Entrepreneurial Internship Program

For Employers

The Entrepreneurial Internship Program supports employers with innovative and entrepreneurial internships. Eligible internships may be offered by startups, small businesses, nonprofits, or existing organizations with innovative initiatives. Internships must be educational in nature. Internships are educational in nature – employers are expected to provide weekly mentorship and guidance to students.

These internships provide experiential learning opportunities where students apply  skills like market research, product design and management, financial analysis, operations and more in a business context.

Employers benefit by building an early career talent pipeline with outstanding interdisciplinary students from diverse backgrounds.

Step 1: Check eligibility 

Your internship opportunity is eligible for our Entrepreneurial Internship Program if:

  • Your company is a new venture that is less than 10 years old and has raised less than $5 Million cumulatively since inception, or
  • The role itself is innovative and entrepreneurial in nature — for example, market research and analysis, marketing and sales, product design and  development, product management, financial projections for a new product or service, entrepreneurial strategic planning, or similar roles.
  • Non-profit or private sector companies with a clear social impact mission and measurable outcomes are eligible and will be considered for the Saul B. Hamond Entrepreneurial Summer Internship Fund.

Your company must also commit to the following rules of engagement:

  • The company agrees that the internship will serve as a learning opportunity for the student. Please consult the “Paid and Unpaid Internships” section of Tufts’ Employer Policies page to ensure you are in compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
  • The company must commit to providing one-to-one mentorship to the student on a weekly basis.
  • For employers exploring student interns who are taking course credit for the engagement, please also review the course syllabus to ensure you understand our expectations for you, and for your student intern.

Step 2: Post a student job

  • Create a job listing, preferably on Tufts’s Handshake platform, which gets the best circulation with Tufts students and is the official job listing platform supported by the Tufts Career Office.
  • Follow these instructions to post a job on Handshake. Handshake is Tufts’ job listing platform for students. Handshake partners with SIFT and Persona on their employer validation process which may take a few days to complete.
  • Contact Sue Atkins, Associate Director of Employer Relations at Tufts to expedite the process. (You can also use a link to a job listing on a platform of your choice, but Handshake has far better circulation within Tufts so it is worth the investment.)
  • With a Handshake link and/or your own job listing link, you can now submit the internship job listings on our curated job list below. Please do so by February 28, 2024.
READ HANDSHAKE INSTRUCTIONS
EXAMPLE JOB POSTING
POST A JOB

Step 3: Interview and hire intern

  • Arrange an interview with the Tufts student candidate according to your company’s normal hiring process.
  • For the Fall and Spring course credit option: Extend an offer to selected student interns, and complete the employer intake form.
  • For the summer internship grant option: Extend an offer to selected student interns, including emailing a formal offer letter electronically to the student.

Step 4: Confirm acceptance and start date

  • For the Fall and Spring course credit option: Confirm with the student about the start and end dates for the semester.
  • For the summer internship grant option: Communicate with students by early April on grant funding. Confirm start date with student intern by mid-April.