With the increasing competitiveness in our economic market, internships have increased in popularity and necessity in the past several years for both companies and potential interns. Actual field experience is required for graduates, as a college degree is no longer enough to secure a job in the workforce. And with increasing costs and an overall unstable economy, many businesses have had to employ cutbacks or cannot afford to hire new staff.
One area business that has had success with recruiting, maintaining and in some cases promoting interns is Awesome Inc., a local start-up firm that promotes the development of technology, creativity and entrepreneurship. Its success in establishing a successful internship program has prompted the company to hold a workshop for area businesses on how to attract, and keep, good interns. The workshop will take place Tuesday, June 19, from 8:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. in the Commerce Lexington meeting room on 330 East Main St.
“We’ve had a lot of businesses come to us and say, ‘How do you guys find interns?’ So we decided to hold this workshop,” co-founder Brian Raney said.
The company was started in early 2009 by Raney, a University of Kentucky graduate, and several others. “We were sure we weren’t the only people in Lexington who wanted to start their own companies,” he said.
Currently, the firm hosts 15 early-stage companies that share a collaborative office space; these business initiatives include several high-tech firms and several creative endeavors, including a dance studio. Along with this rentable office space, conference rooms and spaces for networking, Awesome Inc. boasts a successful and structured internship program, called Team Alpha, that has utilized more than 100 interns in the last three years.
Raney said that the workshop will focus on three main areas that have made the Team Alpha program so successful — recruiting potential interns, selecting and filtering through potential interns, and retaining those interns who prove to be successful.
The first part of the workshop will be a presentation on the strategies above, while the second part will feature a hands-on clinic for area businesses to actually start recruiting interns themselves.
Team Alpha has retained interns in several ways, including working to instill a sense of community among the interns by scheduling community-building events and having an open and collaborative space to work. But most of all, these interns are given tasks that have a huge impact on the company itself.
“We give them cool, fun, exciting things to work on. We give them stuff to do that matters …We give them attention and make them feel special, because they are,” Raney said.
This high level of trust in interns encourages responsibility, and according to Raney, success.
“The No. 1 thing we look for [in an intern] is their ability to figure it out,” he said.
Awesome Inc. interns are not paid any wages, but instead walk away from their internship with significant experience in web design, blogging, event planning and other key areas. Further, several interns have been hired on after their internships to Awesome Inc. as well as other businesses that are currently hosted by the firm, something Raney calls the “foot in the door” effect.
Paid internships are decreasing in popularity, which has made it more difficult for businesses to attract interns.
“Even if you’re not paying interns, they’re still costing you something,” Raney said. “We have such a demand [in today’s business world] for experience, and that’s what our interns want.”
Intern Hiring Workshop
Those who are interested in registering for the workshop can visit internworkshoplex.eventbrite.com/. Early Bird registration, during which tickets cost $25, ends June 14. Standard registration will run from June 15 to the day of the workshop and will cost $35.