Why should companies take an intern?

As part of my duties as an internship program director in China, I’m responsible for finding new partnership opportunities with companies that could benefit from having an intern.  One question that comes up all the time when I’m speaking to HR and other managers is what benefit will they have by setting up an internship program in their companies.

First thing is that an internship program has to be a win win situation to work.

In this I mean an internship must benefit both the intern and the company to work out long term.  It would always be possible for a company to take an intern out of some sort of gesture to want to help. i.e. doing a favor for one of the director’s kids so that they can get some work experience. But if the company doesn’t see any benefits from the intern, the practice will be seen more of a waste of resources and time and will be short lived.  On the other hand, if the proper measures are made to make an experience filled internship, the company will benefit by having an invaluable resource to help work on projects and give insights and a fresh perspective.  By working on specific projects, the intern also learns what a career in that industry will entail, get a chance to take school learning’s and translate that knowledge into work, and build on skills necessary for their futures.

Here is a list of what some managers at the many companies that we work with tell us are reasons they take interns.

-Gain short term talent, that might be especially useful if you have new projects that need to be finished.

-Bring in different and fresh perspectives.  This is especially true with our program where we are bringing foreign students from around the globe to work in companies in China.  Also, students in University are often learning concepts that might be new, or even foreign and are able to translate those theories effectively into the work place.

-Young students are also very hip with regards to the newest technologies, software and especially social media that can prove beneficial for companies especially in the marketing/pr departments.

-Bringing in youth also brings new energy and life to the company.  More often than not, a young student is like a child taking everything in for the first time, interested in and excited with the new environment and is really invigorating to be around.  Most people really enjoy being a mentor, and since an intern really is at the starting stages of work, everyone in the company, if interested, can help coach the intern in some way.  This opens up the opportunity to have almost anyone in the company able to build morale and confidence through helping of a younger colleague.

-Give a chance for less experience staff to gain supervisory experience by managing an intern.  As they say, practice makes perfect, and why not start with an intern, where the individual can learn a lot by personally managing one intern rather than trying to start with managing a team.

-Help you build your companies international brand.  After young interns are finished with their internships they will go back to school and become your personal PR machines, telling all their friends, family and teachers about the great company they worked for.  Many locals also admit that they are also happy to build branding for China and Chinese companies in general.  Many understand that the perception outside of China tends to be negative or that most understand very little of what is really going on inside the country.  A positive experience in China, where students get to enjoy living in a very advanced city, and get great international work exposure are really great ways to show the rest of the world how amazing this city and country is.

In my few years running an international internship program I’ve heard many more reasons why managers are interested in taking in interns.  The reality is that it always takes some effort to create projects and a program that can be successfully performed by interns, but in the long run, the benefits definitely outweigh the costs.  If you are interested in taking an intern but are hesitating because of your concerns about how to best utilize their time, contact us, we can give you some great insights and project ideas to start with.

Studies show living abroad improves management skills

I was always hopeful that my long stint in Asia was giving me skills that would help me become a better leader and was excited when I found a few studies reassuring me that there are many positive effects of living abroad. One experiment held by professors William Maddux, Adam Galinsky and Carmit Tadmor on students from Northwestern’s Kellogg School asked MBA students to solve a behavioral test.  The test, called the Duncker candle problem, tests the ability to think creatively. I tried the quiz myself and am happy to be able to say that I was able to find the solution, in fact I think I found 2. The test went on to find that the longer a student spent living in an international setting, the more likely they were to be able to come up with the creative solution. This ability to think more creatively gave them the ability to take on and overcome challenges more easily and effectively, leading to quicker promotion rates. The three professors also found that traveling abroad alone was not enough to improve creative thinking, and that people had to spend significant time to adapt to the foreign culture to really be able to pick up these skills.

Another study showed that people who were able to incorporate the foreign cultures into their own identities were able to outperform and were perceived better achieving than managers that could only identify with one culture. In essence, these bicultural managers were able to score much higher when testing for integrative complexity, which is believed to help people perform better in their jobs. By performing better, they were able to get promoted more quickly and become managers to their peers. The same study showed that bi-culturals were also more likely to create new products than their mono-cultural counter parts.

Although there are tons of challenges that come with moving abroad even for a short time, the benefits are not limited to just experiencing new cultures but could give the participants the opportunity to pick up abilities and skills to help them achieve success in their careers. It is important to remember that in order to get the maximum effects, participants must make sure to really interact with the environment and really identify with the new foreign culture.