I’m an employer. I want an intern to work at my company / organization.

The internship director and committee can help assess if the employer meets our requirements when the employer provides a job description related to the internship opportunity. To ensure a quality experience for both the employer and intern, if an internship site doesn’t meet the following criteria, the student will be asked to look for another internship or they can independently complete the internship, but not receive credit.

-The internship must be related to journalism, advertising, public relations, social media or some other field in mass communication.
-The student intern must be supervised by a media or communication professional with a minimum of 3 years of experience in the industry who will mentor the intern and provide formal and informal feedback, including two written supervisor evaluations during the semester.
-Interns must be doing actual journalism, advertising, or public relations activities at least 80 percent of the time; minimal administrative or support duties may be performed.
-Interns must be given ample opportunities to perform work that will directly prepare them for work in the field and create items for their portfolios, packages or resumes.
-An intern may not replace a regular staff position.

Send a comprehensive job description to jams-internships@uwm.edu or to jrockow@uwm.edu. This job description should be kept to 1-page in length and include:

-Overview of company / organization
-Job duties
-Required skills and abilities
-Indicate if it is paid or unpaid. If it is paid, indicate the rate of pay or amount of stipend.
-Who will supervise the intern? Include the supervisor’s name, title, email and phone number.
-Anticipated start/end dates.
-Hours per week
-How applicants should apply and where resumes/cover letters should be sent.

Please keep job descriptions to one page. You may formulate your own job description or use our standard Internship Job Form. See FORMS link.

-The employer must provide a comprehensive job description for each internship opportunity.
-The internship site must have a focus on some form of media communication or an area/department within the site that does. (i.e. A manufacturing company with a marketing department would qualify)
-The student intern must be supervised by a person within the company or organization who has at least 3 years of experience working in some area of media communication (journalism, advertising, public relations, social media, etc.)
-The supervisor must fill out evaluations regarding the student intern’s performance twice a semester and return them to the internship coordinator.
-The student intern may not replace or fill a regular staff position.
-The intern’s duties must focus on journalism, advertising, social media, public relations or other media-related work. “Other duties” such as administrative work must account for less than 20 percent of their time on the job.
-The employer must be able to offer the intern approximately 10 – 12 hours of work per week and be flexible with the intern’s academic schedule.
-Interns must be provided ample opportunities to perform duties that will directly prepare them for work in the field and create items for their portfolios, packages or resumes.

No, but there are many reasons why you should. JAMS interns should be performing real work for your organization that you may otherwise have to pay a regular employee for doing. You will find students more interested in your internship opportunity if you offer them some monetary compensation. While we realize some nonprofits cannot afford to pay student interns, many find some way to offer interns minimum wage or a stipend when the internship has been completed. Even the smallest nonprofits often do this. We strongly encourage advertising agencies, news organizations and other for-profit businesses to compensate students for their work. We encourage nonprofits to pay interns if they are able.

That is something the employer and intern can work out. Many of our interns can perform some duties and responsibilities away from the employer’s physical location, such as social media content development. However, we highly recommend that you have an intern come into the office for a few hours weekly to offer them feedback, clarify assignment expectations, and to give them a sense of being a part of the team.

This is a one-page document that will be completed twice a semester. You will rate the intern’s skill level for things such as writing skills, motivation, ability to meet deadlines and other criteria. We additionally ask that you include a short narrative regarding the student’s performance (i.e. what they are doing well and where they could improve). Your feedback will be used to calculate a portion of the student’s grade, so it is important that you submit the evaluation to the internship coordinator.

We hope that you will first approach the student and discuss the situation with them. That’s usually all it takes to resolve any issues. However, if you have done that and there are still performance or other concerns, then contact the internship coordinator, Joette Rockow at jrockow@uwm.edu

If you and the student agree to this arrangement, absolutely. However, we may not be able to give the student additional credits for the internship if it lasts more than one semester. We look at these situations on a case-by-case basis.