In today's competitive job market, companies are constantly looking for new ways to find and develop tech talent. Many turn to internships as a way to identify promising candidates, providing them with work experience for a short period then hopefully recruiting them after they finish their degree.
While internships can be an effective tool for technical talent recruitment, relying solely on them limits a company's talent pool, is concerning from a diversity and equity point of view, maintains high recruitment costs, and puts a company at greater risk for high turnover. This is particularly true for companies that only offer internships.
On the other hand, software or tech apprenticeships offer a more comprehensive approach to talent development and can help companies find and develop talent from a broader range of backgrounds.
Many people in engineering leadership or HR haven't been exposed to key data points about technical talent training to truly understand the implications of only running internships. Below, we share key insights related to internships and highlight some of the benefits of implementing apprenticeship programs to improve a company's talent pool, ROI, and turnover.