Many employers are afraid to hire interns for a virtual position because they feel like it’s almost impossible to effectively manage the interns and ensure they are giving you quality work. On the surface these challenges may seem legitimate, but the key to hiring interns for virtual positions is communication! Remember, virtual interns are just like normal interns, they are highly intelligent workers that just need a little guidance. Being able to effectively manage your virtual interns can make you a huge difference in how beneficial a virtual internship program is to both the intern and your small business.

 

Whether you are hiring virtual interns or normal interns, you should always be using a project management tool. A project management tool serves as a way to organize everything in one central place over the internet. By using a project management tool with a ticketing system, you never have to deal with the “I can’t find it” conversation and you will find it easier to track your intern’s progress. Most small businesses that we have encountered wouldn’t be able to exist without project management tools such as Google Docs, Basecamp, or Freshbooks.

 

Ok, so now you have all of your projects organized in one place, but that is only part of the picture. Unless you can hire an intern that is completely self sufficient and motivated, then you are going to need a way to monitor the intern’s daily progress. That is why we always have our virtual interns send us a daily email update. In this update, our interns tells us what they did and the results they got, some of the problems and challenges they faced, and any questions they have for us.  This is great because it opens the communication lines between the small business owner and the virtual intern. We also have the intern include the number of hours they worked on that particular day and the cumulative hours they have worked on the internship so far. In addition to the project management tool tracking their work, this allows the intern to also track their own hours.

 

So now you are at the point where everything seems to be getting tracked and you have open communication lines. This sounds pretty good, but the final step of the process is a weekly conference call with your virtual intern. Written words can only say so much, that is why a live conversation is vital to bringing this all together. During these phone calls we encourage small business owners to not only give instructions and training, but also talk about general topics like sports or TV. This allows you to build a better relationship with your virtual intern and get to know them on a personal basis.

 

Every day small business owners are hiring interns for virtual positions. The main difference that separates successful virtual internship programs and failures is effective management techniques. If you look at the most successful virtual internship programs, they all revolve around clear and open communication lines. The best ways to accomplish open communication lines is to use a project management tool, require daily email updates, and have weekly conference calls. If you implement the strategies outlined above you can hire interns to help expand your small business today! 

If you’re looking into starting your own internship program for your small business, you may have some questions about what an internship program is and what distinguishes it from other forms of employment. Internships are similar to apprenticeships in that the intern works in a temporary position with an emphasis on on-the-job training. Your typical intern is usually a college or university student, but they can also be high school students or post graduate adults seeking skills for a new career. Some of the benefits of an internship program are that they provide students with opportunities to gain experience in their field, determine if they have an interest in a particular career, create a network of contacts, or gain school credit. From a small business owner’s standpoint, internships provide the businesses with cheap or free labor for typically low level tasks. As an added bonus, many employers decide to hire back their interns after they graduate because they require little or no training.

Internships may be paid, unpaid, or partially paid. A partially paid internship could include a stipend, bonuses, or benefits. Typically, internships in the medical, architecture, engineering, law, business, technology, and advertising fields will be paid positions. This is because these students are in high demand and can demand competitive rates. Internships in non-profit organizations such as charities and think tanks are often unpaid, volunteer positions. For many schools, the act of job shadowing may also constitute as interning because the student is receiving professional experience.

Internships can be either part time or full time positions. Students will typically take part time internships during the school year so they can balance their work and academic lives. However, during the summer, most students search for full time internships. The length of an internship also varies depending on the school and time of the year. During the school year, an internship will normally last about 1 semester or trimester and over the summer and internship could last anywhere between 6-12 weeks.

An intern is generally your typical student, 18-22 years old, single, with no children. However, nontraditional students also desire internships and the diversity of backgrounds they bring is a definite plus for your small business. In a nutshell, an internship program formally integrates a student’s academic studies with relevant work experience. 

When it comes to creating an internship program, there are so many misconceptions out there about what an intern actually does. If you think that an intern is supposed to be making coffee, picking up your dry cleaning, or making photo copies, then you are completely missing the boat. When it comes down to it, interns are some of the best and brightest young minds out there on the job market. Interns are known for injecting new ideas, passion, and energy into businesses that may be stuck in their ways. This is because they are still new and haven’t been sucked into the status quo way of doing things in the business world.

If you are using your interns to do menial tasks like making photo copies or filing, then you are leaving a major resource untapped. Think about it, interns can do almost anything that you can imagine. They are highly intelligent and used to adapting and learning new things on a continuous basis. Can you say college? All they require is a little guidance and training and you can put them to work on projects that you have never been able to finish. They can also help you develop and expand on your ideas from a fresh new point of view.

You have probably heard it a million times before, but the current generation of college students are internet experts! Today’s interns are so much more tech savvy than the older generations because they grew up with the internet. You will be absolutely amazed by the awesome ideas and new techniques that your interns can come up with using the internet.

So please, when you are creating your internship program, don’t make your interns do grunt work and menial tasks. Instead, give them projects of real value to work on that can directly benefit your business. All it takes is a little guidance and you will get something back phenomenal in return. 

                If you are a small business owner and you want to get an intern, then you are already on the right track to growing and expanding your business. Unlike larger, more established businesses, small business owners don’t have a human resources department that can help create an internship program. To further complicate the matter, most small business owners are so busy that they don’t think they have the time to manage an intern even if they got one.  Internships come in many different forms, but there are certain steps that everyone must take to ensure that the internship is a valuable experience for both the employer and the student. In this article, we are going to cover the legal issues surrounding internships, how to effectively structure the internship program, and some quick tips on how to mentor and manage an intern.

                Before you start hiring interns, you are going to want to seek the advice of your attorney to make sure the internship opportunity is in accordance with the Department of Labor’s (DOL) regulations. The DOL outlines the legal requirements for compensation that distinguishes between an intern and an employee. If you plan on hiring interns for paid positions, then you shouldn’t have too much to worry about with legal issues. However, if you plan on hiring interns for unpaid positions or offering to help them receive academic credit, then you need to be extremely careful when designing the internship. The debate about unpaid internships is currently a very hot topic, so you should always consult your legal representative before you create an internship program.

                Once the legal requirements are out of the way, you can create an internship program. One of the biggest things colleges look for when approving employers to offer internships is honesty in the job description. Many small business owners try to get an intern to help relieve them of some of their busy work, like filing or organizing mail. Most colleges will instantly deny a request like this because they want their students to get real world experience related to their major.  A good rule for employers to follow is to have the intern spend no less than 75% of their time working on real projects. If you don’t have a ton of work for the intern on a particular day, you can always let the intern sit in on meetings and conferences.  This may sound trivial to you, but it can be a major learning experience for the intern. Structuring your internship to be learning based will be mutually beneficial to both you and the intern. You get an intern to help you on your projects and an extra set of ears in case you miss anything from meetings. At the same time, the intern gets to work on real projects and gain professional experience.

                One of the top reasons that small business owners say they don’t hire interns is because they don’t think they have enough time to manage an intern. However, the amount of productivity that an intern can bring to a small business is worth the time to get an intern. By giving feedback and guiding the intern in the right direction, you can make sure that you are receiving high quality work. Many companies hire interns with the end goal that when they graduate they will be able to be promoted to a full time position. By being a good mentor, you can establish a professional relationship with the intern and understand their capabilities better than you ever could through an interview.