Hiring People_ Recruit and Keep the Brightest Stars - Kathy Shwiff [11]
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POWER POINTS
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PLANNING FOR INTERNS
Providing interns the support they need makes all the difference. These are a few key things you can do to ensure the success of your internship program:
Assign interns real work.
Set measurable learning objectives.
Provide detailed explanations of their assignments.
Offer constructive feedback on their performance.
Assign them to an experienced advisor with the time to teach and guide them.
Give them the appropriate tools—desk, chair, phone, computer, or the like.
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Now increasingly available both to high school students and to recent college graduates, internships have long been considered an essential adjunct of the college curriculum. They provide hands-on work experience that complements a course of study, build confidence, and help students put their abilities to the test. Consequently, a good internship—for a reputable company or one with strong learning opportunities—is highly sought after. As an indication of just how strong their appeal can be, consider the New York Yankees, who get more than 4,000 internship applications for just 20 positions.
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CASE FILE
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CRUNCHING NUMBERS WITH INTERNS
At PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world’s largest professional-services firm, interns don’t simply report for work. They start out in Landsdown, Virginia, with a challenging week-and-a-half “boot camp.” Recruits—that is, interns—tough it out together for long hours every day. Once on the job, interns are given older mentors as well as peer group mentors. They learn critical skills as members of client teams, including developing strategies and doing financial analysis.
Another auditing and accounting giant, Ernst & Young, specifically recruits interns who possess the same values as their employees—the desire to pursue professionalism in all matters. As a result, 90 percent of their interns become full-time employees.
SOURCE: “They Love It Here, and Here and Here,” BusinessWeek Online (June 4, 2006).
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Outside the Box
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CREATING “GAME” COMPETITORS
In an effort to attract the nation’s top young talent, a number of companies, such as L’Oreal, began sponsoring competitions that involve business-simulation games. By emphasizing such qualities as teamwork and problem-solving, these games pinpoint the outstanding candidates among participating undergraduates, graduate students, and MBAs.
L’Oreal offers three separate games, each with a different focus: e-Strat Challenge, a marketing strategy game; Brandstorm, in which students become marketing managers for Lancôme; and Ingenious, which requires students to oversee an engineering project. So far, the company’s efforts have paid off: In 2006, according to Ronald Alsop in the Wall Street Journal, e-Strat Challenge, “attracted almost 40,000 students from 1,000 schools in 125 countries.” Brandstorm has generated approximately 350 L’Oreal hires and interns, e-Strat generated another 200, and Ingenius has resulted in 36.
SOURCE: “Recruiters Are Using Games to Assess MBAs” by Ronald Alsop, Wall Street Journal Online (August 8, 2006).
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For employers, internships hold comparable appeal, not the least because of the fresh ideas and positive energy interns supply, which can boost employee morale and motivation. Interns are not jaded; they’re often thrilled to lend a hand. They can do research or support marketing efforts that will help you launch projects that have been on the back burner. By shouldering lower-level work, interns can also make your existing staff more productive. At the same time, employees overseeing interns can gain supervisory experience and improve project-management skills. Interns can boost the diversity of your work force, build relationships with schools and colleges, and increase your company’s visibility among other students, who will soon enter