Experience with Internships in Professional Positions

Yup, interns can be great work engines. We brought one on for the summer to help us develop some ideas around some financial applications we were developing internally. This guy did not know the first thing about project management and his depth on the covered subject area was minimal, but he was smart and quick and didn't mind working. I was surprised at how quickly he came up to speed under a little guidance. In the matter of a few weeks he "got it" and was productively humming along. It was great. And at $9/hr. we couldn't beat the value. We had a few skeptics up front (me included) but his performance turned us all around.

I would say, however, that whatever you have interns do has to be within their abilities, even speaking speculatively b/c you don't know them well until they are already on board. So pick your projects carefully and match them to people who can rise to the challenge. We have more interns we are looking to bring on now based on that experience. Since it's during their school year they will have fewer hours, but the convenience of having someone, as you say, "reduce the pile" of spare work around is quite valuable.