Hiring Interns is Important

Stop waiting for graduates, hire interns.

One thing that has become apparent is as the industry ages so does its employees. In the print business it is safe to say that a large portion of employed staff are maturing. These are a group of hard working and highly skilled professionals that have most likely been in the industry most of their lives and will continue working there until their retirements. These employees are valuable hubs of experience and knowledge that can aid in the mentorship of the new comers. I would say this is the best time to provide that mentorship and continue employee retention. So where are the incoming employees?

That brings me back to why hiring interns is important. The next generation of industry professionals are among us and eager to learn. With hot topics like sustainability becoming the fore front of marketing strategies it is this generation that feels most empowered for change.

Traditionally through film and television the intern is the coffee getter, the maid and the person who receives all of the paperwork stacked high on their desk. This representation can be translated into the modern workplace with some interns still being perceived as unable to complete tasks that belong to full time employees. Contrary to this belief, like the interns from the Graphic Communications Management program, these students are trained in this field. They already have some knowledge that you had to teach your employees. Empower them, give them some responsibility and see how they handle it.

Here at Tempo we have hosted three interns this summer. As business picked up here over the pandemic these ladies were assets in assisting in several different tasks.

“My role as a prepress intern included daily duties that ranged from Prepress to Administration. Administratively I handled all the billing, quoting, specification sheets and ink drawdown requests as well as created documents for our ProofAlliance software and training packages. For Prepress, it was my job to quality control lens and approve them to go to plating. I also created the print specification sheets for fingerprinting, with my manager Craig, these were going to be used for the new fingerprint data. I felt very lucky to be able to secure a full time internship from May through August this was not the case for many of my classmates. I am happy to know there are companies like Tempo who are willing to take the risk on students like us especially during a pandemic. I know I will take the information I gained through my internship and help apply it to my studies in my final year.” –Carolyn Galganov

As Carolyn had mentioned and a problem I have personally noticed among my peers is the pandemic has taken a major blow at the summer internship pool. Along with layoffs some businesses cannot budget it in. How do we as an industry offer the real life experiences that you can’t find in a classroom while still being able to compensate them for their time? Ultimately it comes down to taking the risk. If you are waiting to on board full time graduates but uninterested in an intern you are missing out on an opportunity to establish a relationship and groom someone to becoming a valuable asset when they graduate. Not to mention the high level of competitiveness when it comes to hiring full time graduates in this industry. Establishing this relationship early on will help your company when it comes to hiring the following year, in my experience most of my peers have stayed on with the company’s that provided their internships.

Now more than ever it is vital to on board passionate employees who want to be a part of a company’s journey to becoming more sustainable and socially responsible. It’s 2020 and big brands are setting their targets as early as 2025 some being 2030. To some these are just targets that must be met to conform legally but to the younger demographic these targets will paint the latter portion of their lives. Let students take the wheel and drive your team to feel excited about these targets and the advancing technologies and processes. Invest in them today for a brighter tomorrow.

Chase Rooney
Marketing Coordinator