How to hire interns in India, and what stipend to offer

To hire interns in India, define a project, duration and weekly hours; choose a stipend; advertise through internship platforms and college placement cells; then use screening questions, a short call and a relevant task. Send a written offer, assign a mentor and plan regular reviews. Set the stipend using comparable live listings, your budget and the chosen platform’s rules. Check any unpaid arrangement with your lawyer or CA.

Updated 31 October 2026. Platform allowances, Internshala’s stipend rules and the AICTE portal were checked on each organisation’s own pages on that date; the Unstop row rests on facts checked on 25 October 2026 because its page would not open.

When should a startup or small company hire interns?

Hire an intern when you have a defined piece of work that is useful but not urgent, and one person who can spend a few hours each week teaching. Limit the first intake to the number of interns your mentors can review every week.

Illustrative situations that suit an intern:

• A project with an end. A 12-person accounting-software company in Pune has an intern check its help-centre articles against the current product.
• A supervised project. A CA firm in Jaipur gives two commerce interns a supervised reconciliation project using completed-period records.
• A trial before a hire. A D2C skincare brand in Gurugram runs a three-month content internship before deciding on a full-time role.

Do not hire an intern in these situations:

• The intern is expected to cover the only support desk when a colleague is on leave.
• The job is permanent and full-time. Post it as a job and say what it pays.

How do I hire interns in India, step by step?

Agree the project, stipend and selection process before advertising; plan mentoring and the final review before the intern joins. Set a deadline for each step before advertising.

How long should an internship be, and what should the intern do?

Choose one project, two or three outcomes you can check on the last day, and a duration that fits the project and the student’s college calendar.

Start from the project and work backwards. AICTE’s National Internship Portal lists three formats on its About page, read on 31 October 2026: weekly (1 to 4 weeks), monthly (1 to 6 months) and semester (6 months and above).

Write outcomes you can check: not ‘help with research’ but ‘30 customer calls logged in the CRM, with a one-page summary of what customers asked for’.

Then fix the hours. State the days and hours each week, and say whether the work is in office, remote or hybrid.

Should the internship be paid, and what stipend should I offer?

Offer a stipend you can pay in full on the same date every month. The pages we checked on 31 October 2026 do not set one stipend for every internship, so use comparable listings, your budget and the platform’s rules.

Compare listings with similar tasks, weekly hours, location and duration on a platform such as Internshala or Unstop. Record the stipend, hours and work arrangement for each comparable listing. Use these as reference points, then check that your offer covers the role’s demands and the intern’s expected costs. Our internship stipend guide explains how to compare roles, hours and costs, and summarises official scheme terms.

As of 31 October 2026, Internshala’s terms set a minimum stipend of ₹2,000 a month for in-office internship listings and ₹1,000 a month for work from home. As of 31 October 2026, Internshala’s linked terms prohibit unpaid internship listings except for NGOs/NPOs, government agencies and the specified law/legal and legal-research profiles. Those are Internshala’s listing rules, not a view on what the law allows.

Before offering an unpaid internship, check the chosen platform’s rules and the proposed arrangement with your lawyer or CA. A mentor or certificate does not establish that the arrangement is permitted.

What should an internship post say?

State the work, hours, stipend and dates clearly before listing optional benefits. Include these:

• Title: the function and the word ‘intern’, such as ‘Content intern, skincare brand’.
• Company and learning: one sentence about the business, its website, and two skills the intern will practise.
• Tasks: three to five real tasks, in plain words.
• Skills and eligibility: what the student needs on day one, kept separate from what they will learn and from degree preferences. Example: ‘BCom students available for the stated dates; basic spreadsheet skills required; reconciliation taught during the internship.’
• Time: start and end dates, hours per week, and whether it is in office, remote or hybrid.
• Money: the stipend per month and the day it is paid. If you have checked an unpaid arrangement as described above, write ‘unpaid’ plainly in the first line.
• Selection: the steps and their dates, including any short task.
• What the intern gets: a named mentor, a certificate, and a possible PPO only when a full-time opening is realistic.

How to write a job description covers the same fields in more detail for full-time roles.

Where can I post an internship for free?

Post on two or three free routes at once. Prepare your company details and work email, complete the chosen site’s checks, submit the listing, and confirm that it is visible before you circulate the application link. Internshala’s June 2026 guide describes account verification and listing approval before a listing goes live (read 31 October 2026).

Platform information as of 31 October 2026, except Unstop, which uses facts checked on 25 October 2026. Allowances change, so open the page before you rely on a number.

As of 31 October 2026, AICTE’s National Internship Portal About page states that the portal is free for interns and organisations and provides an industry or employer login.

Ask relevant placement cells whether they can circulate the internship without a fee. Write to the training and placement officer of each college whose students fit the work, with the project, duration, hours, stipend, dates and application link in one short email, and name how you would like it circulated, such as through its job board or a relevant department. How to reach college placement cells has email templates.

Share the same application link through your company’s social accounts, with the project, hours, stipend and deadline, and ask employees and former interns to share it too. Put referred candidates through the same screening.

How do I pick the right intern without a long process?

Use three filters in order: screening questions in the application, a 15-minute call, and one short task that looks like the real work. Give every candidate the same instructions and score them on the same criteria.

These screening questions suit most internships:

• Describe one thing you have made or done that is close to this project. Add a link if you have one.
• How many hours a week can you give, and when are your exams?
• Which part of this project would you find hardest, and what would you do about it?
• Can you work from [city] for the whole internship, or only remotely?

For the first question, a course project, college society activity, volunteering task or personal project is fine; previous employment is not required. For the 15-minute call, use three prompts: explain a relevant project, describe how you would handle unclear instructions, and confirm availability against the internship calendar.

For the short task, set about 45 minutes of work that matches the project. Three examples:

An illustrative scorecard for the operations task: accuracy 0 to 2, handling of ambiguous city names 0 to 2, and explanation of changes 0 to 2. Agree the scorecard before the first task arrives, and keep a simple tracker with one row per candidate: availability, task score, next action and decision date.

Keep the task fair. Internshala’s terms, read on 31 October 2026, say any assignment should be ‘fair and relevant to the Job profile’ and prohibit using one to get free work. A good rule for any platform:

• Keep it under an hour, and tell candidates the time limit and how it will be judged.
• Use sample or public data, never a client’s records, and do not use the output in your business. If you need real work done, pay for it.

What do I send once I choose someone, and how do I onboard them?

Send a written offer quickly, because students compare offers, and name the mentor in it. The offer should state the dates, hours, location or remote terms, stipend amount and pay date, confidentiality, and what happens if either side ends the internship early.

Our internship offer letter format has a template and clauses for paid, unpaid, remote and PPO-linked internships. Have a lawyer check the legal clauses and a CA check the payment lines.

Name one mentor, not ‘the team’. The mentor explains the project on day one, reviews work every week, answers questions within a working day and gives honest feedback at the midpoint.

Plan the first week before the intern arrives:

1. Day 1: accounts and tools ready, and a short introduction to the team and project.
2. Days 2 and 3: a small first task with a clear finish.
3. End of week 1: a 20-minute review to correct course early.
4. Every week after that: a review, plus a short daily message.

How do I issue a certificate and decide on a PPO?

Give a certificate that states only what is true, and decide about a PPO against criteria you wrote at the start.

A certificate names the intern, the role, the employer, the dates and the kind of work done. The internship certificate format shows the layout. Do not stretch the dates or add tasks that did not happen.

A pre-placement offer (PPO) is a job offer made to an intern during or after the internship. Mention a possible PPO only when a full-time opening is realistic, and state that conversion depends on performance and an available role. Write the criteria at the start, such as work quality, reliability and how the intern handles feedback, and review against them at the midpoint and two weeks before the end.

Tell the intern promptly if no job is available, and offer a factual reference describing their work. See how to hire freshers for a startup if you plan to bring the intern on full time.

Before the last day, ask the intern three questions: what did you learn, what blocked your work, and what should we change for the next intern?

What should I include in an intern plan?

Complete the project, hours, stipend and mentor fields before advertising.

INTERN PLAN
Company: [name, city]
Role title: [function] intern
Project: [one sentence]
Outcomes by the last day:
  1. [checkable outcome]
  2. [checkable outcome]
  3. [checkable outcome]
Duration: [start date] to [end date]
Hours: [hours per week], [days]
Mode: [in office / remote / hybrid], [city]
Stipend: [₹ amount] per month, paid on [day] by bank transfer
Unpaid arrangement, if applicable: [basis checked with adviser; platform eligibility confirmed]
Costs covered: [travel / equipment / software, or none]
Mentor: [name, role]
Weekly review: [day and time]
Screening questions: [3 or 4]
Short task: [title, time limit, scorecard]
Apply via: [application link or email]
Dates: apply by [date]; task by [date]; offers by [date]
Midpoint review: [date]
PPO: [possible only if a full-time opening exists]; criteria [3 points]; decision by [date]
Certificate: issued by [name] on [date]
Exit questions: [asked on date]

What mistakes do employers make with interns?

Avoid these mistakes when advertising, selecting and managing interns.

• No scope. ‘Help the team’ is not a project, and the intern spends the first month asking what to do.
• No mentor. Nobody answers questions between reviews, so the intern stays blocked until the next meeting.
• No learning plan. Do not use interns to clear a production backlog without supervision, feedback or defined learning outcomes.
• A post that changes at the offer. As of 31 October 2026, Internshala’s terms treat an offered stipend lower than the advertised one as a negative difference that results in action against the employer.
• A late stipend. As of 31 October 2026, Internshala’s terms prohibit missing or delaying the agreed remuneration and provide for action against employers. A student who budgets for the stipend cannot wait weeks for it.
• Using selection tasks as unpaid work. Keep candidate tasks short and separate from work your business needs delivered.
• No ending. The internship finishes with no feedback, no certificate and no answer about a PPO.