One day, as part of the internship, I scheduled an “HR field trip” for our department. Since we are a mid-sized company, I wanted my group to see a larger HR Department in action. So we scheduled a visit one afternoon to a larger company in town, with close to 1,000 employees and, obviously, a much larger HR staff. The HR Director took the time to explain all the day-to-day functions of this high-turnover/high-volume recruiting industry, we toured their HR recrods department (I wanted to prepare my intern for a potential 1st HR job that no one likes, but is a necessary evil), and we generally gave them a feel for how HR, while transferable between industries, can be vastly different.

As Lisa eluded to, having interns means you are willing to train and invest time. I think the time burden or lack of planning is the primary reason why people don’t want interns or find them unsatisfying or frustrating if they have them.

However, with some thought and prep interns can be amazing – a boost to productivity, creative thinking, and energy (not to mention recruiting).

If you can’t invest lots of time, one idea is defining a (big) task or challenge and listing the parameters/info you know about the task and letting them go at it independently, giving a presentation back to you. You could have them go at some of your ‘wish list’ items – like redoing the Handbook or organizing an aspect of your employee files . Things that might seem ‘boring’ or busy work often have a lot of learning potential for someone that hasn’t been exposed to ‘real work’. After being around and working deeply on a project they can often suggest projects that keep them busy and you will have a much better idea of ways you can use them effectively day-to-day.

There are a couple of our summer interns starring here:
http://community.buglabs.net/mcholerton/posts/154-A-summer-afternoon-at-Bug-Labs