My oldest sibling has received a summer internship offer from a Fortune 500 company. It’s from a corporation halfway across the country in an industry that’s outside of her major (but she will be learning how to manage business relationships directly in her field of study.) The offer expires in 2 weeks and doesn’t really give her the opportunity to see “what else is out there.”
DD was offered $21/hr., 40-hr work week plus $7k signing bonus. I am curious to know from parents of older college students and recent grads. Is this a competitive offer for an internship?
Will she be able to pay her living expenses (possibly with you help)? Will she learn something of value and gain useful professional experience? If so, then yes. An internship is first and foremost for work experience. Yes, pay is important because everyone has bills. But if this is the experience she wants to have, then your question is answered.
I think it depends on the area she would be living - NYC or San Fran - that seems a bit low to me for a Fortune 500 Co. Are they providing her leads on housing with other interns or arranging for example some tech companies rent out dorm housing in high end housing areas?
Are you willing to subsidize her housing for the experience ? Lastly, what is the tax situation like in the city she would be interning in - will she now have a city and state tax to pay vs her current state of residence tax - not saying no, but all things to consider if the money is important vs the experience.
Is she going into her Sr year and was she hoping to intern at a company that would lead to a job offer after graduation - this doesn’t sound like what she would want - or is it? Is this jr/sr year summer - that is different and would be great to learn what the does and doesn’t want to do.
Either way - congrats to her for getting out there and landing an internship and having a decision to make!
At the end of the day though it doesn’t really matter. It’s about how much she values that specific experience AND how excited she’d be to work for them as many internships are essentially extended interviews.
If she’s excited, can break even, and, probably most important of all, doesn’t have something in hand that she likes better, she should take it.
Depends on the field. While I am not studying business, this seems pretty similar to what a business major friend got (he had slightly higher pay with no signing bonus, but virtual internship).
One of the most valuable parts of my summer internship, even more so than the pay, was the opportunity to work in-person at an office, along full-time engineers. It seems that she will be getting that.
Also, don’t forget that internships are trial runs of actual jobs. If she will be graduating soon, is this a company she will potentially want to work at? If she does well, they might want to offer her return.
The $ 7k sign on bonus effectively raises her rate of pay to over $1500/ week, which is good. Many summer internships do not pay such a bonus. Having two weeks to decide is the norm
This is a great opportunity to encourage your D to educate herself about “Total Comp”.
There’s her hourly wage. There’s her sign on bonus. There are possibly other benefits- subsidized public transportation or parking? free lunch? dinner if you work past 8 and paid Uber home?
She should reach out to career services at her college to see if this package tracks with what they are seeing. And she should reach out to her HR/Recruiting person at the company to see if they offer assistance finding housing (which is valuable in many parts of the company), etc.
Some colleges allow “exploding offers” and some do not. She can check with career services to make sure that the two week window is an agreed upon timeframe with the college.
Even in NYC and SF, a student sharing a place with a friend should be comfortably within budget. An airbnb can be rented for 4k per month and cost split.
The career services rules would apply only to offers acquired thru on campus recruiting, I believe