Most internship work can be divided  into three different categories: (1) busy work, (2) no work, and (3) project based work. Let’s talk about each different category of internship work.

Internship work type #1- busy work.
It’s easy. You hire an intern or have an intern delivered to you by HR. What do you do now? Managers often struggle with assigning internship work. The mindset of a manager is an important factor in defining internship work. Some managers think it is fun to have an intern they can boss around and ask to do pointless things. In actuality however, managers often are stressed by interns. What do you do with her? Is she happy? Does she like it here? Am I making a good impression? Is she learning anything? For this reason, busy internship work is assigned to an intern. It’s easy (and a real shame) to provide meaningless internship work when real opportunity is knocking.

Internship work type #2 – no work.
Some managers just don’t care. You have an intern, but let’s be honest, the work you do as manager is far more important than the intern; thus the intern can do whatever he/she wants for the summer. So, the intern is provided with no internship work or internship goals. It’s easy to give busy work, but hard to completely ignore an intern – but, it happens all the time. Providing no internship work is significantly different than providing no internship work direction. No work means you tell your intern absolutely nothing and simply don’t care. Sad.

Internship work #3 – project work.
This is it…. the best type of internship work for both the intern and the employer. You give the intern a project with a goal. For example: launch a Facebook page for our company and get 100 fans. Internship work designed this way produces measurable results for business and this is flat out fun for students. The best design internship work I have come across is from  Fog Creek Software. They give interns tools, advice, and tell them to create a shipable product in 10 weeks. How awesome is this internship work!  From a student perspective, one gains real experience and from a business perspective, the company creates a probable positive  ROI (Return on Investment) on the intern! A win-win.

Overall, internships are often underutilized. Busy work and no work are dead ends for the interns, the managers, and the company. However, implementing the project work could prove to be highly effective while promoting a successful revenue driver. The question comes down to this- how do you go about hiring the right intern? Easy. Find the right intern here.