Learn more about JFF
Learn more about JFF

Paid Internships




How to Build Digital Talent With Earn and Learn Training:
A Toolkit for Small and Medium-Sized Employers

Introduction

 

Paid internships are short-term work experiences in which participants get firsthand knowledge of and exposure to jobs or career pathways by engaging in hands-on activities as they work to achieve learning objectives under structured supervision.

Typical Paid Intern Profiles 

  • Secondary and postsecondary students

  • Recent college graduates

  • Working-age adults

  • Career switchers

  • Young people between the ages of 16 to 24 years old who are disconnected from school and work 

Consider a paid internship program if you meet these two criteria:

  • You have a clear short-term business need (or seasonal or otherwise predictable intermittent business needs) for additional staffing on designated projects where trainees like interns could make an impact

  • You have one or more employees who have the time and expertise to supervise and mentor interns, to ensure that you provide them with quality learning opportunities

 

The Upsides of Internships

“Because they weren't offering any kind of reward (e.g. pay, stipend, travel allowance) outside the experience, I weighed that against other ways to get similar experience and didn't take the internship.”

— A SkillUp Career Builder explaining their decision to decline an unpaid internship that required participants to work on site

How to Build a Strong Foundation

 

Establish an onboarding plan.
Teach interns your organization’s ins and outs and create a structured training plan that helps them build skills quickly so they can begin making meaningful contributions immediately and continue developing new capabilities to prepare them for a possible move to permanent employment.

Assign the interns real job tasks.
Identify activities that interns can successfully carry out on day one. But also expose them to more complex tasks that they can learn over time. You’ll get a better return on the time and other resources you devote to training interns if the interns are doing work related to your core business objectives.

Designate both a manager and a mentor for each intern.
Managers should oversee the interns’ project work, while mentors can offer them advice about achieving career goals, navigating company culture, building relationships, and other things that contribute to success.

 

Determine metrics of success.
Your metrics could include the rate at which interns convert to full-time employees, the number of interns who recommend that their friends and relatives apply for jobs or internships at your company, or the business goals you achieve with the support of interns.

Create intern cohorts.
Give interns opportunities to learn from one another and share experiences.

Repurpose resources.
The time and effort you put into running an internship will vary based on factors such as the number of interns you hire and whether you partner with another organization to implement the program. One way to ease the process is to use existing materials, programs, and resources. For example, with slight revisions, your regular onboarding processes could work well for interns, and including interns in company social events and other activities will help them feel like they’re part of the team.

Where to Start

 

Consult federal labor guidelines and your state’s labor regulations to learn the legal distinctions between employees and interns, wage requirements for interns, and academic credit requirements.

Work with partners who can connect your business to prospective interns, provide support at each phase of implementing an internship program, facilitate work-based learning, and offer training related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Here are some ways various partners can help you:

Colleges and universities

can act as hubs that bring together employers and students. You might also consider joining a structured co-op program that offers interns academic credit. (Northeastern University and Drexel University have strong co-op programs).

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Community-based organizations

can help you find potential interns who might not be connected with a formal educational program.

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Local chambers of commerce

can connect you with other employers that have successful programs, help you recruit a cohort of interns, or help you pair your interns with other companies’ interns to form a cohort



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How to Design a High-Quality Program

 

Paid internships can take many forms and don’t come with formal guidelines. Here are three steps that will help you design a high-quality program:

Because a smaller company like yours may not have predictable talent needs, it may be tempting to create intern roles only on occasions when you need to staff a one-time project. But making a commitment to hiring interns on a regular basis—seasonally, for example—as part of an ongoing program can help ensure that you devote the time and attention necessary to create a high-quality experience for the interns. Once you build out an internship with the key components we discuss above, create a simple, standing page on your website that describes the program. This can help build confidence among prospective interns and partners that your company has the resources to back the program and offers the supports participants need. And once you have an internship infrastructure in place, you will have the flexibility to create additional intern roles as needed—which is helpful when you’re developing talent for a rapidly evolving discipline like IT.

If you offer mentoring, networking, professional development, and other opportunities through which internship participants can build professional social capital, prospective interns will know that they are likely to have a high-quality experience in your program. One way to ensure that interns will have opportunities to connect with experienced professionals in your organization is to find ways to plug them into your company’s existing activities and support structures instead of creating separate programs for interns.

Transparency can go a long way toward building trust in your company’s brand—and in your reputation as an employer. Be sure to offer fair compensation and benefits for internship roles and make sure you convey that information to prospective interns. Also, make an effort to ensure that you and the interns are in agreement about the intern’s roles and responsibilities. That way, you will know what you can expect from interns in terms of time commitment, the skills they bring to the job, and the work they’ll be doing. And for their part the interns will know what they’ll learn, how and how much they’ll be paid, and what benefits they’ll receive.

Paid Internship Success Stories

 

Resources

Learn More About These Common Earn and Learn Models, and Find Out How to Create Your Own

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