Internship Information for Employers

Internship placements are proven, cost-effective methods to meet immediate and long-range human resource needs.

Internship placements are excellent ways to find new, energetic and skilled employees.

The internship is a test period for both you and the student.

Intern students can perform well on some professional-level assignments, thus freeing career employees for more advanced responsibilities.

Participation in internships helps decrease the turnover of graduates employed in career positions.

Internships provide an excellent avenue for diversifying the workforce.

Internship programs foster on-going, productive relations between the campus and employer.

The first step in hiring an intern is identifying needs and writing the job description. Having a quality job assignment with a detailed job description is key to finding the right student for your internship. See the end of this section for more information on a quality job assignment.

A clear job description which defines duties, basic goals, and learning that a student can expect is extremely important prior to employing an intern. Employers know that retention of students is valuable to program cost effectiveness and that retention is possible only when students are challenged in internships commensurate with their education content and level.

Submit your job description to the Career and Professional Development database - Handshake. Handshake is a free online database designed to connect employers with WT students and alumni. Once your position is approved, we can help market it to our students.

Review our employer guidelines. These guidelines communicate our expectations of employers.  In a nutshell, we expect employers

• to provide quality, major-related assignments.
• to provide constructive feedback to the student.
• to work with the university in assisting  the student with academic credit (if applicable.)

Interview candidates. Review applicants for your position, then contact and arrange interviews of the students you are interested in. There is no obligation to interview or hire from the WT pool of candidates; however, we are hopeful you'll find the perfect student.

Finally, please notify Career and Professional Development once you have selected a student. Before your student begins work, let Steve Sellars our Associate Director know, so we can assist with coordinating credit (if applicable) and updating our records.

Quality job assignments defined:

• Appropriate to the students' disciplines and levels of studies at school.
• A position appropriate to the profession and is not a private residence of the employer.
• A position in which the student will be supervised by a practicing professional in the field.
• Challenging in regard to problems to be solved, quality to be achieved, and production to be accomplished.
• Progressive in responsibility, maintaining a challenge.
• Flexible enough to allow adequate exploration of interests, aptitudes and the business/industrial environment - to obtain some career direction.
• Well conceived prior to requesting a student to fill them.

The following steps may help you establish and maintain a quality job assignments

1. Institute a system to obtain feedback from students including written evaluations of assignments from interns and exit interviews conducted by an internship coordinator or faculty member from the student's school.
2. Utilize mid-term performance evaluations/checks from mentors for the students.
3. Use feedback from mentors and students to improve/change job assignments.
4. Ask university coordinators.

Employers and students complete this form together to propose internship credit. This proposal is then reviewed by faculty from the student's academic department to determine credit eligibility. 

MS Word fillable version

WHAT IS AN INTERNSHIP?

An internship is a work experience that allows a student to apply classroom concepts in a professional, real-world environment. Internships are different from a part-time job in that there is an intentional effort to bridge classroom concepts with the world of work.  Typically, employers use goal-setting and end-of-semester evaluations to accomplish this.

HOW CAN I BENEFIT FROM HIRING AN INTERN?

Many employers simply enjoy sharing their expertise and investing in the lives of college students. However, there are many other benefits of hiring an intern.

• Internships are an effective long-term recruiting tool. They give a test period before you make a full-time employment commitment..
• Studies show that businesses who hire interns into full-time positions realize higher productivity, higher retention rates, and lower recruiting costs.
• Interns can perform well on some professional-level assignments, freeing up your staff for more advanced responsibilities.
• Internships foster on-going, productive relations between the campus and the employer.
• Internship programs are excellent tools to find new, energetic, diverse and skilled employees.

HOW DOES THE PROGRAM WORK?

As an employer, you can offer a substantive work experience that supports a student's academic and career goals. If you need help designing or improving your internship program, check out the Starting & Maintaining a Quality Internship Program resource mentioned above.

Complete an Internship Job Description and post the opportunity in Handshake. Effective job descriptions not only list responsibilities and qualifications, but also how the student will benefit from the experience-skills they will develop, opportunity to develop portfolio material, networking opportunities, etc.

In addition to you posting the internship on Handshake, our staff can make efforts to increase your chances of finding good students. We do this through a variety of methods including e-blasts, posting on social media, calling and texting.

Since internships are elective for most majors, we can't guarantee students; however, we'll do our best to find good candidates.

HOW DO I GET STARTED?

Submit your internship to Handshake for our review. Once approved, it will be available for students to view. If you have questions about this process, don't hesitate to contact us.

If you are a new or first-time employer, we may request a consultation at your work site with one of our staff.

Here is a resource to help develop or improve your internship program

Starting & Maintaining a Quality Internship Program

I HAVE AN INTERN STARTING SOON. WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW?

Let our office know. We try and keep records of all WT students who intern.

Check with your student to see if they are receiving credit or interested in receiving credit for the internship.  Not all internships are for-credit experiences. If your intern is interested in or receiving credit, make sure they contact our office. We can help them determine if credit is possible.

WHAT IS EXPECTED OF SUPERVISORS?

Supervision is the most important factor in any employer's program.

Quality intern supervisors:

• Work with interns each semester to develop learning goals that tie into the intern's field of study.
• Orient interns to their new workplace.
• Ensure interns have resources to do their jobs - desk, telephone, computer, etc.
• Provide on-going direction, feedback and encouragement based upon discerning observation.
• Complete, review and submit a formal evaluation over each intern. The WT Career and Professional Development Office sends electronic evaluations to employers at the end of each semester.

MUST AN INTERN BE PAID?

If your organization is a for-profit business, we strongly encourage you to offer compensation. Many WT students work their way through college and must have a paying job to make ends meet, so receiving some form of compensation is appreciated. If your organization (for-profit or non-profit) is unable to offer a regular wage, consider helping the student with a stipend or internship-related expenses such as parking fees, mileage, meals, etc. Providing lunch occasionally is also a perk that students love! :-)

Unpaid student employment will not violate the U.S. Department of Labor's Fair Labor Standards Act if it is a training program which meets the following criteria:

• The training should be similar to that given in a vocational setting
• The experience is for the benefit of the student
• Students do not displace regular employees
• The site sponsor provides the training and receives no immediate advantage from the activities of students
• Students are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period
• The site sponsor and student understand that the student is not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

Many employers ask how much they should pay students. The most recent average hourly wage for a WT students in paid internships was approximately $17.00 per hour. Contact our office if you want more specific average wage rates based on major.