internship - at a camp or amusement park, for example - or your biz is based in a cool (from a college kid's perspective) location - consider listing at CoolWorks.com. Phone (406) 848-2380; e-mail greatjobs@coolworks.com.
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (www.naceweb.org) helps businesses develop internship programs and has a Web site for listings at www.jobweb.com. The best stuff, however, is available only if you have a membership, which costs $390. Unless you plan to have a large ongoing program, you may want to try other resources first.
Interns can do great things – if you hire and manage 'em right.
Small businesses across America have long used college student interns and recent grads as a helpful, low-cost human resource. Student interns are capable, motivated and – if well managed – highly valuable to your business. The trick is the "well-managed" part. Small businesses too often hire interns (a.k.a. "emerging professionals") without any kind of plan for making their presence truly ...
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