Bauer Internships

The Bauer College of Business is fortunate to be located in the city of Houston and we understand the needs our employers have for interns. Employers can post business internship assignments through our Bauer Career Gateway system free of charge.

Internship

An Internship is a semester-long, supervised work experience related to a student’s major or career goal. The work experience may be part-time or full-time, paid or unpaid, for credit or not and is primarily in an off-campus environment. An important element that distinguishes an internship from a short-term job or volunteer assignment is that an intentional “learning agenda” is structured into the experience.

Benefits

Employers recruiting students enrolled in the Bauer Internship Program gain:

  • Access to highly qualified candidates capable of handling the challenges presented in today’s workplace.
  • Applicants with proven academic performance.
  • Added value to recruiting process by utilizing Interns as a pipeline for full-time hires.

How can my intern sign up for academic credit?

There are certain prerequisites and guidelines students must have in order to receive internship credit. Please ask your students to refer to the internship section of our website. Graduate level students are not eligible to receive course credit for internships.

How to post your internship position?

If you are seeking interns and are interested in posting a position with us, please review our sample internship job postings and/or review our Recruiter Guide and register in our Bauer Career Gateway system.

What Qualifies As An Internship?

Courts have used the “primary beneficiary test” to determine whether an intern or student is, in fact, an employee under the FLSA.2   In short, this test allows courts to examine the “economic reality” of the intern-employer relationship to determine which party is the “primary beneficiary” of the relationship. Courts have identified the following seven factors as part of the test:

  1. The extent to which the intern and the employer clearly understand that there is no expectation of compensation. Any promise of compensation, express or implied, suggests that the intern is an employee—and vice versa.
  2. The extent to which the internship provides training that would be similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, including the clinical and other hands-on training provided by educational institutions.
  3. The extent to which the internship is tied to the intern’s formal education program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit.
  4. The extent to which the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments by corresponding to the academic calendar.
  5. The extent to which the internship’s duration is limited to the period in which the internship provides the intern with beneficial learning.
  6. The extent to which the intern’s work complements, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern.
  7. The extent to which the intern and the employer understand that the internship is conducted without entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship.

Courts have described the “primary beneficiary test” as a flexible test, and no single factor is determinative. Accordingly, whether an intern or student is an employee under the FLSA necessarily depends on the unique circumstances of each case.

If analysis of these circumstances reveals that an intern or student is actually an employee, then he or she is entitled to both minimum wage and overtime pay under the FLSA. On the other hand, if the analysis confirms that the intern or student is not an employee, then he or she is not entitled to either minimum wage or overtime pay under the FLSA.

Requirements for RCC Internships

  • Position allows students to gain professional work experience that is specific to their major or career path
  • Pursue an opportunity that is academic in nature and/ or credit-worthy
  • Detailed job description that includes specific duties, daily tasks and projects, and provides guidance with a desired outcome
  • Work for at least a semester with the same employer, either full or part-time
  • Provides an assigned direct supervisor and allows the student to get involved with managers, board meetings, committees, etc.
  • Understand the mundane and necessary parts of any position (such as making copies, faxing, etc.) while not having those as the main functions of the Internship
  • Produce deliverables upon completion of the Internship, such as a paper, presentation, etc.
  • No more than twelve (12) percent of the intern’s duties may be spent on tasks such as cold-calling

Résumé Books

Typically, résumé book access is not automatically granted unless the employer has a current posting for that particular position on the system. For more information, please feel free to contact a Recruiting Manager.

Internship Salary Information

The average hourly wage rates reported for interns for 2018 range from $16.54 – $20.30 for Bachelor-level candidates and $25.40 for 1st-year graduate students. (Source: 2018 Guide to Compensation for Interns and Co-ops, National Association of Colleges and Employers)

For additional information or resources please contact us at hirebauer@uh.edu or 832-842-6120.

If You Have Hired an Intern …

It is very important that you report internship information. If you have hired an intern to work with your organization please report that you have done so. Please e-mail Troy Hopkins to report interns hired.