Consider Hiring an Intern

In this tough job market lots of talented people including recent college graduates and experienced, skilled women and men can not find a job that interests them or that is available. For these people my advice often is find an internship, either paid or unpaid. Bringing an intern into your organization can have all kinds of benefits including: 

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    •  your financial risk in minimized. You can evaluate a potential new performer for your organization at virtually no cost.
      • you have flexibility. Neither you nor the intern expects the relationship to last forever. In the meantime you are getting an opportunity to check each other out.
      • you might find that you are bringing some exceptionally talented, high potential person into your organization. Isn't that one of your goals?

For the intern, whether paid or unpaid, the upside to the arrangement can be enormous. The intern:

• gets his or her foot in the door with a chance to prove that you really do need to hire them with a fair compensation package
• gets immediately into the workforce without spending another many months looking
• develops another important line item on the resume. It's obviously much better to have some worthwhile experience on the resume vs. a lengthy period of being unemployed.
• provides flexibility, particularly if the internship is an unpaid one. The organization adding an intern should expect the intern to need some time off to pursue a paying position. Obviously people can't work forever without being compensated. Interns we have used have always had flexible work schedules either a few days a week in the internship or interning a full work week with anticipated time-off to interview for other jobs.
  
  
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