Time and money are two things that most entrepreneurs don’t have much of going spare. So it can be hard to consider taking on an untried, inexperienced intern who will require both energy and – if they’re classed as a ‘worker’ – payment of the minimum wage as they grapple to get a handle on the requirements of your business.
When you don’t know if the intern who comes through the door on a Monday morning is going to be an enthusiastic go-getter or a surly no-hoper, weighing up the potential negatives against the desired positives can be a tricky judgment call. There are ways to offset the risks, and genuine benefits to be gained, says James Hind who launched the car price comparison website Carwow five years ago from his kitchen table. He now employs 70 staff, as well as three current interns.
“We see the hiring of interns as crucial to our ability to successfully scale and build the business,” Hind explains. For any entrepreneur, he points out, fast growth brings challenges. “How do we ensure we retain the company culture and values? Do we hire managers from other companies or promote internally?” As young entrants to his company with little other work experience, Hind says: “interns soak up and then will hopefully exude our values.” He also envisages interns as potential senior managers “allowing us to balance future leadership roles between internal and external candidates.”
Getting the right person
A degree of targeting and selectivity has helped Hind recruit the type of “super smart, inquisitive, get-things-done” candidate he’s looking for. He takes out job adverts targeting top universities and makes it clear he is paying people from the off. “It’s only minimum wage, but they could be working behind a bar and not getting this kind of experience for the same money,” he points out.
At Olivier Award-nominated Sell A Door Theatre Company, based in Liverpool, creative producer David Hutchinson says it was taking on a three-month work placement student from the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts that convinced him that an intern would free up the company’s directors to make better use of their precious working hours.
“Any interns we’ve brought in have been given a level of responsibility - though not accountability,” he says. The value to the theatre company is evident: two interns are now in full-time paid roles, with one in overall charge of casting and artist management.
Quality matters. At Smoking Gun PR agency in Manchester, MD Rick Guttridge says all potential interns are asked to take a written test to check out their skills and commitment. He will also interview those staying for more than two weeks.
“We used to just assess CVs but you would get people who would turn up for a morning and then never see them again. It’s amazing how many people’s grandparents have died,” Guttridge says wryly. “And you get some who just lie about having done tasks when they clearly haven’t. We have told some not to come back.”
The minimum Guttridge expects “is for people to turn up on time, with a can-do attitude.” Those who do are “a godsend”, he says: at busy times he has taken on interns who have proved themselves over a week or two, and then given them paid contracts. This has the dual benefit of helping industry entrants get invaluable experience on their CV while boosting his team’s capacity when stretched. He sees investing in interns as part of his company’s long-term recruitment strategy: it is also, he says, a good way to be seen as an employer of choice for bright graduates.
Managing expectations on both sides
Entrepreneurs taking on interns do need to understand that they are likely to need considerable steering and oversight: by definition they will not hit the ground running as a newly recruited employee would be expected to.
Underestimate the management input and training needed and you might end up with a fast turnover of interns, warns Hutchinson. “Now everyone has an induction with us when they start, and we make sure that they spend a number of days in each department.” Has he had any rubbish interns? “No, actually,” he laughs. “But we have had ones who’ve found the pace in the office difficult, because it is fast and there is a certain level of expectation and a need to get on with it and keep up.”
“I go into it knowing that I will have to manage them like a member of staff,” says Neely Reyes, founder and MD of Sapphires Model and Artist Management agency in London. Reyes offers a range of internships and is “inundated” with applications. Photography graduates, she says, are typically desperate for professional models to shoot for their portfolios, and after a scouting drive for new faces, her business needs photography of these new signings in order to market them to clients.
Reyes provides studios, sets, lighting and minimum wage, and gets high quality photography in return. Other interns could be asked to work on styling photoshoots, the bookings desk or marketing.
“If they’re from a university and doing an internship as part of their course, then there’s also a lot of paperwork involved,” says Reyes. “If they’ve left uni, then there’s less paperwork, but they ask me for a lot of guidance and mentoring, which I really enjoy, and is a big part of why I do it.”
If you are expecting another member of staff to take on the management of an intern, then that responsibility should be factored into the employee’s work plan. It’s also going to work better if that individual is happy to take on the job. Guttridge also recommends taking the time at the start to ask the intern what they want to get out of the experience, and attempt to place them in the departments they’re most enthused about.
Plus, always follow up by asking for feedback at the end, he suggests. This is useful learning to help a company maximise the benefits of taking on interns in the future.
Hinds agrees. An intern can provide a valuable insight into the operations of the company and the industry as a whole. It’s helpful to give them the space and direction to be innovative, rather than micro managing their day. “We often don’t know the best way to do things,” he says. “A smart intern is often as right as a smart CEO, so we try to hire people who are smart and let them do things the way they think is best.”
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