Work

Interns earn $8,000 a month at Facebook

Tech and financial sector companies offer summer pay well in excess of US average

Facebook interns can also expect perks such as free food and maybe even free accommodation. Photograph: RollingNews.ie

Thu May 4 2017 - 17:13

Interns are used to the corporate mantra – it’s not about the money but about the experience gained in the world of work and the prospect of possibly even landing a permanent post.

Not with these companies. A new study shows that some US companies offer lucrative internships with pay that is well ahead of the national average.

Social media giant Facebook tops the list, offering median monthly pay of $8,000 (€7,293) for summer interns. And that’s not all. Former interns report “amazing perks” such as free food, transportation and even housing along with fully funded intern events at weekends, according to recruitment website Glassdoor.

All that and the chance to work in programmes where they can make a real impact and under top class mentors mean Facebook has the pick of suitably qualified college students.

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It’s a long way from the paper-filing and coffee-run culture of times gone by. Little wonder that Glassdoor ranks Facebook as the top intern programme for the past two years.

$96,000 per year

If you annualised the median monthly pay rate, it would come to $96,000 – almost twice the $51,350 median pay for full-time workers in the United States. Even over a three-month summer programme, a Facebook intern would earn close to half the full-year earning of the average US employee.

And Facebook is not alone. Tech giants including Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Amazon and Apple rank among the most well remunerated and sought after internships with media monthly pay of between $6,000 and $7,100, Glassdoor reports.

Outside the tech sector, banks are among the best payers for interns and even the 25th ranked programme – at Bank of America – pays above the average national wage at $4,750.

Danielle Gruppo, chief executive and founder of InternAlliance, a online service in the US that connects qualified college students to viable internship opportunities, urges students and businesses alike to not get distracted by the big money headlines.

“Students should not get caught up on the amount of money they can make at a summer internship but rather the amount of real-world experience that they can accumulate that will ultimately help them with their career path moving forward,” she said.

25 highest-paying US internships

1. Facebook $8,000

2. Microsoft $7,100

3. ExxonMobil $6,507

4. Salesforce $6,450

5. Amazon $6,400

6. Apple $6,400

7. Bloomberg $6,400

8. Yelp $6,400

9. Yahoo $6,080

10. VMware $6,080

11. Google $6,000

12.Nvidia $5,770

13. Intuit $5,440

14. Juniper Networks $5,400

15. Workday $5,440

16. Blackrock $5,400

17. Adobe $ 5,120

18. MathWorks $5,120

19. Qualcomm $5,040

20. Capital One $5,000

21. Chevron $5,000

22. Accenture $4,960

23. Deutsche Bank $4,640

24. AIG $4,616

25. Bank of America $4,570

Source: Glassdoor

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