Internships are a great way for students and recent graduates to gain valuable work experience, and they can be a great recruiting tool for your club. However, there are some important considerations for establishing and managing an internship program. To help you navigate them and enjoy a thriving internship program at your club, we outline the essential steps below.

Understand the Legalities

The Department of Labor is particular about how businesses can manage interns in terms of compensation, on-the-job training and work performed. It’s easier for a non-profit business to take on and maintain an unpaid intern, but for-profit companies can still do it if they follow the guidelines. Alternatively, you can hire a paid intern and enjoy more freedom in the work you can assign them. To ensure you comply with labor laws, review the guidelines.

Build a Perfect Internship Job Posting

Once you know whether or not you will pay your intern, consider how you can best utilize them while providing valuable training and experience. Will you use a rotational system of assigning your intern to different roles within the club? Or will you establish an internship for a particular role like club reception, event management or leader-in-training?

After working through those details, create a posting with the role expectations and job specifics.Structure it as you do with any other position within your club, including an overview of the role, hours of work, information on your club and any experience requirements.

Promote the Role and Recruit Candidates

Next, you’ll need to advertise your internship and find the right person for the job. Contact local colleges and universities, especially business management, recreation management and hospitality programs. Many schools have internship placement programs available to help connect you with talented candidates. You can also post the position on your website, social media and traditional job recruiting sites. Finally, once you have a group of candidates, interview them as you’d interview for a regular job vacancy.

Hire and Train Your Intern

Treat your new intern like a traditional new hire, onboarding and training them using established materials and systems. If the intern is working with you for college credit, be sure to know and adhere to the school’s requirements. Often these requirements involve paperwork and frequent communication with their program advisor. They might also include time or exposure to senior leadership and project-based learning opportunities tied to your club’s business objectives.

As your intern settles into their role, provide regular feedback and formal assessments to help them succeed. Hopefully, as your intern’s time with you nears an end, you’ll want to offer them a full-time position within your club.

Evaluate and Improve Your Program

Finally, take the time to reflect on the program and how it worked out. Perform an exit interview with your intern and embrace any feedback you get. If you can find ways to improve the program, incorporate the enhancements before you hire your next intern.

Once you get your internship program up and running, it becomes easier and easier to manage.The systems you build can be adapted for interns in all departments throughout the club. Improve all of your management systems, schedule a club management software demo today.

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