February provides a great opportunity to jump ahead and start planning for summer. A strategic place to start is to consider hiring an intern. No matter what type of business you have, you can provide a great opportunity for students who want to gain experience while providing value to your small business. That’s why the University of Scranton Small Business Development Center created the Small Business Internship Initiative, a collaborative program designed to help small businesses learn, attract and adopt high-value internships and connect area small businesses and college students.
Internships offered through the Small Business Internship Initiative;
- Does structured experiential learning occur within and under supervision of enterprises?
- Have a set start and end schedule
- Can be in person/onsite or remote/virtual or hybrid
- Provide benefit to both practitioner and business
- Paid (through the salary and pay process described on our website), with the optional opportunity to receive class credit.
If you want to take an internship in the summer of 2023, now is the time to think about it, because students are starting to look for summer internships soon. Here are some things we think you should know.
- Summer is a great time
Students’ schedules can be more flexible in the summer without having to hold back school and extracurricular activities. Daylight saving time allows for approximately 12 weeks, possibly more, with a wide variety of potential hours. Summer internships can range from a few hours to 20 or 30 hours per week. This is plenty of time for your intern to integrate into your team and become a real asset.
- Mentoring is critical
Students expect and seek mentors while they seek internships. Mentoring and mentoring your intern is critical to the success of the internship for both you and the intern. Mentoring involves sharing information about your career path, helping your intern with projects, and setting goals during the internship to ensure their progress. Consider who will manage your practitioner and how you can schedule regular appointments or regular check-ins. These meetings are also a great opportunity to see your business from their perspective.
- Hosting an intern can help you achieve your goals
Having another person on your team with a fresh perspective can help take some projects off your plate. This means you can tackle some projects that always seem to be on the back burner.
- Your intern could be your next permanent hire
If you want to hire a full-time employee, an internship is a great way to start. Before you make the big decision, you need to know how your intern works alone, with a team, and with you before you decide to hire them permanently.
- Marketing your practice is important
Marketing your practice is important to ensure you get a good number of applicants. Many businesses these days offer excellent internships, and your business will be competing to attract the best talent.
First, make sure you have an inviting description with clear details of your practice; a clear title, a summary of your business, the intern’s training objectives, required skills and experience, potential projects the intern will work on, and an application date. Don’t forget to include details about what the intern will gain from the experience and what makes this opportunity unique and exciting.
Second, market your summer internship as soon as possible. You may not be thinking about summer, but students need to explore their options and plan ahead.
- We can help.
If you are interested in learning more about hiring an intern through the Small Business Internship Initiative in the summer of 2023 or in the future, please visit our website or attend our quick webinar, “Grow Your Small Business with a Summer Internship” 2/. 28/2023 from 12pm to 12:30pm to register visit this link: https://pasbdc.ecenterdirect.com/events/30197