Reasons For Companies To Hire International Interns
An internship is an essential part of every student's life for a number of reasons. It allows them to experience the level of exposure that would not be met in school or university. It gives them the opportunity to hone their knowledge and skill over the years and apply them in the real world.
Essentially it is a gateway for them to enter the job market. With one job requirement after another requesting specific years of experience, job market becomes saturated with unemployed population that comes with great opportunity cost.
However, unemployment does not occur in one single place, of course, it is a global occurrence. This means that graduates from all around the world are seeking for work opportunities. In other words, the talent pool is larger than you originally thought!!
To help you avoid committing the mistake of searching for interns in one small talent pool as most businesses do nowadays, we thought it would be beneficial for you to know how international interns could help improve your business. So, here are five reasons why companies should hire international interns.
Knowledge of International Markets
Without international interns or workers, companies operating on an international scale are more prone to fall behind in the interconnected world today. Hence, having a international interns in their mitts could give them a competitive advantage as they have first hand insight knowledge that can help them target the right market.
With these students having lived most of their lives in set countries they would be a valuable asset to the company as they possess the ability to lower language and cultural barriers companies may face when negotiating with foreign companies. This could help smoothen the transition for the business when entering a new market abroad.
This transfer of knowledge is applicable to internal organizational structure as well since multiculturalism brings a diversity of sex, race, gender, and nationality, but most importantly: diversity of mind.
Creativity And Innovation
Creativity is not a talent, but a way of thinking. If you ask a person what the answer is to three plus three, they will always respond with 'six'. But if you ask what six really is, then you are turning the task around to get to a different way of thinking which will go beyond the subject. It could be four plus two or one plus five. Then suddenly, the answer could be anything.
We are all creative to a certain extent. Some more so than others due to variations in culture, belief systems, education background, life experiences, lifestyles, and more. International interns are great sources for new and different approaches to the situation and certain set of problems. Although the differences in intellectual abilities of international and domestic interns may not be vast, international interns enter the company with fresh pairs of eyes, meaning that they are more likely to pinpoint any issue or come up with unique ideas.
Motivation and Flexibility
International interns are usually available to work throughout the year for different durations. They are also more motivated to travel and work for your company than most domestic interns since they get to explore new culture, environment, and lifestyle. In other words, they get to shoot two birds with one stone: an internship experience and a vacation! Who would not jump at that?
International interns are also more flexible with working hours since they are there to get a professional internship experience out of their temporary stay. They are full of purpose and determination! What this means for companies is that you can ensure that they will put in their all in whatever they do. You can trust on them for ideas, thoughts, and feedbacks.
(Source: Priscilla Du Preez;)
Opportunities
When recruiting international interns, your company is investing. From the interns' point of view, they get the chance to acquire new skills and grow their professional network. From your side, you are doing the exact same, except on an even larger scale. You too are growing your connections and learning new things! Perhaps your international interns come up with amazing ideas that none of your current employees could ever do! Perhaps your intern will come out of the internship and become incredibly successful years after!
You are offering your management, employees, and stakeholders to learn to be more open-minded and critical of new perspectives, ideas, and ways of doing things which could improve the performance of the company one way or another.
Furthermore, having international interns under your wings could be used as a marketing strategy. Allow me to explain. Most giant companies today, like Google, IBM, and Sony, recruit international employees and interns because they want to make an emphasis on the fact that they are operating on a global scale; and that they attract people from all over the world to work for them! That the best of the best works for them. You can boost your company's reputation by following suit! By doing so, opportunities (read: talents) will come to you.
In addition to that, this helps elevate the reputations of companies as they become more employee-friendly. Through word of mouth, the company has a high chance of attracting an even wider pool of talents.
Affordability
Sure, international interns will have to fly in to work at your company. And those flights are not inexpensive. They counts towards the company's spending. By now, you may be thinking of hiring an intern, a domestic intern, to cut some of those costs down. Local talents should not be that difficult to find, you think. Well, we are here to tell you that you are not 100% correct! Unless you are a multinational company, local talents are not going to choose you. Yes, they are skilled, well-educated... Of course they can choose!
This leaves you with two options. One: you settle for less than what you deserve (talented intern) by spending more for hiring a full-time. Or two: you can hire international interns who could bring enticing ideas and perspectives to your company for shorter period of time and for half of the price that you would otherwise have to spend to recruit a full-time employee! They are more likely to see the same situation from different angle!
When weighing the pros and cons of hiring international interns, we think it's better to not settle for anything less than the best!
It is true that interns could generally stay at the company for a shorter period of time when compared to full-time workers. In contrast, international interns could bring out transformative changes within the organization and produce outstanding results within those limited duration. Therefore, hiring international interns could benefits companies in reducing its expenditure, enhance their reputation, and attracts wider groups of talents.
The next time you are looking to hire a full-time employee, consider hiring an international intern!
Don’t know where to start searching for interns? Get in touch with AIP directly on our website (here), via emails, or on our social media platforms!
AIP provides fully customized international internships inside and outside of Asia for talents from all over the world.