> I think more companies could do with having an intern

Is this allowed in the US? In several European countries, legislation on interns is very strict: they need to have a specific project to work on, that is not part of the day-to-day functions of the host company. This is to stop companies depressing the wage market by using unprotected interns instead of salaried workers.

So you can take an intern to design and launch a new recruitment process, or other "project" work, but not just to offload recurring tasks.