Hiring College Students as Interns

As the weather heats up, many entrepreneurs start their search for summer interns. These college students may be around the office for only a few months, but they often leave a lasting wake. Here, entrepreneurs reveal their most memorable experiences with summer interns.

• Preparing for the scheduled relaunch of Cracked magazine in April, CEO and publisher Monty Sarhan hired New York University students as helping hands. The students found the joke was on them, though, when they were fitted with miniature desks and chairs. However, Cracked, once an American Media humor magazine that is now independently published in New York City, has good-hearted editors who took pity when the interns complained, "We deserve to be treated like human beings!" The editors have decided to publish interns' comments and faces next to celebrities in a section dedicated to ridiculing celebrity quotes.
• On a hot Friday afternoon in 1996, William Greenberg Jr. Desserts was preparing a cake for Bill Clinton's 50th birthday. Carol Fass, owner of New York City-based Carol Fass Publicity, wanted to put out some media alerts for the bakery and asked intern Aynslee Wells, who was walking out the door for the weekend, to stay and help. Wells did so without complaining, and thanks to her extra work, the media alerts garnered worldwide coverage of the cake in newspapers such as USA Today and The New York Times, magazines including Time and Newsweek, and even on the Today show.
• After conducting a solid interview, Tamara Wilson, owner of Seattle-based Tamara Wilson Public Relations, hired a highly recommended intern. The intern soon began to show up to work late, unshaven and occasionally beer-scented. When Wilson approached him, the intern replied, "I'm just not a morning person, and working in the morning is becoming a problem." Ultimately, the intern ruined a few accounts, but Wilson was able to create a "does this shoe fit?" list she now uses when interviewing potential interns.