Like many organisations, nfpSynergy has grappled with how we use interns and volunteers as part of our workforce. Up until two years ago, our approach was relatively informal. If we stumbled across a suitable intern, we would get them into to work in a way that suited both them and us.

We now use interns as a much more integrated part of our overall approach. They have become part of our financial and human resource strategy. As a small company we are always apprehensive about taking staff onto the permanent payroll as this adds to our salary costs on an ongoing basis. In contrast, hiring interns has allowed us to be able to review part of our salary costs on a regular basis. You will have gathered from this that we pay our interns – they are effectively employees on a short-term basis. They get holiday and sick pay.

We have had a big debate about whether we use unpaid interns along our paid ones. To date we have decided not to. This is as much for practical reasons as ethical ones. Would we be able to treat unpaid interns with the same rigour as paid ones? Would we be as committed to the personal development of unpaid interns as paid ones? How guilty would we feel if they worked side by side? Our reticence is certainly not about a lack of candidates. We have just recruited 3 new interns and got 400 applications for those three places. As one of our staff said it is ‘heartbreaking’ to see so many able candidates vying for a tiny number of jobs. It is also the case now that our paid interns are often on their own internship career ladder. People often need to do a few unpaid internships before they can be a strong candidate for a paid internship.

How ironic it is that, as we ask people to pay more for their university education than ever before, the early years of their career may be more staccato, unpredictable and less well paid than ever. No wonder then that young people and their parents pull every string they can get their hands on (I will unhappily confess that I tried to do the same for my niece – but she turned me down for a better offer).

But our interns are now also integral part of our approach to our people. We deliberately have tried to increase our capacity at the entry level to research. This is partly because our clients want more tailoring and more tweaking to their research – an extra chart or five, more desk research or analysis - which is perfect work for interns to learn the basics of the trade. So over time we will buy in more of our senior research expertise on a freelance basis and hire in more of our junior research expertise. Or at least that’s the plan. It also allows us to recruit junior researchers from the pool of interns when we need to rather than direct in a permanent position.

This reduces the uncertainty of the recruitment process compared to permanent posts. By the time we hire an intern into a permanent post we have worked with them for 6 months not interviewed them for an hour. For these reasons our interns get a manager like any other member of staff and even a mid-term 360 review. We also try and make sure they get training and a structured approach to their learning. This is also good for staff who are new to management as working with interns provides a good way to help them develop people management skills. Having interns as part of the team has also been a welcome way of refreshing our office culture with new sets of perspectives and personalities.

We also want our interns to get the next job on their career ladder. We check their CVs, do mock interviews as they leave and email prospective employers if they have an interview or a promising application. So far our record is good. About 8 out of 10 of our past interns have got permanent jobs in an interesting variety of roles in mainly third sector organisations.

The climate for both new graduates and businesses is tough. But we believe that, managed in the right way, internships can be good for young people and the organisation – and they don’t have to be unpaid to make them highly cost-effective.