Badger Noted in Forbes Internship Article

Coffee runs and boredom. This is typically what a summer intern finds at a job. They sit at their desk all day acting as the office monkey; all of the meaningless jobs that take no skill to complete are delegated to them. But this style of summer internship is productive for no one. The interns are there so they can learn meaningful skills, and the company has likely hired them so they can contribute in a real way. As John Greathouse points out in his Forbes article “Get More Than Coffee From Your Interns This Summer - Here's How”, this can actually be a very productive relationship.

Badger has put a lot of time and effort into making their internship program one that is beneficial for both parties. Badger was recognized by Forbes as having an excellent internship program. Instead of the typical watching-paint-dry internship, Badger attempts to create an academic like setting that facilitates learning real-world skills that are applicable to whatever job they may later acquire.  As CEO Steve Benson puts it, “You need to teach them how to do these things in a step-by-step way, as if it were a school assignment. Then once they understand how to do it, they can iterate on it and get better and better, until when they leave they actually have a marketable skill.”

This same Forbes internship article also recognized Badger for hiring so many summer interns that they “will effectively double the size of [the] startup.” Greathouse points out that this tactic is useful, especially in startups, because there are so many jobs that need to get done but most of the time there is no one specific to do them. Badger has been very effective in the ways they use their interns to further the development of their company.