How to Pay Your Unpaid Interns

I live and work in Boston, a city of more than 100 colleges and universities in the area. That means thousands of eager students each year come knocking at the doors of local businesses in search of “real-world experience” that will make them more attractive to hiring managers after graduation. The highly competitive market in Boston makes some willing to work for free, feeling the value of the experience will pay off for them in the end.

During those early college years, I worked both as a paid and unpaid intern depending on the size of the company and time commitment the internship required. For many small business owners, hiring an unpaid intern seems like the best option to get assistance without breaking the bank. But nothing so good comes without a catch.

So really there is no such thing as an unpaid intern. If you are following the rules, the time and resources you provide the intern should actually cost you and your business the same value or more than if you paid them minimum wage.

So why do it at all?

Maybe you are passionate about teaching, sharing, and mentoring. Perhaps part of your mission is to empower young people and give them the tools to succeed like you did. Or, maybe like in my case, a cousin convinced you to take them on and you realized you loved the process. No matter the reason, it’s not about you or your business — it’s about the intern’s experience and making sure you provide the tools to succeed in a professional career.

After 3 semesters of taking on unpaid interns and receiving positive feedback from each of them despite my plea for constructive criticism about the experience, I thought I’d share my formula for creating an environment for learning that fulfills my personal passions while fulfilling their educational requirements:

An intern working with me and my team at Rani Wise Co. won’t be staring at excel spreadsheets doing data entry or grabbing me a coffee. (Actually if you ask them, I am the one who typically orders and picks them up coffee.) My unpaid interns get the opportunity to see how small businesses thrive, struggle, and learn while acquiring work experience in implementing digital marketing .

Even further, I decided if I was going to hire an unpaid intern, they should be paid through unconventional benefits like:

If a student wants to learn from me and my small business in order to gain knowledge that will help them in the future without monetary compensation, I will compensate them in time and energy to show them everything they want to learn and more. That’s only fair.

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