iCIMS Hire Expectations™

To catch up, read Part I here!

Part II: The Quest for the Intern (A lesson in legality)

As most of you have probably read by now, there are some tricky rules involved when recruiting interns… especially when they are unpaid.  A Workforce article from a few years back offered 10 Rules for Hiring Unpaid Interns. Some highlights included:

• Training must be general, not for the immediate advantage of the business, and it may even slow normal operations.
• Interns can’t be used to replace paid employees.
• High schools, technical schools and colleges can partner with businesses to set up compliant unpaid internships in which the student receives course credit. This lends credibility to the internship’s benefit for the student.
• Decide beforehand if the business has the time and personnel to closely supervise and mentor an unpaid intern.

And if you want to be a little more sure of your compliant internship practices, check out the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division’s six factors to “evaluate whether a worker is a trainee or an employee for purposes of FLSA:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction;
2. The training is for the benefit of the trainees;
3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded; 
5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period; and
6. The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

Bottom line: make sure you have the time for interns!  It’s not about you…it’s about them, so make sure you’re recruiting the right fit for your department/company and that they want to learn.

Does your company recruit a lot of interns and/or recent grads? Give them their own space to search and apply for jobs! University Career Centers are a popular option amongst organizations that are looking to tailor their recruiting. A UCC links directly within a corporation's website and allows college students to browse job openings specifically targeted to their audience with specific marketing information and more. Applicants can then complete an online application tailored to your college recruiting campaign. Career Centers dedicated to new graduates are an extremely effective method of giving your organization that competitive edge in reaching quality talent. One last quick iCIMS plug…our very own marketing interns Brittney & Allison have already written a couple of great posts on the internship process.  Check them out here: It’s a Jungle Out There - Are you Ready? & Finding an Intern – Is the Cake Worth the Candle?