Finding an Intern

Having a young person join your team can be an amazing thing, both for the person just starting out in their career and for your business. As interns are often the first recruit, many small businesses find the process pretty daunting, but it doesn't have to be. Here are a few things I've learnt along the way:

Find someone interested in your industry, who gets what you want to achieve.

As a small business, you're probably short on time. It's really important to hire believers in your company mission and brand values. As founders, we meet people all the time - some who 'get it' and some who really don't. It's important that your intern 'gets it', so you don't have to spend time selling your vision. An interest in your industry is not a bonus, it's a non-negotiable. Armed with that passion, everything your intern achieves should contribute to the overall goal, without constant reminders from you.

Make it sound enticing

The internet makes it really easy to peruse job descriptions and after a while, they all start looking the same. Make sure that yours stands out. It's a bit like online dating - your specification needs to reflect what you're passionate about, so you attract the right people to join your team. Less is also more and it's important to hone in on exactly the kind of skills you need from the start. Everyone needs great communication skills and a sense of humour. Everyone needs to be organised, punctual and polite. What makes your job special? What makes your job special to someone just starting out?

Filter your applications prior to interview. Ask them to think!

There are lots of ways to filter applications, but the technique I've found to be most effective is inviting applications to complete a small task. For example, a marketing intern might be asked to write a short blog post (less than 500 words) and list ten things they would do in the role. You get an insight into their work ethic (Do they send you a beautiful, formatted, typo-less pdf? Are their emails courteous, outside of 'cover letter mode'?) and their enthusiasm (Do they really understand what you want to do?), and you weed out the people who think it's 'too much effort', which aren’t always easy to spot an interview. Do you really want someone who baulks at the idea of a bit of thinking? The task shouldn't take more than an hour and often, star candidates are more than happy to get stuck in.

Know what you want them to do

Often an internship is a young person's first foray into a professional environment. Clear, tangible targets where performance can be easily measured are essential, both for your business and for your intern. This also means that interns can get on with achieving these while you get on with your own stuff. It's really easy to fall into the trap of micromanaging someone full time and while it's important to set aside at least a few hours a week to making sure your intern is being supported, interns should always be making a positive contribution to your business and be easing your workload, not adding to it. Apps such as Trello come in handy for checking progress, as well as shared folders in Google Docs that let you review their work at any time.

Know where and when to look.

One of the major problems with trying to find an intern is knowing where to find them. Every intern I've ever interviewed says they've been looking for forever and every small business seems to feel that way too. So, where's everyone hanging out? Enternships, Inspiring Interns, The Careers Group and Milkround are a great place to start as well as Internwise, IdeasTap and WorkinStartups if you're on a shoestring budget. Social media can also be effective, e.g. tweeting to local universities, depending on your industry and it's always handy to have the job spec up on your website.Timing is also really important, something small businesses often don't consider as it's been far too long since we've enjoyed our half terms and summer holidays! Young people usually start looking for internships for the summer after their January exams and then those who have decided to go travelling for the summer start looking around September.

Interns can be a huge help to small businesses and we can be a huge help to them too. They're enthusiastic and keep you going when you're down, they're full of great ideas and with the right coaching, you can unleash amazing skills and talent they didn't even know they had, which all go towards making your business grow. So many people have asked me about what it's like to have young people on my team and where to find them - hopefully this blog has been helpful! If you'd like to find out more, you can drop me an email too: tara@kitchentableprojects.com

by Tara, Founder of Kitchen Table Projects