Paid Internships - An Overview

Internships are a major and integral part of academic programs which provide valuable insight into the professional world. Internships help students make decisions regarding career options, allow them to be seen by and prove themselves to potential employers, and experience the duties and responsibilities of a real job. As such, choosing where to intern is of great importance and every student must carefully choose the company with which to train, and one of many factors include whether you want to target paid internships or not.

While the kind of experience the students may get from the company is the primary consideration in choosing the company, payment and compensation terms are also factors to consider. Paid internships not only let students train in real work situations, they also compensate them for the hard work they do. There are additional benefits to finding internships that pay. Students who have paid internships get to be treated like real employees of the company. They get to experience other benefits such as paid time off and paid overtime, as well as reimbursements for job-related travel expenses.

Examples of Internship Pay at Top Companies

Many companies offer paid internships on a regular basis that pay well. Among these companies, the top-rated ones are as follows along with rough estimates of monthly salaries:

1. VMware - $6,704
2. EBay - $6,500
3. Exxon Mobil - $6,268
4. Facebook - $6,084
5. Google - $5,891

While the above rates are enticing for any student planning to intern, it must be kept in mind that pay is not necessarily directly proportional to the intern’s satisfaction. This means that not all high paying companies can give the intern the best experience he or she might want to have. In fact, many companies which have the highest rating of satisfaction from interns are those that pay only about $2,000 or often times are unpaid internships.

Since companies pay for the internship in which they work to train interns, they will scrutinize the intern to evaluate them for possible future employment. This might mean that the application process or the actual job might be in some ways much more rigorous. The intern is usually carefully watched over and trained. But since companies recognize the importance of internships in the recruitment of the best talent out there, they will work on properly training interns, helping them have the skills of a real employee. These internships are very rewarding for the student, having not only added knowledge and good experience, but also financial compensation for it. Compensation may be based on an hourly basis, or may be received as a stipend based on the number of hours or weeks the intern has worked.

There are many companies fighting over the talents of interns, but there are also multitudes of candidates who are vying for these internship positions. To be able to stand out and get noticed in the stiff competition, the applicant must carefully do all necessary things to increase chances of being called on for the internship. One such thing is creating a superb and error-free resume and cover letter. The candidate must also abide by the rules of the company and must also never fail to follow up with employers.