Originally posted on the SmashFly Recruitment Marketing Blog.

I recently came across this survey by CareerBuilder that had some nice statistics on what type of candidates are currently applying for internships. In the survey, over 2500 employers said that 23% of candidates are experienced workers (more than 10 years experience) or mature workers (over 50).

The fact is that due to this tough hiring environment, more mature candidates that are unemployed are turning toward internships to find their next opportunities. And employers are and should be looking at these trends as a great opportunity to bring in talent without a huge upfront commitment. Utilizing internships as a system to fill full-timepositions can be a good strategy for a few reasons:

1) Extended Job Interview - A few month internship is a great way to see how a potential candidate handles day to day activities as well as new projects you throw their way. 3 months of seeing them complete projects is so much better than an hour long interview.

2) Make sure it’s a good fit for both sides- An internship is not just an interview of the candidate but the candidate gets to interview your company as well. If you extend an offer to an intern, the intern knows exactly what to expect in working for your company. This helps to decrease the possibility of a new full-time employee coming in and leaving within the first year.

3) Save money on Recruiting - While internship to full-time hiring shouldn’t take the place of all your recruitment marketing campaigns, filling a few of your open positions with great interns can help you decrease your overall recruiting spend.

Experienced & Mature Candidates that are applying for internships at your company could be great future full-time employees at your company. They are coming in with something to prove and understand that a full-time position is only attained through hard work. Right now there is a great opportunity for companies to use internships as a great system in filling some of their full-time positions with candidates that they know can do the work!

About the Author: Chris is the Marketing Analyst for SmashFly Technologies. SmashFly is the provider of the first recruitment marketing platform called WildFire that enables companies and staffing firms to easily distribute and more importantly measure the performance of their recruiting efforts online.

The WildFire recruitment marketing platform offers every tool you need for your recruitment marketing needs all in one centralized solution including Real-Time Recruitment Metrics, Job Ad Distribution (job boards, social networks, SEM, email & SMS campaigns), Recruitment Opt-In Database, Recruitment CRM, Web Commercials / Micro-sites and Resume Sourcing services.

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