- Write out instructions with screen captures if it might be necessary. This doesn't mean you're treating your assistants like they're idiots. It means that you're giving him/her a guide that he/she can fall back on when your first tutorial or spiel doesn't stick word for word. I think it's a kind thing to do, especially when it comes to file name conventions, etc. Yes, I like for the interns to ask me questions (it means they're intelligent), but I think we'd all prefer if they didn't ask me repetitious questions about file names or locations because it's difficult to remember.
- Be clear, concise, and kind about something that needs to change. If there's a problem, don't stew over it. Period. The longer I stew over things, the more worked up I'm likely to get. The more worked up I am, the less likely I am to speak with honey rather than vinegar. And honey works better than vinegar if you want people to enjoy working with you. There is inevitably going to be an issue whether it's something non-work related like wearing too much cologne (that one hasn't happened to me yet) or something directly related to their work (like forgetting to save scans in the correct location). Address the issue immediately and preferably in compliment sandwich, because I just think it's the nice way to do it.
- Create opportunities for interns to learn about other aspects of your job or the jobs of your coworkers. An internship should be about more than a line on a resume. It should be a valuable experience that they can translate to useful skills in their future career. For example, I have cross training sessions with another electronic records archivist in the building, and I like to try to take the interns with me so that they can be exposed a system other than the one they interact with directly. Hopefully they'll thank me later. I have the good fortune of being able to pay these interns, but if your interns are unpaid, this last one is especially important I think.
I'm sure I'm not the best supervisor out there (I already had them), but I hope I'm able to give these interns a good summer learning more about the archival profession and gathering real world experience.