Youth search online and on a job board at YES Youth Employment Services in Toronto.Kevin Van Paassen
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an "intern" is defined as "an advanced student or graduate usually in a professional field (as medicine or teaching) gaining supervised practical experience."
In the business world, "intern" often means cheap or free labour provided by people looking for valuable experience that they can use to pursue a full-time position. You usually get what you pay for so hiring the right intern can be as important as hiring a full-time employee, particularly if you're a new business that needs to be resourceful to get things done.
My City Lives , a website that through video lets people share their recommendations, thoughts and ideas about their city and the people who live in it, recently learned some important lessons when it brought on a group of unpaid interns.
Adam Ben-Aron, a co-founder, says one of the keys to hiring the right intern is discovering why they want to work for a particular company, and what they hope to get from the experience.
"We asked them the 'why us' question because we wanted to make sure that they shared our enthusiasm for what we're doing," he says. "As far as we're concerned, if our interns didn't like the work they were doing, they were going to be pretty bitter that they're doing it for free. So we wanted to make sure the fit was there for that.
"We asked them what they wanted to get out of the position because we wanted to make sure we could help them achieve their goals by being a part of My City Lives. If we thought we couldn't help them grow/get experience to be the person they wanted to be, then we thought it probably wouldn't work."
Adil Dhalla, the other founder of My City Lives, says hiring the wrong intern, or not providing them with the proper training or culture, can be a huge drain on a company's time and resources, which can negate any positives they bring to the table.
"Our interns certainly do occupy some of our time, and we recognize the cost associated with that, but we have been fortunate to have hired and trained properly, thus avoiding this as an issue," he says.
Special to the Globe and Mail
Mark Evans is a principal with ME Consulting , a content and social media strategic and tactical consultancy that creates and delivers 'stories' for companies looking to capture the attention of customers, bloggers, the media, business partners, employees and investors. Mark has worked with three start-ups – Blanketware, b5Media and PlanetEye – so he understands how they operate and what they need to do to be successful. He was a technology reporter for more than a decade with The Globe and Mail, Bloomberg News and the Financial Post. Mark is also one of the co-organizers of the mesh, meshUniversity and meshmarketing conferences .