Internship Program 201: How to Recruit Tomorrow’s Top Talent

Employers offer full-time jobs to nearly two out of three interns, and 70% of these interns accept the positions according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). What does this mean? For a lot of companies, an internship program is one of the primary means of recruiting. Here are a few ways to maximize your recruiting efforts for your internship program:

Students, Meet the Boss

According to Steve Rothberg, the President and Founder of CollegeRecruiter.com, one way to ensure that you recruit and retain more than your fair share of “intern stars” is to “bring them into contact with your senior executives.” He suggests having your CEO call job candidates to encourage them to accept the offer, or invite candidates to join a meeting at which senior executives will be present. According to Human Resource Executive, some companies involve senior level managers in the hiring process regardless of the position - and that includes interns.

Location, Location, Location

Another important factor in successfully recruiting top interns is where you’re recruiting. Many companies will just post their internship or internships on a local or national job board and let them sit. This might be a semi-effective way to do it, but it probably isn’t the most efficient. There are numerous other ways to recruit for interns.

Many cities will have a local internship job board online - for example, interns in northeast Ohio can go to ClevelandIntern.net. These sites draw candidates in by providing great career tips, and the listing fees are often cheaper than national job boards. For manufacturers, check out the Dream It Do It Campaign, or JobMagnet.org.

Also, make sure you’re posting all of your internships on your website, preferably in your Career Center.

College campuses are also a great place to recruit for interns. Most campuses will have a career fair or even an internship fair annually or bi-annually. For northeast Ohio based companies, ClevelandIntern.net has a great Upcoming Events page. Also, almost every college has a Career Services department these days - they’d love to hear from you and would be glad to post your internship on their career portal.

Remember, summer is just around the corner, and now is the perfect time to build an effective internship program. Stay tuned to Where Great Workplaces Start to read the last post in this series, Internship Program 301: From Intern to Employee and Beyond - for automatic e-mails, subscribe below!

Sources: “Intern-al Affairs”, Human Resource Executive; CollegeRecruiter.com