<p>Summer interns are work for the employer. I have had unpaid interns but find they are more trouble than they are worth. This is just my experience and it may be just my luck or my industry (financial). It may even be the fact that some of these interns had never earned a paycheck. Or the fact that it was unpaid may have given them license to act above certain tasks. </p>
<p>In any case, my days of unpaid interns are over. I love to hire college students over the summer. They work for pay. I get labor to cover vacations, they get a generous paycheck, experience, and the potential for future employent. </p>
<p>This way there is no outrage over the tasks they are required to do (answer phones, take minutes, or perform data entry tasks). I would never call it monkey work as a previos poster did since there are good and honest hard working people who do this work. A 19 year old is hardly above it.</p>