The Wall Street Journal

When managers pass up the chance to take on a summer intern, I think they are making a mistake. But I can understand their reluctance. Along with close supervision at work, interns often need advice on everything from where to find temporary housing to how to adjust to office protocol and where and how to network for future jobs.

Yet some of my best hires were interns. Working with them is one of the best talent-search opportunities available to managers. It is a chance to see prospective employees in action, to get to know their strengths and weaknesses, and to tell how well they fit in a job before having to make a permanent commitment. If they become full timers, they are several steps ahead of other new hires in their knowledge of how to navigate in a particular company.

As someone whose own career started as an intern, Deborah Fine, publisher of Conde Nast’s Glamour Magazine, calls herself a poster child for internships. As a college freshman who dreamed of a career in magazine publishing, Fine won an honorable mention in Mademoiselle’s student writing contest some 20 years ago, and subsequently landed several internships at Conde Nast publications.

"To be able to write on stationery that had a Glamour logo on it and attend merchandising events and fashion shows was intoxicating," she says. "I sucked every breath of air I could out of the experience," she adds, while people she worked with "stopped to take the time to take me under their wing."

Moreover, while she did lowly tasks like sharpening pencils, she also got enough exposure to every department" to realize she fit best in sales and merchandising.

She instructs her managers to choose interns with as much care as they select full-time employees so they don’t end up with "duds" who can’t make a real contribution. She also suggests they assign a mentor to each intern who can offer advice about assignments and company procedures. Interns also should be included in staff functions and celebrations, she believes. When Glamour achieved record sales one summer, Fine gave everyone on her staff, including each intern, a watch from Tiffany’s.

Bad interns can do damage in a office. Fine recalls one intern who started reading a novel at her desk after completing an assignment, rather than ask for more work. That stirred resentment among the full-time staff members, who were under deadline pressures. Another intern mistakenly left her boss’s resume at the Xerox machine; within minutes, everyone realized he was looking for another job.

One highly motivated intern, however, quickly mastered assignments and eagerly made thoughtful suggestions. Now a full-time employee at Glamour, she recently sold $1 million of advertising in five months. "If you dismiss interns like this as too young and spunky, you’ll be missing some great talent," Fine says.