Get Extra Help Without Footing the Bill: Hire a Marketing Intern
This is a guest post by Nadia Jones, who blogs at online college about education, college, student, teacher, money saving and movie-related topics. You can reach her at nadia.jones5 at gmail.com.
Hiring a marketing intern can boost business operations. Many seasoned professionals wanting a career change would gladly give their time, as well as enthusiastic college students looking to expand their knowledge and increase job prospects. Of course, if you’ve never worked with an intern before, hiring one can seem like a daunting task. To help you get started, follow the tips listed below.
1. Make the intern position public news.
To get quality candidates, you’ll need to post details about your intern position on quality mediums. Announcing them on your blog, Facebook and Twitter page is a good start, but don’t stop there. Contact the local community college or university and see how you can get your name on a master list of internship opportunities at the career service center.
Also, don’t be afraid to call or e-mail marketing professors directly. They’ll be able to pass along internship information to their students.
2. Don’t take the interview process lightly.
Just like when hiring a full-time addition to your marketing team, you need to make sure that you’re recruiting the best intern possible. While it’s understandable that your interviewee may not know everything about the marketing industry, you do need to ensure that your intern really wants the internship for the experience, not just for college credit or to fill another bullet point on their resume.
To put in bluntly, hiring a “bad” intern will only waste your time and efforts. So don’t be afraid to throw them an occasional curve ball question and check references to see if your interviewee will be a good fit and meshes well with the culture of your company. And if your intern does a phenomenal job, you may even consider actually hiring him or her full-time when graduation comes around.
3. Limit the amount of grunt work.
Having your own personal errand boy or girl to make coffee, answer phone calls and stamp envelopes can be a really sweet deal. But by no means should you abuse your intern’s time.
Doing small tasks like answering the phones can be a part of your intern’s duties, but it shouldn’t be the only thing in his or her job description. Try to let your intern do some actual work, such as conducting research for a new marketing campaign, brainstorming ideas for new content strategies, or allowing him or her to monitor your social media accounts and blogs.
Of course, this is not to suggest that you should just throw your intern into a project without proper training and guidance. Your intern should definitely have someone that he or she shadows for a few weeks before getting their own hands dirty and have someone that he or she feels comfortable going to with questions. If you want that to be you, make sure to be approachable.
Have you ever thought about hiring an intern? Let me know in the comments section below.
10 Responses to Get Extra Help Without Footing the Bill: Hire a Marketing Intern
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The issue with interns is the quality of work. Or the lack of it. Unless you represent a big brand, its difficult to get interns who are serious about working. Even if you are a part of a big brand, the interns come to work to get a certificate or earn pocket money to have some fun. But that said, its not impossible to make both ends meet and extract what you want from them while giving what they want!
Our internships are always paid positions because we believe it helps the intern take their responsibilities seriously. We are careful to include a variety of projects, but we also let them know that small business people wear many hats, not all of which are stylish and fun. What may appear to be grunt work, like answering phones or data entry, can actually be the lifeblood of a successfully operating business.
I agree, Raj. I’ve considered hiring an intern, but ultimately chose not to because I work from home. I would encourage anyone who’s thinking of hiring an intern to screen applicants very carefully.
Amen to that, Kae. After college, I spent a few years working in administrative assistant positions. I can’t tell you how much I learned about running a business from doing things like making copies and answering phones.
If I am ever able to get my blog off the ground, I will definately use a marketing intern. My question is, Since it is illegal to hire someone without paying them except if they are an intern, how do you go about proving they are an intern? Do you just tell them they have to get college credit for it or what?
Great article Kelly!
Using interns in your business is a great benefit to both parties and I wholeheartedly agree that their job description should include more than answering the phone. If you have done your due diligence and have found a really great intern, let them take on bigger tasks and challenge themselves a little bit.
With regard to their work ethic and quality of work, I suggest looking at their grades on projects they have submitted,this in turn, will tell you how seriously they take their college career and how their work ethic will be.
There are fantastic interns available for business owners, it’s a win-win situation for both parties.
Grainne
I don’t know, Khleo, though I would assume it depends on where you live. Perhaps Nadia would know?
Thanks kelly for the pointers .. i didn’t know much of it as I’m a start up and still on a learning stage.
Hmm well work done by you Kelly,
The points you shared with us are very helpful and it helped me a lot to improve my self as a market intern. Its a nice field where one have to be smart and good in communicating with others so that he can tackle others very beautifully.
Thanks, Bill, but all the credit goes to Nadia!