Tips for hiring interns
Reading time: 5 minutes
Are you looking to hire an intern, or multiple interns, but finding it hard to reach the right students or manage a high volume of applications? No worries, we’ve got you. Below, we’ve listed a few practical tips to help you attract interns, stay in touch with relevant student talent and make sure you don’t have to start from scratch every time a new internship opens. Good luck!
Contents
- 1. Show your company culture with photos and video
- 2. Avoid unclear and cliché job descriptions
- 3. Communicate about internship compensation
- 4. Reach the right student talent
- 5. Build a talent community before your internship opens
- 6. Respond quickly and keep candidates engaged
- Build lasting connections with your future interns
1. Show your company culture with photos and video
When applying to internships, Gen Z and millennials find company culture to be very important. So make sure to add photos and video to your company page to show what it’s really like to work at your company. It’s also important to be able to give potential interns a sneak peak into how the office looks, what kind of things you do together as a team and to display what’s important to the company in terms of company culture.
2. Avoid unclear and cliché job descriptions
It’s important to write job descriptions that are clear and to the point. How? Use a catchy job title and then continue to give a step-by-step explanation of who you are looking for, what the company is like, what responsibilities the job includes and which growth opportunities the applicant can expect.
Recruitment trends show that Gen Z candidates value clarity, transparency and authentic communication. So avoid vague clichés and be specific about responsibilities, expectations and growth opportunities. This helps the right students quickly understand whether the internship is a good fit.
3. Communicate about internship compensation
The main reason why students want to do an internship is to learn and gain work experience. However, the (height of the) compensation they receive for their internship also always plays a role in their decision whether or not to apply. So always make sure you add this when posting the job on Magnet.me. Otherwise you risk missing out on applications.
4. Reach the right student talent
Many traditional job boards still rely on the post and pray approach: you publish an internship vacancy and wait to see who responds. But when hiring interns, you want to actively reach students who match your target audience.
With Magnet.me, your internship is shown to relevant student talent through smart matching. Want to reach a specific audience? You can promote your internship or connect with selected students directly through a targeted messaging campaign. This helps you increase not only your reach, but also the quality of your likes and applications.
5. Build a talent community before your internship opens
Imagine a student meets you at an event, visits your careers site or follows you on LinkedIn, but your internship is not open yet. It would be a shame to lose that connection. With a talent community for students and graduates, you stay visible to talent that has already shown interest in your organisation.
A basic job alert, ATS list or Excel sheet often is not enough: data becomes outdated quickly and manual follow-up takes time. By keeping student talent warm early, you do not have to start from scratch once your internship goes live. You can activate interested candidates directly, save time and build a stronger pipeline from day one.
6. Respond quickly and keep candidates engaged
When a student likes your internship, they are already showing interest in your company. Do not let that momentum go cold. The chances of that message leading to an application is 10x higher than when approaching some that has not (yet) liked your job opportunity.
Even if a candidate is not the right fit today, they could be a strong match for a future internship, graduate role or traineeship.
Build lasting connections with your future interns
Hiring interns becomes easier when you already have a warm network of interested student talent. Magnet.me helps you attract, engage and activate students before your internship opens, while it is live and for future hiring needs.
See how Magnet.me can help you build a talent community and hire interns more effectively.
