Definition: Paid internships exist primarily in the private sector or in large organizations that have the money to pay students to learn while they work. Given a choice of paid or unpaid internship, paid internships are definitely the internships of choice. More and more organizations are recognizing the value of internship programs and the enormous benefit they play in the recruitment process. As these organizations work to train interns, they are also scrutinizing them on all fronts to evaluate them as potential future full time employees. For this reason, companies that can afford to pay their interns will usually make a decision to go ahead and do so. The pay may be in the form of an hourly wage or salary or some organizations offer a stipend paid in installments or as a lump sum based on the hours and weeks worked.

