by tdomf_d87a1
Is hiring college students as interns a good choice for startups?
December 20, 2009 in Uncategorized by tdomf_d87a1
is it good to hire college students in early stage of startup? They are cheaper but will they degrade your product quality? Are they reliable? Should we prefer Tier 1 college students randomly or Tier 3 college students who are more willing to work? in which case would the success rate would be higher?
I would go w/ Tier II or III initially with proper orientation as what is expected of them. It primarily takes care of two thing – initial cash burn rate and leveraging on their enthusiasm to get work done quicker with little/less motivation.
What are your thoughts?
Normally it takes 1 rock star and few pop stars to get the team going.
In general, I have hired 1 rock star (for instance, in my earlier org – an IITIan with All India Rank 14) and beyond a point, hired tier-ii for execution.
It depends on what you want to accomplish with them. I have 12 interns (paid) work for my company for last one year. They exceed the expectation if I tell them exactly what to do. If there is some thinking involved, then they rely on me for most part. Our college and school systems are not really exposing students for any entrepreneurial activity. What I observed from my interns is that they are eager to learn and willing to slog hours. This is just my view based on experience and observation