Start an Internship Program
Internship Guidelines
Duration: About 10 weeks, with defined start and end dates
Hours worked: 10-20 hours a week during the academic term, up to 40 during the summer.
Pay: Interns should be paid regardless of whether they earn academic credit for the
demonstrated learning associated with their internship. Pay rate amount depends
on industry.
All Internships Should Include
- A learning experience that gives students the opportunity to gain valuable, real-world experience.
- Clearly defined goals or learning objectives that meet the university's requirements.
- Direct supervision by a professional who can provide productive, feedback, guidance, and resources.
- A position with clear responsibilities and required qualifications.
Getting Started
- Establish your goals for the internship program and identify a meaningful project or role that is important to your organization that can be done by an intern.
- Determine how much support your program will need from the organization and find a manager who can help with onboarding, supervision, feedback, and performance evaluations.
- Sort out logistics for equipment and software needed, pay, workspace, and other details relevant to the role or project.
- Create a job description that includes:
- What interns can expect to learn
- Approximate start and end dates
- Desired hours per week
- Location
- Compensation
- Work with your relationship manager to reach students who would be a good fit.
- Build an onboarding plan.
Get Additional Support
For more information and a detailed internship playbook, reach out to your Relationship Manager or email HireU@utah.edu.
Internship FAQs
We expect that internships are paid. Paying interns increases the breadth of. your hiring pool, encourage applications, provide financial support for students while they are attending school and create a stronger feeling of loyalty, investment, and accountability for an intern.
Read NACE’s position statement on unpaid internships.
Unpaid internship job listings in Handshake are approved on a case-by-case basis.
While academic credit may appear to be an alternate form of compensation, many students do not value academic credit as a compensatory option, since they have to pay and register for academic credits. Additionally, organizations also cannot offer credit as compensation. Decisions regarding the awarding of academic credit are solely within the purview of the University of Utah faculty.
An hourly wage for an intern will vary widely, depending on the industry in which you work, the major or skillset of the student you are recruiting, and their level of experience. Internships can range from minimum wage for some roles and up to $25 or more an hour for more technical skill sets. An hourly wage cannot be less than the minimum wage for the state in which the student will be working.
During the academic year, internships are typically part-time, between 10-20 hours a week; not to exceed 20 hours a week (August-May). Summer internships, or those during a semester in which the student is not enrolled in courses, can require up to 40 hours a week. Please note that we strongly encourage internships that require more than 20 hours/week of students to be paid on an hourly or stipend basis, regardless of industry. Offering an unpaid full-time summer internship will likely result in no applicants, as most students cannot commit that amount of time to an unpaid opportunity.
Handshake is the primary place for employers to find applicants for internships and jobs. Additional recruiting options are available here.
New to Recruiting at the U?
Email us at HireU@utah.edu to get matched with a dedicated Relationship Manager.
