According to today’s Wall Street Journal, companies trying to cut costs during the global recession are taking advantage of an underutilized labor pool: talented interns. As the Journal explains, internships don’t require a lot of money or time to get started–and they allow employers to test drive new potential hires without much of a financial commitment.
Why not expand on this idea and look for interns from particular cultural backgrounds? If you want to develop more clients in China but don’t know much about the culture, for example, you might look for an intern who is Chinese (or at least from a Chinese background). Although the intern’s business insights may not be profound, the intern could give feedback on cultural norms, business customs and the like–all of which are critical to successful global rainmaking. Hiring an intern with a marketing, journalism or general communications background would be an added bonus.