IT industry offering the most number of paid internships, offering higher stipends

Concerning job roles, sales and business development (BD) tops the chart with a 42 percent share, followed by marketing (35 percent) and technology (14 percent).

Metro cities top in offering internships to students. These include Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune.

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Paid interns are hired at two levels: Students pursuing professional courses like an MBA who have an industry internship as a part of their course requirement constitute one category and are usually hired for three to six months.

Apprentices or trainees hired by organisations under skill enhancement schemes like National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) or National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS) form the other categories of interns, and they are hired for longer periods.

“Student interns hired form a smaller percentage of the overall hiring done by any organisation, usually less than 2-3 percent. However, the trainees or apprentices hired by an organisation can be up to 18 percent of their employee headcount as there is a push from the government also to encourage skill development among the youth by urging the industry to hire apprentices,” said Sonal Arora, country manager of Gi Group Holding India, a staffing services company.

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The roles here are machine operators/shop floor in the case of the manufacturing sector, and customer care and sales for other industries like FMCG, consumer durables and BFSI, etc.