Why Sponsors Seek Interns
By Young Il Kim
In nearly all cases, companies cannot afford to spend valuable recruiting time on unknown candidates for full-time positions. I had the opportunity to hire over 50 full-time and part-time individuals for jobs ranging from directors to entry-level workers. In all of these cases, I had to take up my colleagues’ time for the interviewing process and a lot of my time reading over the resumes, conducting phone interviews, arranging for on-site interviews, etc. Hiring someone for a permanent job is like eloping in Las Vegas after you meet for one date. In some cases, these elopements can be like a match made in heaven. In other cases, these can turn out to be Pamela and Tommy Lee fiasco (well, perhaps no porno movie). So the prospect of hiring someone full-time is a costly and scary process from the employer’s perspective.
Hiring interns is like dating. Before a date, one usually has a preconceived notion of what to look for in a possible date. Internships allow a company to “date” (unless you are talking the White House when date is not in quotes) its interns. You get to learn about a person’s work habits, attitudes, interactions with co-workers, and quality of work during a period that might range from a few weeks to six-months. For most companies, going through this process to find a full-time employee is preferable to a thirty-minute interview. Usually, most companies view interns as risk-free proposition. If they like you enough, they will bring you back for a full-time position. The employers feel comfortable hiring full-time employees who interned at their firm because the interns already know the work environment, the co-workers and expectations. Similar to these internships are company-sponsored co-ops.
There are some other types of internships. Many companies hire interns because they are cheap labor. If you are a student in high school or college, the idea of working for $10 per hour may seem like a lot. From an employer’s perspective, that $10 per hour for you to handle entry-level work is cheaper than asking a full-time person who is raking in $50,000 annual salary. In fact, an intern is about 3 times cheaper than that guy assuming that guy works all day. But you and I know that this full-time person is in the cubicle drinking coffee and surfing porn. (Note: don’t surf porn during your internship.)
The rest of our sections will describe tips on getting an internship. If all else fails, email us at jobs@campusnut.com. We are always looking for eager beavers to join our firm.
