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Small Business Doesn’t Mean Small Staffed: How to Hire Interns for Your Growing Company

· finding internships,how to hire interns

When people think of small businesses, the initial thought is to the limited amount of resources available. From a trickling stream of clients to a small staff, work and resources can appear limited. With this picture of small business life in mind, it can seem like a daunting task to attract interns. If you’re wondering how to hire interns for a small business, then these actionable tips are for you.

The first step in creating internship opportunities within your small business is to assess your needs. Finding an intern for your business is just as important as finding an internship for prospective hire. As a small business owner, you want to make sure that you know exactly where this intern can help fill in. You don’t want to waste your time and resources hiring an intern that you may not need. Assess your business goals, seasonal business performances, and determine who is in charge of the internship program.

When you have the goals and purpose of your internship program fleshed out, it’s time to take a look at the local laws. As a small business, it may feel more comfortable to offer an unpaid internship right out the door. However, you may find that there are resources available that can help you offer paid internships instead. Some cities and states only allow paid internships, whereas others only allow unpaid if college credit is involved. Additionally, there are labor laws that you will need to contend with in order to make sure your unpaid internship program is compliant. It’s important to stay abreast and knowledgeable of local labor laws to help you hire interns for your small business the right way.

Now that you have your plan and legal work out of the way, the final step is the recruitment process. Valuable interns can be found anywhere, from college campuses to helpful databases. As a small business, you need to maximize what resources you have. Locating interns on internship finders and databases can greatly take the legwork out of connecting to qualified people. Internship databases can automatically narrow down and filter out based upon qualifications and specialized skill levels if need be. This allows you the opportunity to fine tune other aspects of the internship program and focus on your business in the process.

Being a small business doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the many benefits that having interns. With the right program and staff in place, you’ll find that hiring interns for your small business can be a win-win for everyone.