In an era of budget cutbacks and smaller staffs, more firms—particularly smaller ones—are turning to interns to provide much-needed back-up for everything from account management to support services.

Internships are not uncommon in the advertising and marketing sector, our area of focus. But taking the intern plunge often leaves many CEOs and heads of organizations asking the same question: should I trust crucial business activities to someone either still in—or just out of—school?

Here at Creative Niche, we’re very proud that for the past three years we’ve run a spring program called Intern Connect, which came into existence through our partnership with the student advertising competition Canada’s Next Top Ad Exec. As part of our involvement, we were tasked with finding the top 25 finalists and the contest’s organizing committee internship positions with our top clients.

Concerned with the time and money it would cost to add another body to their employee lists, many were reluctant to sign on and help place these bright, creative interns within their organizations. Others were concerned that interns wouldn’t want to do the work assigned to them.

I should point out that even Creative Niche was in a similar position in 2010. Although we made internship placements the previous summer, we were on the fence last spring about bringing on our own intern. We were concerned over whether we had enough work to justify the additional hire, and whether we could provide the right mentorship to support an intern’s very specific development needs.

After determining we had enough projects in the works and could use an extra set of hands, we decided to proceed with a marketing internship. Although it was unpaid, we offered a symbolic $2500 reward for its successful completion—not to mention the promise of a stellar letter of recommendation if one was justified.

Although I had no direct mentorship training (and I’m relatively new to my career), our new intern would be under my guidance. Recalling my internship experiences during college, I considered the things I loved about my experiences and those that were far less positive.

Some that I loved: a specific list of job-related responsibilities, a dedicated workspace and computer ready and waiting for me on my first day, a warm one-on-one introduction to the team, having lunch with my supervisor, regular meetings to review my progress and my next projects, as well as opportunities to discuss the industry as a whole.

What I didn’t love: being assigned grunt work all the time and having more than one person to report to (it was confusing—and nobody wants a confused intern wandering around the office).

So, I was determined to learn from my experience in welcoming our new intern at Creative Niche. I prepared a job description which not only included deliverables and responsibilities, but also outlined our expectations. Some of the details included:

• the duration of the internship placement (8 weeks, 25 hours a week)

• expected arrival time (9 a.m.)

• dress code (business casual)

• workplace expectations (respectful in every action and accountable for their actions)

In short, I treated our intern as a professional hire and expected the same level of work and professionalism. That might sound harsh to some, but the intern not only responded, he excelled and embraced the level of responsibility, viewing it as a great opportunity to learn about his potential future career.

All too often, employers complain that young workers don’t live up to expectations, but often expectations aren’t properly communicated to these new employees—remember, they don’t have the same years of work experience you do and often don’t yet have the wherewithal to know what they’re even supposed to be doing.

To avoid this becoming a problem, I carved out 30 minutes every morning to sit with our intern to answer any questions, review his task list, always carefully listening as he vented his frustrations and highlighted what work he was and wasn’t enjoying. It was a good relationship-building tactic, opened lines of communication, and allowed me to properly assess the intern’s strengths. It also allowed me to assign tasks and projects that capitalized on his natural skills.

That might sound like a lot of work, but the truth is that it increased my own productivity levels. I discovered skills that I could put to work and realized that our intern could take on more work and responsibility than originally thought, freeing my time to focus on other tasks and tackle new projects. Working so closely with an intern also gave me a new sense of fulfillment and helped me develop a new set of skills: managing people. I began to appreciate the time and energy required to properly mentor new employees, while also gaining a whole new perspective on the role that managers and mentors have played in my career development.

Perhaps most importantly, the intern helped us grow our online community through regular contests and engagement-driving initiatives. He also helped us monitor our progress with daily analytics tracking, providing hard metrics to help quantify marketing return-on-investment.

Of course, many business owners and managers are reluctant to hire interns because they can’t afford to pay them. The good news is most interns expect little—if anything—by way of salary. If you can’t afford to pay an intern an hourly wage, offer to pay for their transportation costs (i.e. monthly public transportation pass) and remember to be flexible with work schedules. The intern will likely have to have a part-time job on the side.

With the right level of time, attention to detail and planning, the right intern—like any paid hire—can help your business climb to new heights.

All the best,

Kimi

Kimi Abdullah is the Marketing and Communications Manager at Creative Niche. Read more about her on Our Team page