This is part of an ongoing series of posts about creating and strengthening an internship program. The posts are compiled on the Internships page.

HOW SHOULD YOU RECRUIT AND HIRE INTERNS?

There are lots of universities looking to place interns. Finding prospective interns can be fairly easy, but you’ll want to make sure you go about the recruiting and interviewing process the right way – this can make the difference between finding a great intern and ending up with a slouch (or at least someone who isn’t a match for your organization).

Creating the internship descriptions: Think about each skill and/or position you need. Although you may want an intern (or interns) to come in with multiple skills (e.g., social networking, marketing and web design) and fill several roles (e.g., marketing and communications), we recommend preparing an internship posting for each separate skill or position. One of us once found an excellent community outreach intern through a posting for a business development intern. We don’t think the intern would have been as interested if we had tried to combine all the job functions into a single posting.

In your internship posting, explain (1) what an intern will do with your organization, (2) what expectations you have of the intern (including skills they need to have), and (3) what experience and skills they will gain as a result of the internship. Interns are particularly excited when you can offer them a real learning experience over the course of their internship.

Recruiting applicants: Sacramento City College, Sacramento State University, and University of California, Davis all have internship programs. Each has its own posting procedures. The best interns may also come from art, music and performance programs at each school. You can contact each department directly, or ask the internship program at each school to connect you to the appropriate person in each department.

• Sacramento City:
  • Internship program: web.scc.losrios.edu/workexperience/internship
  • Theatre Arts and Film department: www.citytheatre.net/, (916) 558 2174
  • Art department: web.scc.losrios.edu/art, (916) 558 2108
  • Music department: www.scc.losrios.edu/Documents/catalog/programs/MUSIC.pdf, (916) 558 2551
• Sacramento State:
  • Internship Program:www.csus.edu/careercenter/employers/internships.stm
  • Art department: www.asn.csus.edu/art/, (916) 278 6166
  • Music department: www.csus.edu/music/, (916) 278 5155
  • Theatre and Dance department: www.csus.edu/dram/, (916) 278 6368
• UC Davis:
  • Internship and Career Center: (530) 752 2855; iccweb.ucdavis.edu/
  • Register as an employer and post internships: ucdavis-csm.symplicity.com/employers/index.php
  • Theatre and Dance department: theatredance.ucdavis.edu/, (530) 752 0888
  • Art department: art.ucdavis.edu/, (530) 752 0105
  • Music department:music.ucdavis.edu/, (530) 752 5537

Respond to applicants: Create a standard email response to applicants with more detailed information about your internship, and about what you will expect of them. Ask them what they hope to get out of the internship, and ask them to provide any information you need but don’t have yet, such as a writing sample or job references.

If you will have very limited time to interview interns, you can take steps to filter applicants before the interview stage. Keep in mind that these steps may filter out people who would make great interns – these cannot substitute for an actual interview. They can only help you reduce the number of applicants to a manageable number.

• Focus on internship programs in which an internship advisor can help you find an intern who matches your particular needs (such as the Sacramento City College program). Call each program to ask how much they will be able to help you find an intern to suit your needs.
• Ask questions by email before setting up an interview to ensure applicants have the skills you require, and can commit the time you need them to commit.
• Include more required skills in the internship description, and in the standard email you send to applicants.

Interviewing candidates: It’s important to make the interview seem like a bit of a big deal. We have sometimes handled intern interviews casually, but found that interns we accepted didn’t always take the internship seriously. How an intern enters an organization has a lot to do with how she performs once hired. Let candidates know that there are others also seeking the position, and that you have high expectations.

You should consider giving applicants a short test of skills that are particularly important to you. If an intern needs to be an excellent writer, prepare a short prompt for applicants to respond to. We once brought on an intern who had submitted a very well-written writing sample, and we figured we didn’t need to administer the in-interview writing test. He must have had a lot of help on the essay he submitted, because we found out soon after hiring him that his writing was horrendous. Another intern’s excellent writing was the determining factor in my decision to hire her. You can also create tests for skills like design (they could sketch a flier design), Microsoft Excel (they could sort and reformat a document you have created), or HTML (they could write some HTML for a snazzy new homepage for your organization).