You've planned an excellent Training Program for the new graduates, and you can't wait for them to join your rapidly expanding staff. But do you know the specific ways in which you can and will put them to use? Do the team managers realise that the students won't always be fetching them coffee and making other menial tasks?

To be honest, most of the team leads have this notion that college pass outs must know how to make their superiors happy if they want to move ahead in their career. But as an employer, it is your responsibility to clear out their roles and responsibilities when you hire them.

It’s true that graduates will not be the right fit to work on live projects upon joining, because they will have to be trained first. But even during training what are some tasks that can be assigned to them, and that will help them gain knowledge about their profession? It’s important to understand that as per their departments, their tasks will differ, but there are a lot of mutual tasks as well, that every department needs, in more or less, the same manner.

Take a look at the list below and ask your newcomers to work on some basic skills apart from getting trained for main projects:

1. Presentations: Create Presentations for any new programs, campaigns or initiatives taken by the organisation.

2. Branding: Create plan and procedures for branding activities.

3. Update company website: Work on the company’s website and point out any improvements, technical or non-technical that may be helpful to the mainstream team.

4. Monthly newsletters: Work on creating newsletters for the company’s ongoing. This helps in getting monthly updates to the teams with a creative streak to it.

5. Unburden teams: Complete simple projects that are kept on hold by other teams.

6. Brainstorm: Getting ideas on how to improve efficiency for their respective departments.

7. Employee engagement: Arrange for any client meetings, office events that would help them feel like a part of the team and motivate them to do better.

8. Analyse data: Creating graphs, reports, charts etc. for their dummy projects.

9. Talent contests: Participating in company wide contests and prove their talent by giving their best.

10. Social media management: Interns for certain departments, specially those working in Social Media can work on employer image. They can also look after certain social media activities, and submit ideas to amp up the company page that could help increase the traffic to it.

11. Create suggestion forum: Suggest ideas to improve the internship program or add new ideas to make it more fruitful.

12. Mentorship: Train fellow interns or the next batch of freshers about the company, the working, and the projects.

13. Improve company culture: Create corporate videos, small clippings that showcase company culture, working, team management, infrastructure or the talent of interns, to the outer world.
 

It’s important to keep in mind the purpose of hiring them. At the same time, educating them about working in real work environment, if you want them to be better leaders in future must be a priority. The degree to which you challenge new hires depends on your estimation of their abilities. Some of the most promising newcomers step up to the challenge and perform admirably on difficult assignments. The key is to set standards just above what first-year students can easily achieve.

The extra work students have to put in is a fantastic learning opportunity and helps to keep things exciting for them. Fresh graduates are young and enthusiastic, so if companies utilise their energy and talent, they may not only obtain innovative ideas but many dormant tasks can be fulfilled in creative ways that sometimes the best of the staff cannot accomplish.

Do you have any more ideas on how to employ interns better? Feel free to reach out to us at employability@internwise.com