This summer, seven students in their fourth year of an M.Sc (software engineering) course, will take home a monthly salary of Rs. 15,000 by interning with eBay in the city. If that sounds too good an amount for a six-month internship, their classmates are doing even better – Rs. 30,000 being the highest that Amazon is offering.
It is season of summer internships, with several institutions making it mandatory for students to learn about their future workplace.
When Badhri Ravi Kumar was in the second year of a five-year M.Sc. programme, he applied to 15 companies for an internship, and almost all of them got back to him, he says.The student of PSG College of Technology, has now been offered a stipend of Rs. 20,000 a month, for a six-month internship with a company in Bangalore.
Going by what internship portals and companies have to say, it looks like many see in such students, their prospective employees and are willing to pay a decent sum. “Getting to earn before we get our degree is a real thrill,” says B. Vidhula, who starts an internship next week.
According to www.twenty19.com, a Chennai-based internship platform for students, two years ago, about 30 per cent of companies offered stipend to students, but today, over 90 per cent of them are ready to pay for a good job done. “The average stipend is Rs. 6,000, with marketing, software development, content writing and NGOs being the big takers,” says Karthikeyan Vijaykumar, founder of the portal. Besides companies looking at attracting young graduates for a full-time job, he says, many are looking at interns as they are facing a shortage of talent.
Companies too, seem to be happier taking in students. “An employee generally has a very rigid way of working and they want to jump jobs. Interns are ready to work beyond their internship period,” says Arvind Aathreya, partner and CEO, Firebrand Labs, a Chennai-based brand consulting company.
