Entry by Ashley Cashen, Talent Acquisition and Retention Coordinator, digitalKnowledge
digitalKnowledge strives to hire recent college graduates for their fresh perspectives and eagerness to continue learning. Our company tries to hire 2-3 Associate Consultants each year. A lot of on-campus recruiting occurs through career fairs, class presentations, and on-campus interviews. We hire talented, entrepreneurial graduates, but they come into our company with little to no real knowledge of our business.
Bart, our intern, has been with us for two months now, and while that may seem like a short amount of time, he is “one of us.” He knows about digitalKnowledge, our values, our processes – formal and informal, and he is part of our culture and environment. Through his time with us, he has sat in on client meetings, conference calls, and staff meetings. Not to mention, he sits next to three of our developers each day and has the ability to pick up on how things really work at our company.
This year we implemented an employee training program for all Associate Consultants, dKU. We take great pride in the effort we put into training and orientating our new hires, but it becomes very apparent how much further ahead of the game they would be had one of our new hires been a past intern. While our two new Associate Consultants are the brightest of the bright – it still takes time to get any new hire to a productive stage.
In the consulting industry, this is especially important. All of our consultants work on billable hours; therefore, each hour literally counts. We have worked hard to minimize the time that our Associate Consultants are unbillable, but like everything in life, it still takes time.
Bart has been working on various internal projects during his internship, but has also recently started on client work. While he is not a billable resource due to his intern status, he could be. He has sat in on meetings, observed, asked questions, and is truly a productive resource for our company.
With all of that being said, it’s easy to see the benefits of hiring an intern when hiring for entry-level positions. Unless the experience with your intern turns out to be a negative one, why spend all of that time training and educating them just to hand them off to another employer, possibly a competitor?
Hiring interns can be a positive choice for both a company and an intern. Bringing someone on to your team full time who already has an understanding for your business and who you know works well with your team can save your company the time and effort required to get a new hire up to speed.
