Issue link: https://industrialmanagement.epubxp.com/i/513969
14 Industrial Management on one side of the fence than the other, tip toward learning over performance. Learning and development signals a future upside for interns. It shows that your organization cares about the future development and career progression of its members. This approach will make your organization a more attractive career destination for those who are eager to learn, develop and contribute to the future. And if your intern is above the bar and worthy of a full-time offer, it also will help you close the deal. 5. Close the deal Ultimately, internships are about building long-term relationships with both individual job candidates and the schools from which they're hired. As in any long-term relationship, this involves building trust. That's why internships shouldn't provide candidates an overly rosy picture of "what it's like to work here." Instead they should provide a realistic job preview. This doesn't mean you should proudly wave your organiza- tion's dirty laundry as interns enter the building. But it does mean you should give interns an accurate picture of what insiders experience in their daily roles. Somewhat counterintuitively, research on realistic job previews has demon- strated that candidates are more likely to accept offers when they're provided deliberately lower expectations about real life inside the organization. In other words, a combination of positive and negative realistic inside information is better than a skewed and unrealistically positive view of the inside. It's also critical to understand that your internship program can help or hurt your reputation as a potential employer of choice for graduates who have the potential for high performance. You're not just closing "this deal" with "this intern." You're also trying to keep future deals flowing into your organi- zation as you battle competitors for talent. Interns return to school, and word gets out quickly about whether your organization is "the place to be" Word gets out quickly about whether your organization is "the place to be" or not. or not. In a world of social media and employer rating sites like Glassdoor. com, word gets out quickly. In an extreme version of intern hiring that aims to "close the deal" as quickly as possible, one approach is to merge intern and full-time employee hiring into the same process. For instance, Texas Instruments has experimented with hiring engineering managers from targeted specific schools, like Carnegie Mellon, where graduates with strong technical backgrounds provide a rich talent pool. To close the deal early, they make a select number of internship offers that include immediate full-time employment. In other words, a pre-offer is made that is not contingent on internship performance. This eliminates post-graduation employment risk for the student and signals the company's confidence in the future capabilities of its interns. Organizations that do an especially good job of selecting talent are the best candidates for such a pre-emptive approach. Perfect time to take a chance In the coming weeks, a new crop of interns will either trickle or stream into your organization, contingent on your company's size and dependence on interns for selection and hiring. This is the opportunity to get a leg up by taking the internship role seriously through a rigorous hiring process, an onboarding process that treats them like colleagues instead of temps, and by encouraging them to be proactive in an environment that focuses on both learning and performing, perhaps with a little bent toward learning. This will help ensure that you can close the deal when it comes to hiring the best and brightest as the war for talent continues to escalate in our improving economic climate. v