How to Get an Intern for Your Small Business

To get an intern for your small business, post the role at nearby colleges and universities through their career-services offices and handshake-style job boards, define a real project with a start and end date, and — in almost all for-profit cases — plan to pay at least minimum wage. That single decision (paid vs. unpaid) is the one that trips up most owners: under the U.S. Department of Labor's "primary beneficiary" test, if your company is the main beneficiary of the work, the intern is legally an employee and must be paid. The rest is logistics: source candidates, scope the work, budget the payroll, and make sure the cash is there on payday. Below is the full playbook, including how owners bridge the payroll cost with revenue-based financing when a strong hire lands before the revenue it will help create.

Where to actually find interns

Interns come from a handful of reliable channels, and the best one depends on how quickly you need someone and what skills you're after.

• College career-services offices. Nearly every college has one, and they are actively looking for local employers to post roles. Email the office directly, or ask for access to their student job board (many run Handshake). This is the highest-signal, lowest-cost channel for most small businesses.
• Specific academic departments. If you need a bookkeeping intern, email the accounting department chair; for social media, the marketing or communications department. Professors forward good local opportunities to their students directly.
• Community colleges and trade programs. Overlooked and excellent for hands-on roles — HVAC, welding, culinary, IT support, dental assisting. Students are often older, local, and ready to work.
• General job boards. Indeed, LinkedIn, and ZipRecruiter all let you post internship listings. Wider reach, more screening work on your end.
• Your own network. Current employees, customers, and vendors often know a student looking for experience. Referral interns tend to show up motivated and stay.

Whichever channel you use, the listing that converts describes a real project ("help rebuild our customer email list and run three campaigns") rather than a vague "marketing intern wanted." Students self-select for work they can picture doing.

Paid vs. unpaid: what the law actually requires

This is the part owners get wrong, and it carries real liability. For a for-profit business, the Department of Labor uses the primary beneficiary test under the Fair Labor Standards Act to decide whether an intern is really an employee. The test weighs factors like whether the training is similar to what's taught in an educational environment, whether the internship is tied to academic credit, and — the crux — who primarily benefits from the work.

In plain terms: if the intern is doing productive work that helps your bottom line, you are the primary beneficiary, and that person must be paid at least federal (or higher state/local) minimum wage, plus overtime where it applies. Genuinely unpaid internships are hard to defend in a for-profit setting and are mostly limited to structured, education-first programs. Nonprofits and government have more latitude for true volunteers, but that's a different set of rules.

The practical takeaway for a small business: assume you will pay the intern, treat them as an employee for payroll and tax purposes, and price the hire accordingly. It's cleaner, it attracts better candidates, and it keeps you out of a wage-and-hour claim. This is not legal advice — confirm your state and local rules, which are often stricter than federal — but paying is the safe default.

What an intern really costs

Budget for more than the hourly wage. The real, loaded cost of an intern includes payroll taxes, any tools or software they need, and — the biggest hidden line — the time your existing staff spends training and supervising them. A well-run internship is an investment that pays back over the term; a poorly scoped one is a drain on your best people.

Below are illustrative figures to frame the budget. These are examples, not quotes, and your numbers will vary by role, market, and hours.

*For example only. Wage cost before payroll taxes, tools, and supervision time; a rough +10-15% for employer payroll taxes is typical. Confirm current minimum-wage floors in your state and city.

For many owners, the cost is manageable on a per-hour basis but lands as a lump on payroll before the intern's work has generated any return — which is exactly the cash-flow timing problem that financing solves.

Funding the hire without straining cash flow

The awkward part of a good intern hire is timing. You commit to 12 weeks of payroll now; the email list they rebuild, the receivables they clean up, or the extra jobs the trade assistant lets you take on show up later. If your bank balance is seasonal or your receivables are slow, that gap is where owners hesitate — and lose a strong candidate to a competitor who moved faster.

This is where revenue-based financing through an MCA marketplace fits. Instead of underwriting on your credit score, these funders approve on your bank deposits and revenue — they want to see consistent cash flowing through your account. Typical parameters: funding from around $10,000, FICO 500+ considered, and a decision in 24-48 hours. Repayment flexes with your deposits rather than hitting as a fixed bank-loan installment, which lines up with the reality that an intern's payoff builds over the term.

Used deliberately — to bridge a defined payroll cost against near-term revenue — it's a reasonable tool. It is not free money, and no legitimate funder guarantees approval; anyone who does is a red flag. See our guide to revenue-based financing for how pricing and repayment actually work, and our payroll funding overview for the broader picture on covering labor costs.

Decision framework: when funding the hire makes sense — and when to skip it

Financing a payroll cost is a cash-flow decision, not a growth trophy. Use this frame before you apply.

It works best when:

• Your business has steady, provable monthly deposits — funders read your bank statements, and consistency is what gets you approved.
• The intern is tied to a revenue-generating project (sales support, marketing that drives leads, a trade assistant who lets you accept more jobs) with a clear payoff inside a few months.
• You're bridging a timing gap, not a hole — the money is there over the quarter, just not on this payday.
• You can service the daily or weekly repayment out of ongoing cash flow without choking your other obligations.

Avoid it when:

• The intern is a "nice to have" with no line to revenue — pay for that out of operating cash or wait.
• Your deposits are thin or erratic; if cash flow can't comfortably absorb the repayment, financing turns a small cost into a real strain.
• You're using it to paper over a structural revenue problem. Financing a hire won't fix a business that isn't generating enough in the first place.
• A cheaper, slower option covers it — a line of credit, savings, or simply scoping the internship smaller.

Setting the intern up to actually help

Whether or not you finance the hire, the return depends on how you run the internship. The pattern among owners who get real value:

• Scope one meaningful project with a deliverable, not a grab bag of errands. "Rebuild and segment our customer list, then run three campaigns" beats "help with marketing."
• Assign one point person to supervise. Interns fail when nobody owns them; they thrive with a single go-to for questions.
• Front-load the training. The first week costs you time; weeks four through twelve pay it back. Budget the supervision hours honestly.
• Document as you go. An intern building your first standard operating procedures leaves you an asset that outlasts the internship.
• Treat it as a hiring pipeline. The best small-business interns become your next full-time employee — you've already trained and vetted them.