Getting College Credit Does Not Make it Legal to Hire Unpaid Interns

There is often confusion around whether interns must be paid.

An unpaid internship must meet all of the following criteria:

• The internship is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment.
• t’s for the benefit of the intern.
• The intern doesn’t displace paid employees.
• The employer doesn’t benefit from work the intern is doing and “on occasion its operations may actually be impeded.”
• The intern isn’t promised a job at the end (i.e. unpaid “tryouts” aren’t allowed).
• Both the intern and employer understand it is unpaid.

Carrie is a frequent keynote speaker on HR and leadership topics and regularly conducts employee training and leadership development workshops as well. She is the author of the recently published book, Restaurant Operator's HR Playbook: Your Hands-On Playbook for Finding, Hiring, and Developing Leaders and Implementing Organized People Systems and has been featured in Entrepreneur, Restaurant News, Pizza Today and Independent Restaurateur.