Internship is beneficial for both the employing company and the interns. Internship is a means through which both parties can share services and experience. The company can evaluate how the interns work before it decides whether to promote them to be full-time employees and the interns can learn about how real business activities take place and how to develop their professionalism in the real workplace. Interns can also determine the best job for them after following an internship program.

Internship involves a legal contract. Although it seems to be a short-term inconsequential contract that is different from more established employment contract, internship contract still results in legal consequences if breached. Therefore, both the company and the interns have to make sure that they see the contract seriously.

An internship contract can be made by an attorney or without one, provided that there is a ready internship agreement template that can be used to make the contract. A modification to the template, however, is often necessary and some companies consider the involvement of an attorney indispensable.

What Does the Contract Contain?
An internship agreement usually includes the following issues.
1. Interns’ personal identifications, including their name
2. The company’s department where they will be working in
3. The identity of supervisors who will be responsible for the interns’ credibility and performance
4. Internship duration
5. At-will status determining that the interns can quit the job at any time without any reasons and that the company can conclude its employment with the interns in the same manner.
Interns may work as either paid or unpaid workers. If they are paid during their internship, issues related to how and how much they will be paid will be included in the contract. If the company expects the interns to meet its minimum employee’s standards, this will also be included in the contract. Sometimes, the company may also require interns to be willing to submit to agreements that are not disclosed in the contract. An agreement about what will happen when upon the breach of the contract may or may not be disclosed in the contract. In general, an internship agreement template will mostly have to be modified before it can be used.

Internship agreement is legally binding and a breach of it may give rise to serious legal consequences. Therefore, interns have to read thoroughly the contract and pay attention to all issues it covers before deciding to participate in the internship program. Most of universities or companies provide standard internship contracts. And usually they already cover interests of both parties. If you need to read one sample, you can download one of them below.

  Internship Contract Template (36.5 KiB, 2,000 hits)