This is an extremely important question both for you and the Intern in particular. You may remember what it was like for you or a young relative to take part in ‘work experience‘ at school. To many, including my own children, through no fault of the businesses, the experience was boring, boring and even more boring! And a poor advert for any business looking to attract the best of the best young employees into it
This was because it was seen as a ‘good idea‘, often with no reasoning or structures behind it.
In short there must be a good reason why any ‘employee’ comes into your business. For example a function / task, backed up by a job description and person specification; no matter how long or short the placement.
This is because both parties are investing considerable time, energy and resources. And time is money of course – to be made or lost!
Our own experience of ‘employing’ an Intern through Graduate Advantage (see http://www.graduateadvantage.co.uk/) involved:
- Establishing a key task and role for an Intern before we took the next step
- Completing a formal job description and person specification for that task / role
- Establishing a short-listing / interview process
- Advertising the role – in our case via Graduate Advantage
- Interviewing - formally
- Appointing
- Offering / providing feedback to unsuccessful candidates
Sound familiar? Yes, of course it is just what you would do when employing any other employee. As I will demonstrate later, there is no difference at all. And the rewards are the same – for both parties.
Kindest rewards
Edwin 
P.S – please feel free to circulate this blog, or add your own experiences or comments.
