How much should I pay an intern while still in college?

Question

I have come into some cash and have a few good jobs I could give to an intern. I want to know what I should pay him?

• He will be using ASP.NET + C#
• Work will be in Florida.
• Work will be on both the desktop and web apps.

I was thinking around $10.00 - $15.00 an hour. What does everyone else think? Is it based on experience or should I start him off at $10.00 and work up to $15.00? Help me out.

Thanks.

Edit: Since this is a programming question, I feel it does belong on SO. It has to do with how much Intern programmers get paid.

Answer 1

While this is not a programming specific question, I'd suggest $15/hr. I know a few companies that pay $25/hr and a few that say interns should be free.

Answer 2

The actual wage depends on your area / local tax rules etc.
If you pay the lower end you could always use the extra as a bonus on completion.

Is this an internship in that they will be learning something useful, or is it just a low paid consulting job?

Answer 3

The cold rational economist answer is that you should pay them the minimum that they're willing to work for, so long as that number is less than what they're worth to you.

Answer 4

From my experience that would be about average for someone with no development experience. If you're looking for someone who has already interned elsewhere doing development then you may need to aim a little higher, but I'm pretty far from Florida so it may be different there.

Answer 5

With no real world experience I would say $15 tops. Paying a little lower and giving a bonus if they do well is a good idea.

Answer 6

I started my internship working for nothing, then after my internship was over, I was offered $10/hr to stay on. This worked out well, and after graduation, I was offered my base salary. So in all, it just depends on the individual. An internship isn't a job that you do to get paid, its a job that you do to earn experience as well as college credit.

Answer 7

For reference, in Cambridge, UK we're paying just under $25/hr at today's exchange rates. That's at the top end for our area, but not outrageous.

Answer 8

I also depends on whether you are trying to get an intern to do some grunt work or if you are really using the internship to identify potential great full-time contributors.

If the former: minimum pay that will get a grunt in the door.

If the latter: the more you pay, the higher the quality you will get. Probably.

YMMV.

Answer 9

You should check with some local universities/colleges and see if they have any suggestions.

For example, in Canada the University of Waterloo (a pioneer in cooperative education) has a suggested pay scale based on which work term the students are in, based on the average that all companies that hire their students pay.

http://www.cecs.uwaterloo.ca/employers/prospective/salary.php

Despite it being a Canadian school, a lot of American companies hire Waterloo co-ops, so it should translate fairly well.

Note these numbers are in Canadian dollars. For the exchange rate, try this: http://www.google.com/search?q=1%20cad%20in%20usd

Answer 10

I would say 15-20 dollars an hour would be fair. Around here (midwest) Temp workers get paid at least 10 an hour to sit at a desk and maybe use basic excel functions. I'm assuming you're looking for someone who is much more capable than that.

It shouldn't matter if they are getting college credit. That's not between you and them. That is between their school and them. You're running a business and they should be treated like any other employee. They should be paid a fair wage and expected to do (or get to do) real work.

It shames me to say that we treat our interns unfairly here, and it shows. No one wants to intern here, except people who are desperate. Needless to say, we never get the cream of the crop.

Answer 11

As a former college intern, I would say that you should pay based on experience and increase the pay based on work ethic.

It was always frustrating to be a knowledgeable and skilled employee who's time was worth the same value as an employee who didn't know anything or didn't work hard.

Answer 12

I think the only way these days to get good people at your software company is by recruiting them early; Internships are a great way to do this. Most important is that they like what they do; Have a project they can work on and be proud of at the end of their internship and a reasonable salary.

The reason you take interns is so they can stay with the company if they are good employee's. If you underpay them and threat them like interns (by giving them "make coffee" and "find red swingline stapler" tasks) they certainly won't stay with your company and you will never get good new employee's.

Start them off just under a basic programmer salery so they make a nice piece of money but you can still do them a good offer with a nice raise when they are done with their internship. No way they will resign if they like their jobs.

Answer 13

If you're trying to recruit one or several interns as prospective long-term employees, I wouldn't pay any less that $15/hour. Remember that you want to make your business a place that these individuals would want to work, and IMHO, asking them to do what sounds like production-quality work for any less than that would be improper.