Hiring Interns and Entry-Level Talent: How to Get It Right

Most small businesses don’t have a big internship program or a college down the street sending them talent. When they do bring in an intern or an entry-level hire, it’s easy to hand off busywork and hope it works out. It usually doesn’t. In this episode of the NextGen Strategies Podcast, Grant Covault and Tyler Davis are joined by Samantha Zeleznik, Account Manager at AR Marketing, and Samuel Yates, Aviation Fuels Trader at Marathon Petroleum and adjunct professor at the University of Findlay. All four of them started as interns, moved into entry-level jobs, and now hire and train interns and new employees in their own roles. They share what they learned on both sides of the desk and what employers can do to turn interns into full-time hires. In this episode: Why interns need structure and a plan for day one Hiring for people skills and teachability over the resume Why interns need to build real fundamentals, not just lean on AI How a bad internship experience can hurt your brand