In Thursday’s post on internships, I discussed my history doing internships, and how I came up with the program running now through Braathe Enterprises. Today, I’ll share with you how I found my interns for this semester.
Most internships I have come across have been ones that were coordinated through a college employment or internship office. The recruiter from the company would either contact the college employment office, or vice versa, and the recruiter would visit campus, conduct interviews, and select candidates.
I took a different approach with finding my candidates. As a teacher, I have had 100’s of students walk through my classroom in the past, so I sent an announcement out to my current and former students who were looking for some internship opportunties. Just from putting out an announcement on Facebook and LinkedIn, I got 9 people to express interest, interviewed 7 and hired 6. (The 7th candidate is planning on considering a summer opportunity with me.)
I asked each of those interested what their field of interest was, and have tailored certain aspects of their weekly work (3-5 hours a week of virtual assistance now through April 30th) to their level interest. Students had varying interests from social media to traditional media marketing and green marketing, to business legalization and formation and website and logo design. Many of them are interested in starting their own business as well, so I’ve been able to give assignments in the first week to these students that can help them gain that experience as I expand mine.
I’m excited at the results after 1 1/2 weeks, and look forward to working with these 6 great minds of the next three months.
I’ve even launched a summer program already, where I am looking for similarly interested students looking to learn about business for 5-10 hours a week. If you’d like more information, contact me at robertjbraathe@gmail.com
