Top 10 Reasons Employers Should Launch or Enhance Student Internship Programs

Z University.org (ZU), an innovative workforce readiness company dedicated to internship excellence, has announced the top 10 reasons employers should launch student internship programs or enhance existing programs this spring. These insightful tips come from the Intern Toolkit™, a complete resource to convert student talent and skills into employer profit.
The following 10 benefits were cited for employers with strong internship programs:

1. Increase Productivity: Interns bring needed resources to achieve what couldn’t otherwise be done. This ranges from promoting the organization and gathering market intelligence to improving operational effectiveness and supporting clients.
2. Enable Employees: Interns help complete tasks that normally consume the time of full-time staff. This frees up employees to focus on more valuable work.
3. Build Managerial Experience: While a well-qualified program manager is critical to internship success, organizations can still allow less-seasoned employees to gain some initial supervising experience.
4. Inject Enthusiasm: Student interns add vibrancy to the fabric of any organization. They can provide fresh ideas and positive energy that, if well-harnessed, can become contagious.
5. Broaden Capabilities: Interns often possess skills that existing staff lack. They often have higher-level computer proficiencies, in addition to knowledge about the latest methodologies, technologies and resources.
6. Improve Recruiting: Having the opportunity to hire interns upon graduation provides significant savings in recruiting costs, effort and mistakes.
7. Secure Future Employees: An internship program enables businesses to pre-recruit, pre-qualify, and pre-train potential employees.
8. Talent Advantage: A well-managed intern recruitment program can yield a significant competitive advantage by securing some of the best young talent before they hit the “open market.”
9. Give Back to Communities: Intern programs can improve your reputation with schools, as well as local and business communities.
10. Pre-Networking: Forging collegial relationships early on, especially through structured mentoring, can lead to even greater rewards to be shared with future colleagues.

“A common misconception is that organizations and individuals don’t have the time to run an internship program,” says Matthew Zinman, president of Z University.org. “What employers and managers need to realize is that they don’t have the time not to have interns. Students are highly capable of contributing all kinds of business value . . . when well-managed, the amount of time they contribute yields far more productivity and many other unique benefits.”