Internship is a starting point for life in mainstream so it should reflect a true picture of real life. 1. Student should get stipend at least to cover expenses and sustainment to do the job. 2. They should pay a security deposit to guarantee work for stipulated time - to be forfeited in case they "disappear" in a month or two. 3. Guarantee of generous bonus at the end of tenure if they contribute well to the team.

I think this would be a fair deal for both parties.

I believe that the stipend is an incentive for the intern. So, the number should be closer to the cost of travel + cost of food (while at work) + some decent pocket money ( 200/week). Depending on your office location, decide on the number.

The quality of deliverable has nothing to do with the stipend, its to do with the quality of the intern, so make sure you select the right one, no matter what you pay.

Less than 3000 may not be encouraging, but depends a lot on nature of work and hours spend for task/work, 3000-4000 is ok and normal..5000 or above if students are very creative and adding value to work beside just doing it.

Well I believe that while they are learning during the internship period they should not be paid anything, simply because we are going to put our time on them, duration is usually 3 months. But once and if they become productive paying them the market salary is good idea.

I think it would need to take into account various aspects:

1) Does the intern have his own laptop/desktop? If Yes, you could pay him a fraction of the cost of arranging for hardware/deskspace as he saves you the effort and fixed cost.

2) Does he have to travel way to far (more than 10kms 1 way)? If Yes, such travel needs to be considered in the final payment. A bike gives an average of 60 kms per litre, so a calculation on that could be made.

But most importantly, is S/HE good? If yes, then cost should not be a concern!

My calculation (and I don't run a company but work in one) is that a deserving intern should be given 8-10k per month, with a formal agreement that s/he completes at least 3 month. If not, he forfeits all earnings. Also, full salary for those 3 months need not be given, but 5k per month could be given keeping the rest (balance) with company as insurance.

A good employer may even choose to offer to help open a PPF for the intern and deposit the balance held back, at the end of 3 months, into the PPF along with any bonus in case the intern completes 6 months and does a good job!

I'm sure the intern as well as the parents would appreciate the gesture. My uncle who runs his own business here always did that for everyone who worked for him, including housemaids + office boys.

The aspects given by hemanshu are very good, which include almost every thing Some other aspects could be : 1)if student is working from home then company should provide him atleast a good enough computer confg and internet connection (in case If stipend is not provided by company). 2) very Similar to Navneet Karnani's view.

The dilemma that I face while hiring interns - those who are willing to work for very less stipend (say below 3K pm), are most likely not worth hiring (even for free) as the time spent on training them is substantially high, there is lesser sincerity & likelihood of disappearing mid-way . On the other hand, if we have to pay market price (say above of 5K or 8K), we are likely to get people looking for permanent positions (0 to 6 months exp) in that cost.

As a solution, I am thinking of having a well specked project (or a list of tangible deliverables) to be given to interns for a fixed stipend. And the stipend to be paid on successful completion of the project (at least on the evidence that they tried to finish the project). Of course, we will need to provide infrastructure, training & guidance... but might be worth it!

As a student, I think that I see internship as learning the practical work, and even I don't expect stipend from the company that doesn't mean I am not a good student/programmer but because we are learning from that company and we look for genuine training and for first few(1-3) months we do not give anything to company, but stipend should be considered on the basis of the points which are specified above by many people like distance, productivity of the student etc. Another important thing which I think is instead of giving 6000 stipend to only a single student you can take more interns by reducing the stipend amount and that can increase the chances of getting the right candidate that you are looking for. And if a candidate says that he agree to work/learn without stipend that does not mean that he is not a good candidate, it might be because that candidate might be looking for genuine training and he don't want to do some kind of dummy project!! There are so many good(I should say best) candidates who are looking for internship but due to some problems they don't get the internship. I really thankful to Navin Kabra sir and IMCC to organizing Internship Mela. If more such kind of event organized then companies will get the more and the right candidate for whom they are looking for.

I think student should at least get stipend to cope up with their exepenses for working with your company. If they wont get at least this much, they will not even put 50% of their efforts at work. Thus this is good for corporate people as well.

1. Regarding running away of interns - To be frank I always and always blame this on the management. Either hiring process was not good or the orientation was not good. In startup not just for interns but for full timers as well, there has to be continous orientation if the person is not from startup background. This is one of the reasons why you see Experience with Startup is preferred on many startup careers page. But when you hire some one in what ever role, if cant introduce them to startup culture, orient them, show them the bigger picture then its your failure not that persons. Its your job as a startup founder to make sure every one in the team understands the vision, goal and career growth you are offering it to them.

2. Pay - well there are many ways about how to handle this. WE had interns from IITs and local colleges and we always paid them equally. For IITians we took care of accommodation and lunch+dinner along with pay. Pay should always be performance centric. Flat pay structures are a big burden to carry. From CEO to office assistant everyones pay should be linked to objectives and these objectives should be continuously revised.

3. Time - apart from pay and other things most important thing that you need to offer to interns or any junior developer for that matter, is time with quality people. If your team is too busy in implementing a version of product and cant interact much with the interns, thats not very good. If I was an intern at this point, I would not care much about pay and luxuries what I will care about is time I get to spend with (and hence learn) from people who have been there done that or who are doing that. Thats very important aspect.

Hope this helps. :)

nothing...he should count himself lucky to be there, leave getting paid.

In our company we give something around 3000-4000 not more than that & its not worth as per our experience. There are two reasons 1. They are learning for 2-3 months, so they are not contributing much to the company. 2. After 6 months they will not continue as they will be appearing to their exam after that.

So, need to consider the performance, nature of work.

We will also be providing certificate after that so this much stipend is fair. If we liked the performance then after 3 months we can spend more.

My personal opinion is this:

Rs. 3000 per month - for first 3 months. Then, based on his/her performance (considering hard work, thirst to learn good things, dare to try learnt facts etc) one can increment the stipend by Rs. 1000 to 3000 (33.33% to 100% increment) for rest of the months.

... and of course, a decrement if performance is not up to minimum mark expected. :)

we are paying 2000 Rs stipend and 2000 Rs/month bonus at the end of the internship. Regards, Rajan www.hireplug.com

Because we invest time, infra & train the interns we should not pay them. Another thing is 'Productive' output at the end of internship is very less.

But to maintain goodwill & if the person is good then to retain him/her after IT, some payment must be given.

So currently we are following following policy:

• Payment will be given at the end of 'Successful' completion of IT. ( This makes sure that the person does not run away in between & our efforts are not wasted )

• Payment will vary per student. This is because previously i have observed interns are not serious towards work, they are still in 'College' mood like bunking lectures, chatting, orkuting, downloading songs/SMS etc stuff. So the payment varies on performance e.g. leaves taken in internship period, completing tasks in time, value addition to project, domain knowledge, team-work etc.

at least for internship i believe commitment of a intern should be against his/her project not money.. because if they are working for money they are not interns..

I have numbers from previous company, where we hired B.Tech interns from IIT Bombay. The stipend was roughly 30-35% of what a fresher would get as salary.

Somehow, I don't like the idea of making interns work for free.

As a student i believe that every student should be given stipend to pay their expenses as an intern so that they can put their best to cope up with their job otherwise they might not even put their 50% of their caliber.

Let me share our experience of last 2 years

1st we paid 7500/- we felt it is more then 4000/- sounds ok for both now 5000/- seems perfect

as they have completed education so have some knowledge they come for six months so we have this conclusion from past experience

One reason I know why many interns (including me and lots of my colleagues when I was an intern) leave a good thriving (but low paying) startup is that they are not better informed about the startup culture. In start of my career, I used to aspire and appreciate a job in Infosys/IBM/... like big companies and used to think that those who got there are lucky. Contrary, I was working in a startup and amongst better people and culture.

I am of the opinion that some stipend must be given, for the simple reason that a company is not doing social service by keeping interns. The reason interns are employed are because there is a definite value add. I think this should be looked at just like any other business case. The value add may not be equivalent to that of a full time, well trained employee, so factor for that. Also account for other factors like training period.

Having a bond/commitment does not seem to be a very good idea for a startup kind of case. If the work is indeed challenging, and stipend decent, no one would quit. I feel an exchange of money imparts a certain sense of responsibility too on part of the interns. Of course it is the employers responsibility to choose the right candidate, so that quality of deliverable is good.

I feel 40-50% of a fresh MCS'a salary could be a good figure. This can be divided in a fixed amount plus a bonus amount. Bonus can be given at the end of tenure.

I am sure the comments above have a lot of information and a lot of ways... I have not gone through more than a couple of them, but an opinion I have is that for an intern there should be a 2 tier compensation: Basic + Performance based...

Basic compensation could take into account ur company salary scales, number of hours put in per week, accessibility of the office by public transport, etc...

18,000/m for student interns