Do you hire interns?

Netflix is a tech company which has a policy to strictly not hire any interns. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/231496

I was wondering how many of you business owners would also follow the same policy and not hire interns?

I understand where Netflix is coming from and in a way I agree with them. How do you feel about this?

 

Interns are good for startups or new companies who cannot afford to hire all experienced employees. Interns being inexperienced may not satisfy your end product needs, but that also depends on the type of job and nature of work. Company as big as netflix can afford to hire experienced candidates, so its very feasible for them.

 

If you are mature company you focus on bringing fully grown-up A players. And you can afford it.
When starting a business you try to hire A players on shoestring budget. You "sell" them the vision,
the possibility of promotions, to chance to prove "their" worth.

I would do the same. When you start to scale you have to tolerate only A game players and interns are not there yet.

 

I agree that not all interns might be able to take your product to the next level, but there are some good experienced interns that might do a job better than an All star. I once had an intern, graphic designer who worked for me...he started as an intern but later landed a part time job with us. His work was EXCELLENT, and better than the experienced graphic artist (s) we had working on staff (full-time). He was so good, we had no need for any of our full time staff members to be honest. My point is...don't underestimate where talent can come from! Its' always good to be diversified in business, try a few interns among experienced people...they just might add a fresh and young perspective. Especially the ones at college studying the craft. You might have to weed them out, bc the good ones are hard to find! Cheers,

 

We work with interns who take initiative to develop their skills and ultimately have drive to pursue their goals. Agreed with Catzy, there are amazing newcomers in the industry that can bring a whole new perspective and method to completing tasks and producing optimal results. Sometimes professionals can be jaded or accustomed to routine.

 

I think its best to hire a combination of the two. Hire some Grade-A then also some people who are willing to learn.

 

When I take on interns, it is usually because I want to give back a little. Most of the internships that I have agreed to (sales & marketing oriented) involved significant time on my part in terms of educating, managing, etc. Of course, the bulk of my career has been with SMB's. Larger corporations do invest in internships in the hopes that they are grooming entry level employees. But all businesses recognize that a proper internship is an investment or donation -- not a money-making or money-saving proposition.

Yes, some disreputable companies will turn internships into low-paid, "slave" labor, but those are just rip-offs and not real internships where you should be doing more learning than working.

 

I agree about PROs.
I think problem with "mature professionals" is that at some point
they get accustomed of the way they do things and are being paid
only on past performance.
This is when you fire them.

 

In my experience, the people with young, creative minds stay that way throughout their entire career. Likewise, the old, plodding businesspeople were that way when they were younger, too. It is a big mistake to think all young employees are creative and all old are not. Simply not the case.

And, another commet on "creativity" in general. There are a lot of people who spout pure gibberish and/or nonsense who claim to be creative types. The trick to being a creative businessperson is to have creative ideas that make economic sense. There are very few people who can do that. Steve Jobs was an excellent example of one, of course. My point is that chasing creative types to enhance your business is not easy and, in fact, might be a fool's errand in many cases. They are out there, of course, but they represent a very small percentage of the population.

 

Its should not be taken against Netflix, first of all they are a company which has a good reputation and hiring interns is not on their books. Why you ask? Simply because interns are people who are still in the process of learning. They need experience, they need supervision and with a large company such as Netflix, they don't have time to tutor or mentor these people.

Though they are still young and will be very useful in the company later on, they still need to learn a lot.

 

Hi yes I was hired as a intern a local company.
I did logisitics/ show room sales assistant / online product management / taking photos and uploading onto the website. It was only for two weeks, it was free work but I learnt a lot and it helps the local businesses.
I think its vital for local businesses to give at least work experience to students, as I truely believe Ive learnt more on the job than in lectures.

 

I agree with one thing, interns don't work well in every business. So based your interns on the service and the needs of your business. If your in a service industry it might be a different ballgame.