8 Tips On How Internships Can Help You Build Your Skills

Written by Doreen Dilger, The Home Based Business Coach

Interns, while coming to you for experience and education, can also teach you a thing or two. Anytime you bring new blood into your organization you can learn something new. You just have to be open to learning from someone new to your business who might be a lot younger than you.

1.       How to Live and Breathe Social Media:   Young people seem to be tethered to their mobile devices and social media. They know better than anyone how people are using their smartphone along with the internet to get things done. They’re a lot more likely to be using technology, apps and more to get things done. If you pay attention, you can learn a lot from them about social media and what it can do for your audience.

2.       Better Collaboration:  Young people today are a lot savvier about communicating with people of all ages, sexes and cultures. They are not shocked by differences like we might be. We can learn from them by watching how they work things out and collaborate with others using technology in ways we may not have ever considered.

3.       More about Online Communication:  Communicating via email, text, social media, Skype and other types of online communication is second nature to younger people. They grew up with it and don’t know much different. It’s probably like you with TV; you don’t know anything different and neither do they. If you pay attention to how they communicate you can learn a lot.

4.       Being Authentic :  Most young people aren’t as terrified of people knowing who they really are. They are themselves around everyone, good, bad and ugly. They don’t worry about other people knowing things about them. But, while you can maybe learn to let go a bit, they can learn to protect themselves more with your help.

5.       Enthusiasm for New Challenges:  Young people are a lot more excited about the challenges ahead of them than you probably are. You can learn to look at situations from new, fresh eyes by borrowing their view for the time they are with you. They have excitement about each task they take on and it can remind you of how you felt when you first started, jump-starting your own renewed energy to boost your business.

6.       Less Fear of Change:  It’s more than likely that your new intern didn’t live in the same small town their entire lives. Most people switch jobs a lot more today. Due to feeling more of a connection with the entire world, young people adapt to change faster and easier. They can go from one task to another without too much confusion. Seeing this again can put a spark in you too.

7.       Renewed Idealism:  Face it; after years of being beat down you may not be as idealistic as you used to be. If you’ve written down someplace your big dreams and plans for the future, or you can remember what they were when you first started, you might laugh at your idealism. But, what if you had kept up the same amount of energy and idealism - where would you be now?

8.       Relationship Building and Networking:  Young people are being taught in high school how important it is to build relationships and maintain contact with those whom you meet at networking events. You’ve likely been so busy with your business that you may have forgotten how easy it is to keep in touch, especially with the new technology available.

If you open your mind and your eyes, you can learn from your interns as much as they’ll learn from you. They can breathe new life into your business as well as you if you give them a chance.