Hiring talented interns that make an immediate impact on your company is a challenge when they lack experience, which is why these job boards are great resources for hiring top-quality students today.

It’s hard to argue against the economics of hiring interns. Employing free or very cheap labor is a low-risk solution for organizations that need workers, and internships offer recent grads or new professionals opportunities to gain valuable work experience.

Many companies historically hire interns on an unpaid basis in order to save costs on jobs that would otherwise go to entry-level employees, but unpaid internships have come under scrutiny as being ethically questionable. Few young professionals can afford to work for free, and arguments that unpaid internships exclude millions of low-income candidates from the workforce are gaining traction. With recent lawsuits escalating arguments on both sides of the issue, companies now shoulder the legal responsibility to know if and when an intern needs to be financially compensated according to the Federal Labor Standards Act (FSLA).

Tabling the legal and ethical debate of unpaid internships for the moment, hiring interns can have a positive impact on your organization, so you shouldn’t shy away from hiring young professionals who offer a fresh perspective, are eager to learn, and help cultivate mentorship and leadership skills among existing employees. To connect your company with fresh talent, check out these job boards and career resources for interns.

1. WayUp

The standout feature of WayUp is its appealing and user-friendly layout. Internship and entry-level job seekers can create personalized profiles that include their prior work experience and highlight extra criteria like volunteer experience, hobbies, and skills that demonstrate candidate value to employers.

With over 4.5 million candidates in their database from over 6500 different schools, there is no shortage of talent waiting to be discovered on WayUp. As an employer, you can create and post jobs via the company’s marketplace, and feel confident in WayUp’s representation of underserved minorities, who currently constitute over 35 percent of the total candidate database.

2. InternJobs.com

With its simple website design, InternJobs.com offers an affordable pricing plan that starts at $15 per posting for 30 days. What’s more, InternJobs.com has over two decades of experience connecting young professionals to employers. If you’re looking for a no-nonsense and regularly updated job board to post your open internships, then this is one resource you shouldn’t overlook.

3. Internships.com

Internships.com is the world’s largest student-focused internship marketplace, boasting its network size right on the site’s landing page: over 300k entry-level jobs and 5k internships from over 140k companies located in 10k cities across the US. The site offers free job posting for employers and a wide range of career resources for candidates, from how to write cover letters and resumes to interviewing advice.

Internships.com uses a powerful algorithm that allows students to search for opportunities based on major, industry, city, and company. The site even has an “Internship Predictor” that matches candidates with internships according to their personality and character references.

4. LinkedIn

You likely already use LinkedIn as a major sourcing tool for open positions at your organization, so why not leverage the world’s largest professional network for internships as well? Few other job boards can compete with the LinkedIn’s expansive network of members, companies, and educational institutions. With over 560 million active users on the platform, the likelihood of meeting a candidate through your existing network is high, making this a no-brainer for many companies.

5. Idealist

If your organization works in the non-profit sector, you may be in need of like-minded workers who share your passion for taking action and making an impact. With 1.4 million monthly visitors to the site’s English and Spanish sites, Idealist posts opportunities across the globe from nearly 130k organizations, and posting a new listing is as simple as logging in with a Facebook or Google account.

6. College Recruiter

College Recruiter was founded way back in 1991, and in over the last three decades it built a 7400-strong network of one-, two-, and four-year colleges across the country. Posting an open internship on the site starts at $75 per listing but can be tailored to target specific schools, majors, graduation years, GPAs, languages, or diversity requirements. College Recruiter also offers custom advertising solutions at various price points and hosts regular College Recruiting Bootcamps where HR professionals, hiring managers, and college relations professionals gather to network, brainstorm, and share ideas about how to attract the next generation of talent to your organization.

Did you know if a student accepts a full-time offer at Boeing after their summer internship the company will pay for next year’s tuition? Or that if NetApp hires a student after their summer internship they will send them monthly care packages throughout their senior year? The hiring market is competitive and employers are willing to go to great lengths to hire and retain top-notch talent.

The highly competitive atmosphere of today’s hiring pool is essentially a war for talent. Companies have to hire early and fast to get the 32.6% of students that start looking for work over three months before graduation.  Already 37.7% of large companies start recruiting interns over a year in advance. Talented interns (especially engineers) are in high demand. Every company needs bright, hardworking employees to help execute their business goals, and hiring recent grads early on is a critical part of building a pipeline of top talent.

Additionally in 2012, 69% of interns at companies with 100+ employees were offered full-time jobs.

Hiring interns as full-time employees isn’t just a great recruiting hack, it also impacts your company’s bottom line. According to College Mogul employers stand to save between $10,000 and $50,000 in tangible and intangible costs by hiring an intern as a full-time employee. And, one of the biggest cost-savers of converting interns in to full-time hires is the all-important stat of retention rate. Retention rates for interns-turned-full-time-employees are high—62.4% after five years compared to 48.1% for hires that came with no internship experience whatsoever.

So what’s the TL:DR version?

1. Hire smarter. If you have a talented intern in your company and a full-time role available, don’t wait until the summer ends to make them a formal offer.
2. Sweeten the deal. Offer students a signing bonus in exchange for an early commitment to your company. If you can’t compete with the compensation packages offered by large companies, offer other benefits like stock options and equity, access to your network and introductions to mentors or other industry professionals.
3. Don’t get discouraged. Awesome interns know other awesome interns. If your intern isn’t ready to commit or accepts an offer somewhere else, offer them a bonus for a peer-to-peer referral.

Whether you plan to woo potential full-time hires with schwag, fancy dinners or a simple call from your CEO, the time to begin hiring is now.

Ashley Mosley is the Community Engagement Manager at InternMatch, an online platform connecting the best intern candidates and employers. Connect with Ashley and InternMatch on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

SmartRecruiters is the hiring platform with everything you need to source talent, manage candidates, and make the right hires.

Millennials are not enamored with corporate America; we saw family friends and our own parents laid off, lose pensions and sometimes their homes. The modern workplace needs renovating, and the changes desired by the Millennials will help everybody.

Understanding what interests and retains Millennials will help you secure top talent, keep them satisfied, make them productive and ensure they are not snatched up by a competitor.

Instant Gratification

Learn this fast, Gen Y won’t put up with hearing no replies in the job search process. We’ve rarely faced delays in acquiring information. We can look up the weather, see our March Madness bracket standings and download dubstep remixes almost instantly. Why do we have to drive across the country to meet with you when we could do a video interview? Why do we have to email you for months to hear how we did in our interview? Don’t treat us right in the hiring process and we’ll be gone quicker than you can say “skinny jeans.”

Employer Branding

You won’t get our undivided attention. Our attention spans are constantly assaulted. If you don’t have some flashy, snappy job description or neat digital interviewing going on, then forget it. Hook Millennials by having something outrageously different about your employer branding. We Millennials were told we’re uniquely special, so we want to work for a company that is too.

Flexibility

Many of us grew up in houses where both of our parents worked, so we know the importance of work-life balance. We don’t want to be at work any longer than necessary. Why spend 40 minutes getting ready and drive in rush-hour traffic when all that is needed to complete the work is an internet connection? Telecommuting can help employers cost-wise. Perhaps evaluate candidates on their productivity, not the hours they keep. If telecommuting isn’t an option, a nice gesture would be allowing us to work in a neat looking office and/or allow us to wear jeans.

Pretentious, Sniveling Brats

Did I really receive a ribbon for coming in 22^nd out of 23 runners at my sixth grade cross country meet? You bet your pension check I did. A 22^nd place ribbon is burnt orange in case you were curious. We were raised with the self-esteem movement…and it shows. Our parents and teachers wanted to be our friends instead of authority figures. In the workplace, paying dues doesn’t work the same way as before. We think our voice matters; when we want something, we make sure everyone knows. Companies can benefit from this. Hearing input from outsiders or new hires can make a company even better. Instead of looking at years on the clock, look at our idea.

Yes, we Millennials are high-maintenance. Our parents told us we can do anything, and if we get strong mentors and excellent support, then maybe we can. We are the most educated generation after all. Our wanting more means companies have to be more. Candidates should know where they are each step of the hiring process, company culture should matter, job descriptions should be attractive, suggestions should be heard, good work should be recognized, management style should be reevaluated occasionally and companies should take advantage of new recruitment technology. Cupcakes should be given to the entire class…
Rajpreet Heir (Millanial) is Social Media Strategist and Community Manager at RIVS.com, a Chicago based digital interview software. Image drawn by Ely Tran.

SmartRecruiters is the hiring platform. Learn more about recruiting young professionals by attending “SmartUp: The Secrets to College Recruiting” on May 13.

With numbers like 60% of paid internships converting into full-time offers, students facing a bleak economic landscape know that internships are their fast pass to a career in their chosen field. And as recruiters know, interns from top universities are often the best candidates for full-time positions—creating a solid internship program, then, saves considerable energy and resources when hiring for fulltime positions.

What kind of work are interns looking for? In the recruiting shuffle, it’s easy to lose sight of what the big picture is, which is why InternMatch keeps track of top internship searches within their website. Having kept a finger on the pulse of search queries from students in the past year, we’re sharing the most sought after positions of 2012—and some of them may surprise you:

9. Art

Art production and gallery interns support the vital operations of creative venues, finding mentorships and sometimes brushing shoulders with icons from the art world. These benefits encourage students to apply for internships in hubs like New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.—three cities with traditions in art as well as a thriving contemporary scene. Employers should take advantage of this traffic as well as connect with students who may be in town on fellowships or residencies.

8. Journalism

With journalism moving increasingly away from print venues towards online platforms, and even social media, internships in the field are great barometers for students to gauge their aptitude for the job. Companies seeking researchers, content writers, and editors would do well to bring on journalism students who have a strong background in all three tasks.

7. Event Planning

It’s one thing to know how to throw a great party—it’s quite another to know how to plan a fundraising dinner for thousands of people. Event planning interns have the tri-fold talent of researching venues, coordinating logistics, and assembling press kits. Experience is also the best teacher in this field, so students are vigilant about finding opportunities to support an organization’s operations.

6. Engineering/Computer Science

Qualified computer science and engineering students are hot commodities in today’s hiring world, and they know it. What’s instructive here is the realization that tech hopefuls aren’t defaulting to searches of Google or Facebook internships, but potential engineering interns are taking the time to find the best cultural fit. As candidates scramble for high-paying jobs in innovative companies, employers are putting on a recruiting hustle to match.

5. Design

Design students have talent, will travel. With building a professional portfolio at the top of their priorities list, designers seek opportunities all throughout college. Employers hoping to attract high-octane design interns should consider hosting design contests or asking candidates to replace the cover letter with an artistic campaign.

4. Public Relations

Pulling together media lists, writing press releases, and responding to press all fall under the jurisdiction of a public relations intern. PR students are passionate about branding and brand awareness, making them crucial additions to the team. Eager to jump into hands-on projects, their work can help ensure your company’s or clients’ success.

3. Accounting/Finance

Accounting internships are usually funnels for entry-level positions later on, especially at giant firms like Ernst & Young and Deloitte, who start their recruiting efforts early. The intense interview processes ensure that the selected candidates are talented, hardworking, and likely additions to the team. Accounting internships pay well and are stable, giving us insights into what students are looking for in a job opportunity.

2. Business

Known for their professional savvy and ambition, business students hunt for internships to start the climb up the management ladder early. Internships in business development and management are highly sought after for graduate students as well; to attract a candidate from Harvard or Columbia, consider taking a guest speaker position or sponsoring a business plan competition on campus.

1. Marketing

Marketing tops this list by a wide margin, getting 30% more hits than the last industry. The attraction of marketing is its versatility and blend between creativity and analytics. Marketing strategists seek positions that allow room for interns to brainstorm and execute campaigns, be it traditional or new media. An emerging subfield is social media, with Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest becoming bigger players in converting users.

There you have it–the 9 most sought after fields that most entice top students who hope to transition smoothly from university to career. Take advantage of their internship search by reaching out through university departments, posting on internship job sites and sponsoring events in a local academic community. With the right allotment of resources, you’ll build a student funnel that speeds and smooths the hiring process.

Jenny Xie is a content marketing intern at InternMatch.

Post internship positions to InternMatch through SmartRecruiters‘ recruiting software to manage candidates from all sources.

Editor’s note: We’ve recently updated our list of the Best Job Boards to Recruit Interns for 2018—check it out here.

Interns are the next generation of talent at your company. Internships not only provide great experience for college students, but they also empower your current employees to become mentors. Employers often struggle to recruit and hire ‘the best’ interns. If you’re looking at a stack of applicants with little or no proven experience, how do you make the right hire?

Mark Babbit of YouTern insists that an intern’s soft skills – like passion, independence, and versatility – are the attributes that hiring managers need to be on the lookout for.

You want the candidate “who will step in with some hustle, an entrepreneurial spirit and a great attitude – and make an immediate impact,” says Babbit. “After all, how do you know which is the best intern to pick when, by default, they have little or no work experience?”

Still, finding the candidate with those key intangibles can itself be a challenge. Nathan Parcells of InternMatch suggests to hone in on your detective skills when interviewing an intern:

“Recent grads, and especially current students, don’t typically have deep professional experience,” says Parcells, “so their ability to tell a story of why they’d be a good fit for your company is essential.”

To connect the smart employers with the best interns, SmartRecruiters partnered with the six best jobs boards for college students:

College.monster.com
Internship positions posted to Monster through SmartRecruiters are featured on this MonsterCollege, which helps recent grads and college students find their first career. Whether graduates pursue careers in government, non-profits, service vocations, start-ups, or the corporate sphere – MonsterCollege helps navigate the job-hunting process.

 

YouTern
YouTern is dedicated to matching the best young talent to leading organizations through high-impact, mentor-based internships. Visit their blog (The Savvy Intern, named to many “Top Blogger” lists in 2011) and tune into their Twitter weekly chat (#InternPro, Mondays at 9pm ET).

 

InternMatch
InternMatch.com helps companies find amazing interns using a  network of 250+ university and department level partners (ranging from Stanford to MIT) to ensure that every posting receives the right student applications.  For companies as large as Nestle and as small as 3 person startups.

CollegeRecruiter.com
CollegeRecruiter.com targets college students and recent grads looking for internships and entry level positions allowing them to apply to jobs, even on a mobile phone.

 

Internships.com
With over 60,000 internships in over 2,000 locations, Internships.com has a very active community that also consists of career prep resources and internship forums.

 

InternJobs
InternJobs.com is a global database of internships and entry-level positions for students, recent graduates and career changers. You can search their database by keyword or by location, and employers post internships and entry-level jobs for FREE.

How to Get an Internship

If you haven’t found a summer intern, it’s not too late. As spring concludes, remember, ambitious students will be searching these job sites for new internship opportunities.

Also don’t forget to check out top job sites by niche.

Ben Klafter (aka @BizDevBen) is a native of San Francisco, practices martial arts, and is on a quest to partner with all the best recruiting services. Photo Credit hnip.

We recommend channeling your inner Columbo, start by building rapport, than gradually unravel the onion to see if the student, has the right skills, cultural fit, and professionalism to work at your company.

Step 1: Deliver a great interview and sell the role.

Just because you are interviewing a student doesn’t mean they don’t have options.  Hiring great interns is as competitive as hiring top-notch employees and you will want to use all the same tactics to present your company and the opportunity in the best light.

The basics of this mean show up on time, be prepared having reviewed the students’ resume, and bring energy and excitement to the meeting.

We also recommend starting every interview by getting to know the candidate, where they are from, where they went to school, and building rapport.  We then recommend asking them for permission for you to do a 5-minute overview on the company and the role.  This is an ideal opportunity to educate them on your company and team, and to sell them on why it is such an exceptional place to work.

Step 2:  Use your detective’s skills to test for passion and cultural fit.

Recent grads, and especially current students, don’t typically have deep professional experience, so their ability to tell a story of why they’d be a good fit for your company is essential.  Some questions that can do just that include:

• What are you studying and why?

• How did you learn about our internship and why did you want to apply? (My personal favorite!)

and

• Why are you a particularly good fit for our company?

All of these questions test whether a student researched your position and is truly excited for the role.  Genuine excitement makes a huge difference at the intern level, because often these students need to be taught skills from the ground up.

Step 3: Put on the heat.

We like to progress from easier to harder questions with students.  Students can be nervous will interviewing, so helping them get comfortable, helps you make sure you are testing for the right skills.  However, in the second half of the interview we recommend pushing digging in a bit deeper on their skills and skill limits:

• Can you tell me a bit more about your experience at Widget Corp?

 

• How did you increase signups for the email newsletter by 20%?

 

• What tools did you use?  Which worked and which didn’t?

 

• How have you advanced your marketing knowledge outside of class?

We also like hypotheticals, for example if you are interviewing a PR intern you might ask:

• If we wanted to get press in the biggest dog blogs in the world, and had access to over 100,000 dog owners to run a survey, what questions would you ask, and how would you go about reaching out to the bloggers to get them to write the article ultimately?

Step 4:  “Just one more thing.”

Columbo is famous for using the last part of an interview when everyone is most comfortable, to draw critical conclusions.

Every internship interview you have should end with you asking students if they have any more questions about the role, company, yourself, process, or company culture.  Oftentimes student have questions about the structure, hours, or responsibilities of an internship position and letting them ask questions helps make sure you have addressed any lingering concerns they might have.  Even more important though, students should use this opportunity to take the info you have given them and ask a relevant and more in-depth question showing their ability to comprehend and communicate – testing for this is hugely important.

While every company needs to develop their own interview process and strategy this model can make a big difference when trying to get a feel for students who oftentimes are quite inexperienced.  Ultimately, you should let the student do the talking, and ask deeper and deeper questions on the areas that are most important for success at your company, just like Columbo would do.

Nathan Parcells is co-founder and Director of Marketing at InternMatch. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2009, Nathan joined long-time friend and co-founder, Andrew Maguire in starting InternMatch to build a better way for students to find great internships. Photo Credit DVDBeaver