The Cost-Effective Way to Hire Interns
Author: Tampere Talent Ambassadors
There are many benefits to hiring international interns, read more from the article “The Benefits of Young International Talent for Your Company“. One, perhaps overlooked, benefit is the cost savings that can be made by hiring Erasmus+ Interns. In this article we make the cost efficiency case for hiring Erasmus+ interns, and why your business in Tampere should consider taking on young international talents.
TEK (Tekniikan Akateemiset) is the largest organization for engineers, academics, and architects in Finland. In a recent report, they recommend a minimum salary for an unqualified undergraduate trainee of 2 190€ and a minimum salary of a master’s student of 2 870€. This is a sound investment in the future of your company while also investing in young talent (84% of job seekers say the reputation of the company is important). Graduates are often willing to trade some salary expectations for the opportunity to learn and increase their skill base. However, not every startup or small business has the budget to invest in hiring graduates, even if they have the resources to offer excellent on-the-job training.
Enter Erasmus+…
Erasmus+ supports ‘traineeships’ (work experience placements or internships) for students, recent graduates, and PhD candidates of universities in programme countries.
Erasmus+ interns are usually eligible for financial assistance grants. Grants depend on both the country of origin and destination, as well as if the intern has children. For Finland, the grant an intern may get is around 600€ per month. Internships are funded from 2 to 12 months in length. They can be longer, but the intern will only receive Erasmus funding for the first 12 months. This stipend can be taken into consideration when the employer and candidate negotiate a salary for the internship. If the grant is counted against any wage offered, then it is easy to see how this gives a competitive advantage to interns applying through the Erasmus+ scheme.
Additional funding
As well as the basic Erasmus+ grant interns might also qualify for several additional support grants and stipends for things such as disabilities and coming from an economically disadvantaged background. There are also language assistance grants for interns who need support in their additional language for the internship.
Value for money
Finland has a long history of employing interns for ‘summer job’s or trainees. However, there are only 313,800 students in the 13 universities and 22 universities of applied sciences in Finland. Although impressive for a relatively small country, this is a limited pool to choose from. Currently, there are some 17.5 million students in higher education in the EU. That’s quite a pool to find the ideal candidate from.
Erasmus+ interns bring with them many skills and contacts that native graduates don’t poses. We have already spoken about how young interns can bring innovation to your team and supercharge your internationalization, making them 33% more likely to out-compete their competitors. The quality of Erasmus+ interns is often high as it takes a lot of guts (and high language test scores) to relocate to another country. In fact, there are so many benefits to hiring an Erasmus+ intern we wrote this article “10 Reasons to Hire Erasmus Interns in Tampere“.
Cost-effectiveness
So, if you want to hire great quality interns with insider knowledge of their home market, and different ways of thinking; while saving on the costs of hiring, then look no further than Erasmus+.
www.mytinership.eu is a web portal for Erasmus+ interns. They have resources and articles for prospective employers, as well as internship listing opportunities. Membership is free, and free adverts can be placed online. What are you waiting for? Go ahead and place an advert for your next Erasmus+ intern in Tampere.
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland has participated in the financing of the project. The project contributes to the goals of the national Talent Boost programme.
