Does hiring interns pay for start-ups?

Start-ups usually do a terrible job hiring and managing interns and may be better off biting the bullet and taking on experienced staff

Relationships between unpaid workers and employers can be tricky. Pic: iStock

Ah, cheap labour. The question of hiring interns to beef up staff numbers or test out young bucks fresh out of university has been debated for years.

The lure of hiring low-paid or unpaid interns is strong for cash-strapped start-ups, particularly in the early days. Start-up founders often justify it by saying that a team of talented and productive interns can learn from working in a start-up, while the founders benefit from being ...