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Brownsville: BINAB 1.105
Edinburg: ESTAC 2.101

Email: careercenter@utrgv.edu

Phone: Brownsville (956) 882-5627
Phone: Edinburg (956) 665-2243

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UTRGV Recruitment Policy
Internship Listing Agreement
Employer Internship Guide
Internship Guidelines
Internship Best Practices

Explore, Identify, Recruit

Explore

Before considering internships, it is important to first recognize the types of student positions and select the appropriate type for your organization based on the elements of each role. What position type is best suited for you based on your organizational needs?

Identify

Assess internal readiness to teach and manage student interns. Develop learning objectives, student qualifications, and job descriptions. While working with the Internship Program Manager, you will receive support in the following areas.

Assessing Internal Readiness
Determining Your Student Audience
Develop Learning Objectives
Do's and Don'ts of an Internship Job Description
How to Effectively Manage Interns

Recruit

The first step to reaching the greatest number of students is to post your internship in Handshake, a centralized job and internship database serving UTRGV students. Before posting your internship, we recommend reviewing our Internship Listing Agreement and Internship Guidelines to ensure your position meets UTRGV recruitment and approval policies.

The Career Center offers a variety of options to help you connect with the talent that is right for you. Visit our Develop a Campus Plan page to learn about all of our engagement options and choose the best course of action based on your time and budget.

Criteria for an Experience to Be Defined as an Internship

To ensure that an experience—whether it is a traditional internship or one conducted remotely or virtually—is educational, and thus eligible to be considered a legitimate internship by the NACE definition, all the following criteria must be met:

The experience must be an extension of the classroom: a learning experience that provides for applying the knowledge gained in the classroom. It must not be simply to advance the operations of the employer or be the work that a regular employee would routinely perform.
The skills or knowledge learned must be transferable to other employment settings.
The experience has a defined beginning and end, and a job description with desired qualifications.
There are clearly defined learning objectives/goals related to the professional goals of the student’s academic coursework.
There is supervision by a professional with expertise and educational and/or professional background in the field of the experience.
There is routine feedback by the experienced supervisor.
There are resources, equipment, and facilities provided by the host employer that support learning objectives/goals.

If these criteria are followed, it is the opinion of NACE that the experience can be considered a legitimate internship. Visit the NACE website for more information.

FLSA Standards

If you are considering an unpaid internship the position must be compliant with the Department of Labor’s Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The Test for Unpaid Interns and Students Courts have used the “primary beneficiary test” to determine whether an intern or student is, in fact, an employee under the FLSA.

In short, this test allows courts to examine the “economic reality” of the intern-employer relationship to determine which party is the “primary beneficiary” of the relationship. Courts have identified the following seven factors as part of the test:

The extent to which the intern and the employer clearly understand that there is no expectation of compensation. Any promise of compensation, express or implied, suggests that the intern is an employee—and vice versa.
The extent to which the internship provides training that would be similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, including the clinical and other hands-on training provided by educational institutions.
The extent to which the internship is tied to the intern’s formal education program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit.
The extent to which the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments by corresponding to the academic calendar.
The extent to which the internship’s duration is limited to the period in which the internship provides the intern with beneficial learning.
The extent to which the intern’s work complements, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern.
The extent to which the intern and the employer understand that the internship is conducted without entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship.

Additional information on FLSA can be found here: https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf

Limitations of Unpaid Internships

UTRGV Career Center does not accept unpaid internships in the following categories: sales, social media marketing, administrative support, reception, customer service, graphic design, and anything related to computer support or programming, technical work, or internships that are 100% virtual.

Risk Management

The hiring party will assume liability for interns on their premises. This holds true for both paid and unpaid interns.

Equal Employment Opportunity

The UTRGV Career Center reserves the right to refuse service to those who unlawfully discriminate in the selection of employees on the basis of age, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or any other basis prohibited by applicable Federal and State laws.

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