Should You Hire Your Intern When Summer Is Over?

Many businesses will bring in interns to support their staff during the months with the heaviest volumes of vacation requests. Temporary employment has been a bright spot in the U.S. job market this season, which means many leaders are likely trying to decide whether to hire their summer interns. 

Here are a few tips on how to decide whether you should offer full-time employment to these staff members:

• Workforce planning: The first step is obviously to determine whether you need a new staff member. To do this, look into sales forecasts and potential staffing issues in your industry, community or region. Remember that bringing an intern on board will be more affordable than starting a search from scratch thanks to savings on recruitment, training and the time it takes to acclimate new employees. 
• Performance metrics: Did your intern show progress throughout the employment period? Metrics should monitor all employees, including interns, and will provide hard, definitive insights regarding the potential benefits and risks of hiring the intern full-time. 
• Culture fit: Did your intern fit into the company culture well? Did he or she get along with the rest of your staff? If so, this is a sign that you will want to strongly consider hiring them for a full-time position at the end of the internship. 

​Gild, a recruitment, onboarding and staffing services provider, affirms that its own research turned up several reasons to hire a former intern. This includes proof that former interns tend to remain with the company for longer periods of time than an entirely new employee would. What's more, the internship is a tryout of sorts, allowing leaders to assess skills in a true workplace setting. As such, Gild recommends giving interns a higher priority when looking to fill an entry-level position. 

If full-time staff members are needed, the positives outnumber the potential negatives of bringing an intern on board for the long haul.

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