The front end of the talent pipeline

Interns and co-op participants are a viable and valuable way to grow your advanced analytics and AI team. One aspect of internship and co-op programs that I feel strongly about is that you need to pay participants. Pay them the fair or market rate for top talent relative to their tenure and experience, which admittedly is almost non-existent at this point in their careers, but it is hoped and expected that the people being brought into internship and co-op programs hold great promise as the next generation of new staff members on your analytics team, correct? The trend over the past few years for unpaid internships is a ridiculous approach to what should be a relatively serious element of the talent acquisition process. If you are going to request or expect that someone undertakes productive and valuable work, why would you not pay them? And if the "work" you are asking them to do is meaningless, why would you bother?

If you can afford...