6 Reasons to Hire Tech Students for Remote Internships5 min read

Tech companies are some of the most exciting places to work in. Students learning a diverse range of subjects look for start-ups and tech firms for their first job after graduation. From computer science majors to social studies students, colleges are packed with eager minds ready to help transform your company. Given the coronavirus situation, remote working has become the norm. Remote internships, however, seem a little more challenging to integrate into the new normal. It can be hard enough to wrangle your regular workers via Zoom. What about someone who is untried and untested?

There are many ways a remote intern could fit into your tech business, from an essay writing service to someone willing to make sales calls. There are tasks aplenty for a student on an internship to work through.

1. Streamline the hiring process

Taking on new members of staff can be a stressful process. Hiring requires searching, sifting, interviewing, and trialing various candidates. With an internship, there is a mutual exchange taking place. On the one hand, students get practical experience, which is invaluable to their future prospects. And on the other, your company can bring in fresh talent without the strings of a regular hire attached. 

Many internships act as a way for companies to secure new talent. The test run, as mentioned above, is the perfect way for your team to see if things get well with the intern. The prospect of employment after an internship is also a way to motivate interns to do great work while they’re with you.

2. Embrace the new stuff

Students on IT internships will, of course, be learning some real-world skills. But these students will also bring their novel approaches. They’re going to be brimming ideas relating to the educational materials they have working on at college. 

With proliferating libraries, frameworks, and methods in the coding world, having someone highly attuned to learning onboard will offer your company a chance to experiment with new developments.

Many academic institutions are research-orientated, with students having access to cutting edge hardware and software your company may not have experience working with much. 

3. Reduce the workload of your employees

Bringing interns on board can help make your company more productive. Labor laws are complex, yet internships are relatively simple. One bonus of a remote internship right now is that you can assign the work to people in a position where there isn’t much else to do.

Back to the economy, you can get things done quicker with more people. It could be hard to organize the way  the internship will work, but the advantage of remote working is that there is not a cap on space.

In a typical office or workspace, there are a finite number of desks, chairs, and beanbags. When running a remote internship, these limits recede, if not disappear altogether. Imagine being able to take on a dozen interns you manage remotely. They can work on simple tasks and help your company achieve much more than they could if you only hired one or two.

Interns aren’t a like-for-like swap when it comes to your most experienced developer. But that lead developer, or mid-weight, or junior, will want some time off. Bringing in interns to help plug the gap can mean you don’t slow down as much. Just make sure they don’t burn the place down while your head developer is away. Make back-ups and limit access before letting the interns loose.

4. Create free management practice for your top team

Interns do need guidance. If you have members of your staff that are primed for management and promotions of that nature, giving them an intern to mentor and guide through is a sound method of building their interpersonal skills.

It’s a lot less hassle and stress for someone to manage a temporary intern than it is for an  existing employee with whom they may be friends or enemies. 

5. Improve your social media status

It’s cliché, but students are better at social media than the rest of the population. The younger demographic tends to run things on these platforms. By hiring a remote intern, you’re getting a ready-made meme machine who will inform you, a perhaps rather staid company, of the latest trends and developments. 

Joining social media and engaging with it appropriately could lead to more sales, more contacts, and more clients. Strangely, it’s such a vital part of the business, yet it is where the most inexperienced members flourish.

6. Costs are low for internships

Though we are loath to suggest unpaid internships, given the state of millennial finances, the truth is that interns can, and are, paid less than regular workers. The costs reflect their responsibilities and experience, But they’re not useless; otherwise, you wouldn’t bother. 

Most significantly, the costs of bringing on interns are low compared to the potential gains and benefits available through this process.

If you’re looking to expand your company, offering internships for college students is a superb way of doing so; you’ll get more recognition and awareness. You’ll be tapping into the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs, making connections that could pay dividends in the years to come. By taking a chance on a remote internship, you’re going to keep things fresh at your company. 

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We would like to thank Amanda Dudley for this contribution. Amanda earned her Ph.D. in History from Stanford in 2001. Since then, she has worked in academia, lecturing on World and American History and assisting students through her work on EssayUSA. In her spare time, Amanda loves practicing her German and developing techniques to improve the experiences of students with learning difficulties as they progress through education