IU South Bend students are hardworking. Among business students, almost 80% maintain, at minimum, a part time job while enrolled. Balancing academic, job and family obligations demonstrate an excellent work ethic and resolve.
Savvy employers, recognizing the value of attracting such talent, can start recruiting these students years before they graduate by establishing internship programs. Students seek opportunities providing challenging, professional-level duties at organizations offering flexible schedules and fair pay.
We promote internships to students via IUSBCareers, our online job posting board, powered by Handshake software.
The information below is an introduction to creating internships at your organization. Additional conversations with the Career Planning Office can help you build opportunities students seek.
Under Leighton School of Business policies, students are NOT required to have an internship (except for Human Resource Management majors). As such, recruiting for internships is no different than recruiting for other positions.
However, if a student wants pair academic credit with an internship (and the employer agrees), Career Planning Office will gladly advise students and employers on the necessary policies and processes.
The course number for all undergraduate business internships is BUS-X481.
Academic internships require at least 50 clock hours of work for each credit hour a student is enrolled in BUS-X481. Typically, students take BUS-X481 for three credit hours and, therefore, must complete at least 150 clock hours of work in a semester, or summer session. Only clock hours completed during a semester or summer term count.
Note: Students pay tuition for academic internships.
Though there are no class meetings for BUS-X481, there are assignments. Typically, these include resume and LinkedIn revisions, a mock interview, as well as an interactive evaluation process between the student and employer. A written assessment of the student, drawn from this evaluation, is submitted to Career Planning at the end of the term.
Click here for more information about academic credit for internships.
Students align their personal and work schedules around the academic calendar. Even if a student does not take an internship for academic credit, their life will center around the calendar of classes. Employers seeking interns should consider such when developing and marketing their program.
Indiana University operates on a semester system—16-week fall and spring terms, and two six-week summer terms between mid-May and mid-August. Click here for IU South Bend’s academic calendar. Classes are held Monday to Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 9:40 p.m., virtually and in person. Generally, there are no classes on Fridays, or the weekend.
Well-crafted internship descriptions are crucial to getting students’ attention. The best descriptions list what an intern will know and be able to do after completing the internship. They also describe the company’s work culture. See this LinkedIn article on work culture.
In the listing, identify what qualifications applicants must have. Is the opening limited to specific majors and/or those with a minimum grade point average (GPA)? If it is open to all majors and GPA is not a consideration, say so.
Specify where students can apply (company URL or IUSBCareers), what documents are needed to apply and if the position requires U.S. work authorization. Career Planning suggests the inclusion of a contact person’s name and email in the listing.
It is recommended that employers identify the semester and year the internship is to be offered or include the preferred start date and anticipated end date for the opening.
We hope employers will consider all students for internships, including international students. Student who are not citizens can work in the United States through federally designated Optional Practical Training (OPT) and Curricular Practical Training (CPT) guidelines. Click here for more information. The Career Planning Office will partner the IU South Bend Office of International Programs to advise employers on OPT and CPT options.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, interns must be paid at least minimum wage unless certain, very specific, criteria are met. The U.S. Department of Labor offers guidance on those criteria at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-internships.
The need of students to gain valuable skills is equally important as their need for income. As noted, most of our students work. Pay, therefore, is a major consideration. Students are more likely to apply for positions listing a salary range.
The Career Planning Office can help employers when considering salary ranges for internships.
IUSBCareers is the primary venue for promoting internships to students.
The Career Planning Office can also forward internship job descriptions to faculty in specific disciplines and post notices from your company’s Facebook page to the Judd Leighton School of Business and Economic page.
Employers occasionally ask faculty and staff to send them “recommendations” for students, or “lists” of students seeking internships. We cannot do so. Ethically, we cannot favor one student over another, so we cannot give recommendations. We can recommend students look at your opportunity.
Additionally, providing names of students to employers is a violation of the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). We can send your internship job descriptions to students and advise them to contact you for more information.
