What's the norm for intern pay?

May 15, 2025

by a searcher from Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management in Chicago, IL, USA

Hi all - I'm wrapping up fundraising for a traditional search and am beginning to think about building out my intern program. What's the norm for intern payment? Stipend, hourly, closing fee, undergrad vs. graduate, remote vs. on-site? Majority of the posts on this topic are 5+ years old so would appreciate some fresh insights!

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Reply by a professional
from The University of Chicago in Chicago, IL, USA

MBAs - no good Pay - bonuses If they are good at cold calls - pay stipend + bonuses Close fee - make it super generous - divide based on leadgen, email, etc We manage over 100 interns and have been doing that for ~5 years. Interns are great if you no how to manage them. My first traditional search fund we always had###-###-#### interns. I was able to close my deal in a year as well as finish 9 classes at the same time since we were scalable. (Had about###-###-#### meetings per week) hope this helps

Reply by a searcher
from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, USA

I've had a lot of discussions with people who utilized interns for their search. It's pretty unanimous that their interns are unpaid undergraduates sourced from the school they went to. They'd also try to work on-site with them as much as possible, but they'd recognize that it's hard to actually coordinate this and remote work is inevitable. One key takeaway that stood out to me is that good interns won't be happy if you have them only doing menial tasks (even if that's all you really need from them). I've heard multiple searchers say that they end up dedicating up to 50% of their interns' time doing work like basic financial modeling, market analysis, developing marketing strategies, etc., despite not actually needing any of this work. It keeps the interns engaged and gives them some practical experience that they're actually looking for, which, in turn, makes them perform better in the tasks that you actually need them to do. This may not be particularly actionable advice relative to the questions you're asking, but it may help provide some context in terms of what you'll likely end up getting in terms of interns.

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