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If you are an employer with a staff of over 100 employees you probably have an intern program or have entertained the thought of starting a program. Over the years, more and more companies have started these programs and it appears that intern programs are here to stay. If your look at Google, who recruited 3,000 interns just this summer, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and Price Waterhouse Coopers together will employ more than 30,000 interns this year and Infosys, an Indian tech giant, who brings 150 interns from all around the world to India every year just to intern. Intern programs give your organization an opportunity to “grow your own” staff. By getting “new grads” you get a chance to train them the way you want to and avoid the problem of having them “unlearning” the bad habits they may have obtained at other companies. You have a chance to train them in the ways that your organizations have been successful in the past. So, interning gives companies the chance to do two things: they can “try before they buy” and pre-train potential employees. The training falls into two areas, work based training and showing interns how the business world is driven. This can be through educating them in your corporate culture and including job readiness soft skills as part of your intern program. Interns MUST know the basics of Job Readiness before they can become a valued employee. These skills include such areas as: Working with others, knowing what the employer expects and how to communicate via email, phone, meetings and face-to-face encounters. They also must know how to get to work on time, how to plan their workload, how to communicate their progress, and how to ask for help when needed. Interns must also learn how a good reputation can enhance their career. In addition, they must learn how to network both inside and outside their company. You do not have to have a training organization to provide classroom training. You can also use online classes to teach soft skills. It is important to monitor the interns’ progress and test them to determine if they comprehend the concepts. Once the interns learn and apply your unique corporate culture and job readiness they will be able to give the organization a good base line for a successful performer. And if done properly, it is very cost effective for the company. Good luck with growing your own employee base! Jim Stedt is a partner at The Business SoftSkills Company (GetSoftSkillsNow.Com) located in Santa Ana, California. They provide job readiness and workforce success videos for education, business, prisons and individual use. Training is available online, on DVD, or through an affiliate program. These products are the most complete and concise soft skills training packages now available for the price of an average college textbook.
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Interning, job readiness, soft skills,
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