Interns. They’ll drain your time, make mistakes, and commit political errors—but they will also contribute fresh ideas and add much-needed manpower to complete projects. All in all, it’s usually a fair trade-off—your time for their labor. If you’ve decided that an internship program can benefit your company and your company can help a young person along his or her career path, here are five steps to making it work.

1. Recruit
Once your team agrees to try an internship program, the first step is to assign one person as the intern manager (IM). The IM’s responsibilities should include creating the job description, contacting the universities, recruiting, and interviewing candidates. Both the IM and your management team should be in charge of deciding the interns’ duties and analyzing their work. Decide on the work that needs to be done, determine the amount of hours you need, compensation, and decide how many interns your company should take on.

Make sure the job description is written so students can determine the position’s value. The job posting, derived from the description, should appeal to students, and differentiate your internship from the many competing opportunities that are also being posted. The job posting should describe the job, the tasks the intern will be performing, the skills required, the benefits of the internship, and what the intern will learn, with at least one example of each. In the job posting, request that potential interns submit both a cover letter and a resume.

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Margaret Poswistilo is vice president of human resources and hospitality practice for ABA-RFR, the business advisory affiliate of Anchin, a top 30 US accounting firm. She can be reached at margaret.poswistilo@anchin.com.