Developing Effective Internships within Public Sector Organizations

In this era of organizational downsizing, budget shortfalls, and personnel reshuffling, the timely addition of a capable and enthusiastic intern can be invaluable for a public agency. This article focuses on one set of critical concerns for an organization seeking to benefit from an effective intern relationship: What are the agency's responsibilities if interns are going to be productive contributors to the work of the organization? What specific things should an agency do—and what potential pitfalls and snares should it vigorously avoid blundering into—to maximize the impact of an intern's services to the organization? The authors' observations on how best to answer these questions are offered here as lessons learned from nearly two decades of experience with some successful and some not-so-successful agency-intern collaborations.