As the 2024 intern search season gets underway, the good news is most corporate and agency internships are now paid positions. Unfortunately, some organizations still attempt to recruit unpaid interns under the guise of providing “valuable experience.”
Since the start of this blog, I’ve frequently called for an end to unpaid internships for any position that performs work that is billable to clients or helps free up time for billable employees. Professional organizations, including the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), have called for all interns to be paid. NACE’s call for an end to unpaid internships last fall grew out of its research findings that 41% of overall college internships are nonpaying, according to Shawn VanDerziel, NACE executive director. Fortunately, PR internships fare far better when it comes to pay — even if compensation ranges vary widely.
“Students who engage in unpaid internships must forgo an income—that’s a hardship for many students,” VanDerziel said. “Unpaid work is still work. All work deserves to be paid.”
Due to the need for junior talent, agencies over the past several years have ramped up their efforts to more fairly pay interns who are vital to their operations. Since last writing about PR intern pay, my recent informal survey of 2024 intern salaries revealed continue progress. The average intern salary now ranges between $17 and $20 per hour. Depending on industry and geography, those numbers can be considerably more.
When a Chicago boutique agency recently interviewed and wanted to hire one of the DePaul PR students, the head of the firm asked me to give her an idea of the going rate for undergraduate interns. I provided the $17 to $20 range. Without skipping a beat, the agency leader said she was going to offer $25 an hour “because I want to make sure she knows how valuable she is to this business.” Win/win for everyone involved.