It is not too late to pick a student intern or two to work at your bank this summer.
College students who get chosen for such jobs are always thrilled. And if you pick them and their assignments carefully, you can be just as happy.
Interns can do jobs you need to have done but to which you cannot devote a full-time employee. In my March 2 column, for example, I told of a California bank that had an intern make a socioeconomic review of its Community Reinvestment Act assessment area.
When I ask bankers why they do not hire summer interns, they often answer that students lack the experience or training to do an effective job.
But banks that have taken to using interns often find that an advantage. They say ignorance of their procedures or marketing approaches enables interns to come up with unexpected ideas.
Hiring interns can be a win-win situation whether they are given specific tasks or more general assignments.
Some ancient history: When I was a brand-new professor, the Foundation for Economic Education chose me to be a summer intern at DuPont in Wilmington, Del.
DuPont just wanted me to look around and learn. Half-day interviews were arranged for me with about 30 top officers. They - from the treasurer on down - were told that when I and a fellow intern (another professor) were spending a morning or afternoon with them, their desks were to be clear and no interruptions were to be allowed.
In other words, our interviews were seen as important both for us and for the managers' reevaluation of their own work. Some of the questions we asked, though way off base, were considered valuable for just that reason.
At the end of the summer both of us submitted a report, which may or may not have been of value to DuPont. For my part, I can guarantee that our education (which sometimes felt like drinking water through a fire hydrant) made me a better teacher through the years and also left us with warmth for DuPont, which I display at every opportunity.
If the idea of hiring interns sounds good, what should a bank do about it now?
One approach would be to contact college placement officers or banking professors to ask for candidates. Believe me, they will send you their best.
The bank could also announce in a local paper that it is looking for interns. Aggressive students pore over every source for a summer job.
You could even make your intern-hunting a way to build stronger customer relationships, by placing a flier with monthly statements saying that you are looking for a couple of interns and want to give preference to students whose families bank with you.
Of course, if interns and the bank hit it off, you may then hire them after they graduate. It is this hope that leads so many leading law firms to offer generous intern salaries to the top students at law schools.
But a bank need not go that far. Just giving interested students a chance to be inside a bank and earn a modest stipend should lead to rewards for both.
Mr. Nadler, an American Banker contributing editor, is a professor emeritus of finance at Rutgers University Graduate School of Management in Newark, N.J.
