Business Development Intern Job Description Templates
Business development intern job description templates: 6 variants for paid, unpaid, and remote interns, with pay benchmarks and the DOL test. Free DOCX.
Business Development Intern Job Description Templates
6 free templates for small teams hiring their first or next BD intern: paid, outbound, research, partnerships, academic credit, and remote. Download as DOCX.
Most business development intern job descriptions you can copy online were written by companies with a campus recruiting program. They assume a structured cohort, a rotation schedule, a compensation band signed off by someone in HR, and a pipeline of applicants who found you at a career fair. If you run a small company, none of that describes your situation.
What you have instead is a founder or a sales lead who needs help at the top of the funnel, a budget that is real but modest, and about forty minutes to write the posting. The risk is not that you write something too long. It is that you write something so generic that it attracts fifty resumes and tells you nothing about which three are worth a call.
At FirstHR we build hiring templates for that reader. The six below cover a general paid internship, an outbound prospecting internship, a market research role, a partnerships role, an unpaid academic credit version, and a remote part-time version, each with the classification and pay notes the generic postings skip. The rest of the category sits in our hiring templates library.
TL;DR
A business development intern supports the top of the funnel: research, list building, drafted outreach, and meeting booking, not closing. A paid intern at a for-profit company is a non-exempt employee owed minimum wage and overtime. Unpaid is legal only when the Department of Labor primary beneficiary test genuinely favors the intern. Six templates below.
What a Business Development Intern Actually Does
A business development intern feeds the top of the sales funnel and does not close. The realistic scope is account research, prospect list building and hygiene, drafting outreach for review, booking introductory meetings, taking call notes, and keeping the CRM honest. Everything past the first meeting belongs to someone with a quota.
That boundary matters more at a small company than at a large one, because there is nobody standing between the intern and a live customer conversation. The upside is that a good intern learns faster in ten weeks with you than in a year inside a rotation program. The downside is that a badly scoped internship burns a customer relationship in week three.
Full-time summer cohort
Ten to twelve weeks
The classic shape: a defined term, full days, and a project with a deliverable at the end. Best when you have enough pipeline work to fill a real week and a mentor with time to review output daily.
Part-time during the term
Ten to twenty hours a week
Cheaper, longer, and easier to staff around classes. The tradeoff is momentum: outreach that stops for four days loses its thread, so give the part-time intern research and list work rather than live sequences.
Remote part-time
Widest candidate pool
Opens you to students outside your city, but the intern’s work state sets minimum wage, payroll registration, and paystub rules. Decide which states you will hire in before the posting goes up.
Academic credit, unpaid
The hardest one to run
Legal only when the internship is genuinely educational and the intern is the primary beneficiary. It requires a faculty sponsor, a course tie-in, and real supervision. When in doubt, pay instead.
Write the Deliverable Before You Write the Posting
The single best predictor of a useful internship is whether you decided the end-of-term output before the term started. One market map. One qualified account list of a stated size. One partner pipeline with named contacts and stages. Pick the deliverable, then work backward into the weekly tasks that produce it. A posting written from a real deliverable reads as a real job, which is why strong applicants answer it.
Paid or Unpaid Is the First Decision
Pay the intern. That is the short answer for almost every small company, and business development is a harder case for unpaid work than most functions, because prospecting is production work by definition. If the intern is building a list you will sell from, you are the beneficiary.
The legal question is settled by the primary beneficiary test the Department of Labor applies to internships under the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is a flexible seven-factor analysis in which no single factor decides the outcome, and courts examine the economic reality of the relationship to work out which side is the primary beneficiary.
No expectation of compensation
Both sides have to understand, in writing, that the internship is unpaid. Any promise of pay, express or implied, points toward employee status. A stipend that looks like wages is a promise of pay whatever you call it, and a bonus tied to meetings booked is compensation by any reading.
Training like an educational environment
The internship should resemble what a school would teach, including hands-on training of the kind an educational institution provides. Sitting a student on a prospect list for twenty hours a week is production work, not instruction. Structured shadowing, reviewed drafts, and a mentor who explains why an email failed are instruction.
Tied to a formal education program
Integrated coursework or academic credit strengthens the case, but credit on its own does not decide it. A faculty sponsor who signs off, a course number, and an assessment that the school grades are what make this factor real. Get the school agreement in writing before the start date, not during week three.
Complements rather than displaces paid staff
If the intern is doing work you would otherwise hire someone to do, and doing it under close supervision is not the point, the analysis turns against you fast. Complementary work sits alongside an employee who is still doing the job. Displacement is when the employee is gone and the intern covers the gap.
Accommodates the academic calendar and stops when learning does
Two related factors. The schedule should bend around classes and exams rather than the other way around, and the internship should last only as long as it keeps providing beneficial learning. A credit-bearing internship that runs three semesters at the same tasks has stopped teaching and started staffing.
No entitlement to a paid job at the end
Both sides should understand that the internship does not come with a job offer attached. You can still convert a strong intern, and most good programs do. What you cannot do is dangle a role as the unpaid consideration for months of work, which is exactly the arrangement the test is designed to catch.
Read those factors against a normal business development internship and the tension is obvious. Sending outreach at volume is not training that resembles an educational environment, and a list the sales team works is not complementary to paid staff, it is the paid staff job. Several states also apply stricter tests than the federal one. Our guide to hiring interns works through the decision in more depth.
Academic Credit Does Not Settle the Question
The most common misunderstanding is that granting or receiving course credit makes an internship lawfully unpaid. It does not. Credit is one factor among several, and it counts most when it comes with a faculty sponsor, a course number, and an assessment the school actually grades. An arrangement where a student finds a credit-bearing course to justify unpaid work you already planned is the fact pattern the test was written to catch. Get the school agreement in writing before the start date, and if the analysis feels close, pay.
What Belongs in the Posting
An intern posting does four jobs at once: it explains the company to someone who has never heard of you, it filters out applicants who want something else, it protects you legally, and it closes the candidate against a competing offer. Most small company postings do only the first.
The parts students read first
What the company sells and to whom, in two sentences
Paid or unpaid, stated in the first screen
Exact term dates and hours per week
Who the intern reports to, by role
The parts that filter applicants
The three or four tasks that fill most of the week
Tools the intern will use
Any required calling or overlap window
Whether remote is allowed, and from which states
The parts that protect you
FLSA classification stated on the posting
No promise of a paid job at the end
No authority to bind the company
Equal opportunity statement
The parts that win the hire
The hourly rate, or a good-faith range
A named mentor and a weekly one-to-one
A defined project with a real deliverable
What conversion to a full-time offer would require
The omission that costs the most is the rate. Students compare offers on hourly pay before anything else, and a posting that says competitive compensation gets skipped by exactly the candidates who have other options. The general structure of a strong posting is covered in our guide to writing a job description.
6 Business Development Intern Job Description Templates to Download
Download all six as one file or copy them individually. Each follows the same structure: company overview, position summary, key responsibilities, required qualifications, a classification and compliance note, an equal opportunity statement, and how to apply. The bracketed fields are the only parts you need to change.
Download All 6 Business Development Intern Job Description Templates
Paid general, outbound prospecting, market research, partnerships, academic credit, and remote part-time. All in one download.
Business Development Intern
Paid, general purpose
The default posting for a small company adding its first or next intern to the top of the funnel, with a learning plan and a named mentor built in.
Outbound Prospecting Intern
Lists, email, and calls
For an internship built around starting conversations, with activity targets, approved messaging, and the calling and bonus rules stated plainly.
Market Research and Lead Gen
Research-first
For sizing a new segment or geography, with sourcing rules, a documented methodology, and a written recommendation as the deliverable.
Partnerships and Channel
Ecosystem mapping
For building a referral or reseller channel, with partner qualification, pipeline tracking, and an explicit no-authority-to-bind clause.
Academic Credit Intern
Unpaid, use with care
For a genuine credit-bearing internship, written around learning objectives, faculty sponsorship, and the primary beneficiary factors.
Remote Part-Time Intern
Distributed team
For a remote internship, with fixed overlap hours, written check-ins, and the multi-state wage and reimbursement questions flagged up front.
Template 1: Business Development Intern (Paid)
The default posting for a small company adding an intern to the top of the funnel, with a learning plan, a named mentor, and an explicit statement of what the role is not.
Business Development Intern Job Description (Paid)
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT INTERN JOB DESCRIPTION (PAID)
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Founder / Head of Sales / Business Development Manager]
•Present findings and results at the end of the term
WHAT THIS ROLE IS NOT
•Not a quota-carrying closing role. You will not own a number.
•Not unpaid, and not contingent on unpaid trial work.
•Not coffee runs and filing. If a task teaches nothing, tell your mentor.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•Currently enrolled in or recently completed a [business, marketing,
communications, or related] program, or equivalent demonstrated interest
•Clear written English and comfort on the phone
•Basic spreadsheet skills; [CRM] experience is a plus, not a requirement
•Available [hours per week] between [dates]
•Curiosity and the willingness to be corrected on your first fifty emails
CLASSIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE NOTE (read before posting)
A paid intern at a for-profit company is an employee. That means non-exempt:
minimum wage under the highest applicable federal, state, or local rate, and
overtime past forty hours in a workweek. Track hours from day one. Do not use an
independent contractor agreement to avoid this when you set the schedule, the
tools, and the method. Complete Form I-9 and state new hire reporting exactly as
you would for any other employee. This is general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per hour, [transit or stipend], [conversion policy]
To apply, email __ with your resume and a short note on one
company you think we should be selling to and why.
Template 2: Outbound Prospecting Intern
For an internship built around starting conversations, with activity targets, approved messaging, and the calling and bonus rules stated plainly. If the role is really a full outbound seat, use the sales development representative templates instead.
Outbound Prospecting Intern Job Description
OUTBOUND PROSPECTING INTERN JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Sales Manager / Head of Business Development]
Employment type: Paid intern, [part-time, ___ hours per week]
Template 3: Market Research and Lead Generation Intern
For sizing a new segment or geography, with approved sourcing rules, a documented methodology, and a written recommendation as the end-of-term deliverable.
Market Research and Lead Generation Intern Job Description
MARKET RESEARCH AND LEAD GENERATION INTERN JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Head of Business Development / Marketing Lead]
Employment type: Paid intern, [part-time, ___ hours per week]
[Company Name] is deciding where to point its sales effort next: [new segment,
new geography, new vertical]. This internship is the research arm of that
decision. The output is a written map of the market and a qualified list we can
work, not a slide deck nobody opens.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Market Research and Lead Generation Intern sizes target segments, profiles
competitors, identifies qualified accounts and contacts, and delivers written
findings the sales team can act on.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Define and size [number] candidate segments using public and licensed sources
•Profile [number] competitors on positioning, pricing signals, and target buyer
•Build a qualified account list of [number] companies with named contacts
•Document sources and methodology so the work can be repeated next term
•Interview [number] current customers on why they bought, with supervision
•Write a weekly one-page summary and a final written recommendation
•Load qualified records into [CRM] with consistent fields and tags
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•Enrolled in or recently completed a [business, economics, marketing, or
related] program, or equivalent demonstrated research ability
•Strong spreadsheet skills: filtering, lookups, and clean data structure
•Writing that states a conclusion first and supports it second
•Skeptical about sources and willing to say when the data is thin
•Available [hours per week] between [dates]
CLASSIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE NOTE
Paid interns at for-profit companies are non-exempt employees: minimum wage and
overtime apply, and research work does not change that. Two research-specific
points belong in the posting. Data sourcing has terms: scraping a site or reusing
a licensed database against its terms of service is a real exposure, and it is
your exposure, not the intern’s. Contact data on individuals may fall under state
privacy laws depending on where the contacts live and how the data was obtained.
Give the intern a written list of approved sources rather than assuming judgment.
This is general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per hour, [software and data tool access provided]
To apply, email __ with your resume and one paragraph on a
market you find interesting and why it is underserved.
Template 4: Partnerships and Channel Development Intern
For building a referral or reseller channel, with partner qualification criteria, pipeline tracking, and an explicit clause stating the intern has no authority to bind the company.
Partnerships and Channel Development Intern Job Description
PARTNERSHIPS AND CHANNEL DEVELOPMENT INTERN JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Founder / Head of Partnerships]
Employment type: Paid intern, [part-time, ___ hours per week]
Some of our best customers arrive through other companies rather than through
our own outreach: [referral partners, resellers, agencies, associations,
complementary vendors]. This internship builds that channel deliberately instead
of leaving it to chance.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Partnerships Intern researches and qualifies potential partners, prepares
partner-facing materials, supports first conversations, and tracks the pipeline
of partner relationships from introduction through first referral.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Map the ecosystem around [our product]: who already serves our buyer
•Qualify [number] candidate partners against [fit criteria]
•Prepare the one-page partner overview and refresh it as offers change
•Draft partner outreach and schedule introductory calls for [supervisor]
•Take notes in partner calls and track commitments and follow-up dates
•Maintain the partner pipeline in [CRM or tracker] with stage and owner
•Support [co-marketing, webinar, event] logistics with [marketing]
•Summarize what each partner type is worth, in referrals and in revenue
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•Comfortable in conversation with people more senior than you
•Organized follow-up: partnerships die from silence more than from rejection
•Clear writing for external audiences
•Interest in [our industry] and how companies in it work together
•Available [hours per week] between [dates]
CLASSIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE NOTE
Paid interns are non-exempt employees: track hours and pay overtime past forty in
a workweek. Partnership work adds two cautions worth stating in the posting.
An intern should never sign anything on the company’s behalf, so state plainly
that no authority to bind the company is granted and route every agreement to
[named approver]. Referral fees and revenue share arrangements carry tax and, in
regulated industries, licensing consequences, so any commercial term is proposed
by the intern and approved by [role] before it is offered. This is general
information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per hour, [travel or event budget]
To apply, email __ with your resume and the name of one
company you think should be sending us customers.
Template 5: Academic Credit Intern (Unpaid)
For a genuine credit-bearing internship, written around learning objectives, faculty sponsorship, and the primary beneficiary factors. Read the compliance note in full before you use it.
Academic Credit Business Development Intern Job Description (Unpaid)
ACADEMIC CREDIT BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT INTERN JOB DESCRIPTION (UNPAID)
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Named mentor and title]
Employment type: Unpaid internship for academic credit
Term: [start date] to [end date], aligned to the [school] academic calendar
Hours: [number] per week, scheduled around class commitments
School and course: [institution], [course number and title]
Faculty sponsor: [name and email]
READ THIS FIRST
Unpaid is the hardest version of this posting to run legally, and most small
companies should pay instead. Use this template only when the internship is
genuinely educational, tied to a course, supervised by a named mentor, and set
up so the intern is the primary beneficiary of the arrangement. If the intern is
doing work you would otherwise hire someone to do, pay them.
POSITION SUMMARY
This internship gives a student structured, supervised exposure to business
development at a small company: market research, account profiling, outreach
mechanics, and pipeline review, tied to coursework and assessed for credit.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES (tied to [course])
•Apply segmentation and ideal customer profile concepts to a live market
•Observe and document a full sales cycle from first touch to decision
•Build and defend a research-backed account list
•Produce a written market analysis assessed by [faculty sponsor]
•Present findings to company leadership at the end of the term
SUPERVISED ACTIVITIES
•Shadow discovery and pipeline review meetings
•Research accounts and draft profiles reviewed by the mentor
•Draft outreach for review as a writing exercise, sent only under supervision
•Weekly one-to-one with the mentor on progress and feedback
•Mid-term and end-of-term written self-assessment
WHAT THIS INTERNSHIP DOES NOT INCLUDE
•No production work that displaces a paid employee
•No revenue quota, no meeting target, no commission
•No entitlement to a paid job at the end, and none is implied
•No expectation of compensation of any kind, express or implied
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•Current enrollment with a faculty sponsor who will approve credit in writing
•Coursework in [field] or demonstrated preparation
•Available [hours per week] within the academic term
CLASSIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE NOTE (read before posting)
Whether an unpaid intern at a for-profit company is legally an employee turns on
the primary beneficiary test the Department of Labor applies, a flexible
seven-factor analysis with no single deciding factor. The factors look at whether
both sides understand there is no expectation of pay, whether the training
resembles what a school would provide, whether the internship is tied to a formal
education program or credit, whether it accommodates the academic calendar,
whether its length is limited to the period of beneficial learning, whether the
intern’s work complements rather than displaces paid employees, and whether both
sides understand there is no promise of a paid job at the end. Academic credit
alone does not settle it. Some states apply stricter tests than the federal one.
Get the school agreement in writing before the start date, and if the analysis is
close, pay the intern. This is general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
HOW TO APPLY
Email __ with your resume, your course details, and your
faculty sponsor’s contact information.
Template 6: Remote Part-Time Intern
For a remote internship, with fixed overlap hours, written check-ins, and the multi-state wage and reimbursement questions flagged up front. Pair it with the internship offer letter template once you pick someone.
Remote Part-Time Business Development Intern Job Description
REMOTE PART-TIME BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT INTERN JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State])
Reports to: [Head of Sales / Founder]
Employment type: Paid intern, remote, [number] hours per week
Term: [start date] to [end date]
Work location: Remote within [approved states or country]
[Company Name] runs a distributed team and hires interns the same way. This
internship is fully remote and part-time, built around a fixed weekly schedule
with real overlap hours so you are not working alone in a vacuum.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Remote Business Development Intern researches accounts, builds and maintains
prospect lists, drafts approved outreach, and keeps [CRM] accurate, working on a
set schedule with a daily written check-in and a weekly video review.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Work a fixed weekly schedule with [number] overlap hours in [time zone]
•Research and qualify accounts against our ideal customer profile
•Maintain list hygiene and data quality in [CRM]
•Draft outreach for review; send only from approved sequences
•Post a short written check-in at the start and end of each shift
•Join the weekly pipeline call on video with the sales team
•Deliver one documented project per [month] with a written writeup
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•Reliable internet, a quiet call environment, and a working camera
•Self-directed: you will not be watched, you will be measured
•Clear written communication, because most of it will be written
•Legally authorized to work in [country], resident in [approved states]
•Available [hours per week] on a schedule agreed in advance
CLASSIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE NOTE
Remote does not mean flexible in the legal sense. A remote paid intern is a
non-exempt employee whose hours must be recorded, including short tasks done
outside the scheduled shift, and overtime is owed past forty hours in a
workweek. Location matters: the intern’s work state generally sets minimum wage,
payroll tax registration, sick leave, and paystub rules, so decide which states
you are willing to hire in before you post. Equipment and internet
reimbursement is required in several states. Interns working from outside the
country are a different arrangement entirely and need advice before you offer.
This is general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ per hour, [equipment or stipend], [tool access]
To apply, email __ with your resume and your available
weekly schedule in your own time zone.
What to Pay a Business Development Intern
There is no Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation code for interns of any kind, so no national median exists for this title. Benchmark instead against the classifications whose duties overlap: telemarketers and general office clerks for the mechanics of the work, sales representatives of services and market research analysts for the job the intern is training toward.
National Benchmarks for Adjacent Occupations
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), telemarketers earned a median of $17.04 per hour and general office clerks $21.64 per hour, with tenth percentiles of $13.00 and $14.57. Sales representatives of services earned a median of $33.65 per hour ($69,990 per year) and market research analysts and marketing specialists $37.87 per hour ($78,760 per year), with tenth percentiles of $18.26 and $20.86 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS national estimates).
Benchmark occupation (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
10th percentile
25th percentile
Median
How to use it for an intern rate
Telemarketers
$13.00 per hour
$14.25 per hour
$17.04 per hour
Closest match for a phone-first prospecting internship; treat it as a floor, not a target
Office clerks, general
$14.57 per hour
$17.48 per hour
$21.64 per hour
The right comparison when the term is mostly list building and CRM hygiene
Sales representatives of services
$18.26 per hour
$22.92 per hour
$33.65 per hour
The job the intern is training toward; medians include commission on closed business
Market research analysts and marketing specialists
$20.86 per hour
$28.05 per hour
$37.87 per hour
Use when the internship is segmentation and market sizing rather than outreach
A defensible rate for a small company sits between the tenth and twenty-fifth percentile of those entry-level comparisons, adjusted for your local market and never below the highest applicable federal, state, or local minimum wage. Publish the number, or a good-faith range where pay transparency laws apply, because students screen on it first.
One more consideration. Interns talk to each other, and a rate that undercuts what the same school placed elsewhere costs you next year as much as this year. If the budget is genuinely tight, a shorter term at a fair rate beats a longer term at a rate you would be embarrassed to publish.
Companies Using FirstHR Onboard 3x Faster
Join hundreds of small businesses who transformed their new hire experience.
A paid business development intern is a non-exempt employee: hourly, hours recorded, and overtime owed past forty hours in a workweek. No exemption fits. The administrative and professional tests do not describe list building, and the outside sales exemption requires customarily and regularly working away from the place of business making sales, which an intern does not do.
That has a practical consequence people miss with interns specifically. Short bursts of work outside the scheduled shift still count: an intern answering prospect replies from a phone at nine in the evening is working. Our breakdown of exempt versus non-exempt classification and our guide to overtime rules cover the tests and the math.
Decision
What it means for a BD intern
Where teams get it wrong
Classification
Non-exempt hourly employee at a for-profit company
Treating a salaried stipend as if it removes the overtime obligation
Time tracking
Every hour recorded, including short tasks outside the shift
Assuming a part-time intern never crosses forty hours in a peak week
Meeting bonus
Non-discretionary, so it enters the regular rate for overtime
Paying per meeting and calculating overtime on base rate alone
Contractor status
Not available when you set schedule, tools, and method
Issuing a 1099 to avoid payroll setup for a twelve-week hire
Remote work state
Sets minimum wage, payroll registration, and paystub rules
Hiring a student who goes home to another state mid-term
Outreach authority
Drafts reviewed, sequences approved, no authority to bind
Giving an intern an unmonitored inbox in the company name
If you pay a fixed amount per qualified meeting booked, that is a non-discretionary bonus, and under the federal rules on commissions in the regular rate it generally has to be included in the regular rate used to compute overtime for the period it covers. Calculating overtime on base pay alone is one of the most common wage errors in small sales teams.
Outreach itself is regulated, and an intern is the person most likely to trip it. Business-to-business calling sits outside much of the Telemarketing Sales Rule, but the exemptions are narrower than people assume and consumer-facing calling brings do-not-call, disclosure, and calling-hour obligations with real penalties. Read the Federal Trade Commission guidance on complying with the Telemarketing Sales Rule before you hand over a dialer, and check your state rules on call recording, because several require consent from every party on the line.
Running an Internship Without an HR Department
Small company internships fail in three predictable places: nobody scoped the work, the hiring timeline loses to employers who post nine months ahead, and the onboarding paperwork costs as much as a permanent hire for a twelve-week tenure. Each has a fix.
The intern arrives and nobody has decided what they will actually do
This is the failure mode at small companies, and it is almost never malice. The founder posts the internship in April with a vague idea about lead generation, the term starts in June during a busy stretch, and the intern spends week one cleaning a spreadsheet nobody reads. The fix is to write the deliverable before the posting: one market map, one qualified list of a stated size, one written recommendation presented at the end. Then work backward to the weekly tasks. A posting written from a real deliverable also reads as a real job, which is why the strongest applicants answer it and the tourists do not.
You are competing for the same students as companies with recruiting budgets
Large employers post in September for the following summer, run campus events, and pay rates a small company usually cannot match. You will not win on any of that, so compete on the things a small team genuinely has: proximity to the founder, real customer conversations in week two rather than month three, one mentor instead of a rotation, and a decision timeline measured in days. Put those in the posting rather than saving them for the interview. Then move quickly, because the strongest candidates are usually holding one other offer with a deadline attached.
Onboarding an intern costs the same paperwork as a full-time hire, for a tenth of the tenure
This is the part small teams underestimate. A twelve-week intern still needs an offer letter, Form I-9 verification within the statutory window, state new hire reporting, payroll setup, a signed handbook acknowledgment, a confidentiality agreement, tool and CRM access, and a written schedule, and then all of it has to be unwound in twelve weeks. FirstHR was built for that kind of repeatable burst. The onboarding wizard runs the same sequence for every intern, e-signature handles the offer letter and the policy acknowledgments, document management keeps the signed forms against each profile, and training modules deliver the outreach and data-handling rules before the first call. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Once the offer is signed, the work becomes a repeatable onboarding checklist with a start date and an end date set at the same time. If the intern converts to a full-time seat later, the business development representative templates are the natural next posting.
Key Takeaways
A business development intern supports the top of the funnel with research, list building, drafted outreach, and meeting booking, and should not carry a quota or authority to sign anything.
A paid intern at a for-profit company is a non-exempt employee owed at least the highest applicable minimum wage and overtime past forty hours in a workweek.
Unpaid is legal only when the Department of Labor primary beneficiary test genuinely favors the intern, and prospecting work is a hard fit for that test because it is production work.
Academic credit is one factor in the analysis, not a permission slip, and it counts most when it comes with a faculty sponsor, a course tie-in, and a graded assessment.
There is no BLS occupation code for interns; benchmark against May 2025 medians of $17.04 per hour for telemarketers, $21.64 for general office clerks, and $33.65 for sales representatives of services.
A per-meeting bonus is non-discretionary and generally enters the regular rate used to calculate overtime, so paying overtime on base rate alone understates what is owed.
An intern costs the same onboarding paperwork as a permanent hire and stays a tenth as long. FirstHR runs the same sequence every term, with e-signature for the offer letter and acknowledgments, document storage for the signed forms, and training modules for the outreach and data rules before the first call. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a business development intern do?
A business development intern supports the top of the sales funnel rather than closing deals. The work is account research, building and cleaning prospect lists, drafting outreach for review, booking introductory meetings for the sales team, taking notes on discovery calls, and keeping the CRM accurate. At a small company the intern often also runs a defined side project: sizing a new segment, profiling competitors, or mapping potential referral partners. What the role should not include is a quota, authority to sign anything, or unsupervised outreach in the company voice. The clearest way to scope it is to write the end-of-term deliverable first, then work backward to the weekly tasks that produce it.
Can a business development intern be unpaid?
Rarely, and most small companies should pay instead. Whether an unpaid intern at a for-profit company is legally an employee turns on the Department of Labor primary beneficiary test, a flexible seven-factor analysis with no single deciding factor. It weighs whether both sides understand there is no expectation of pay, whether the training resembles an educational environment, whether the internship is tied to formal coursework or credit, whether it accommodates the academic calendar, whether its duration is limited to the period of beneficial learning, whether the work complements rather than displaces paid employees, and whether both sides understand no paid job is promised. Business development work is unusually hard to square with that test, because prospecting is production work. Some states apply stricter standards than the federal one. If the analysis is close, pay the intern.
How much should you pay a business development intern?
There is no Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation code for interns, so no national median exists for this title. Benchmark against the classifications whose duties overlap. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), telemarketers earned a median of $17.04 per hour with a tenth percentile of $13.00, general office clerks a median of $21.64 with a tenth percentile of $14.57, sales representatives of services a median of $33.65 per hour or $69,990 per year with a tenth percentile of $18.26, and market research analysts and marketing specialists a median of $37.87 per hour with a tenth percentile of $20.86. A defensible intern rate sits between the tenth and twenty-fifth percentile of the entry-level comparisons, adjusted for your local market, and never below the highest applicable federal, state, or local minimum wage.
Is a business development intern exempt or non-exempt?
Non-exempt, in essentially every case. A paid intern at a for-profit company is an employee, and an intern doing prospecting and research does not meet the duties tests for the administrative, executive, or professional exemptions, nor the outside sales exemption, which requires that the employee customarily and regularly work away from the place of business making sales. That means hourly pay at or above the highest applicable minimum wage, recorded hours, and overtime past forty hours in a workweek. If you pay a non-discretionary bonus, for example a fixed amount per qualified meeting booked, that bonus generally has to be included in the regular rate used to compute overtime for the period it covers. Track hours from the first day rather than reconstructing them later.
What should a business development intern job description include?
Eight things. The company and what it sells in two sentences, so a student can tell whether the market interests them. Paid or unpaid, stated in the first screen. Exact term dates and hours per week. The three or four tasks that fill most of the week, written concretely rather than as aspirations. The tools the intern will use. The FLSA classification. A named mentor and a defined project with a real deliverable. And the rate, or a good-faith range where a pay transparency law requires one. Add an equal opportunity statement, an explicit note that no paid job is promised at the end, and for partnership-facing roles a line stating the intern has no authority to bind the company.
Should an intern get commission for booked meetings?
You can pay one, but understand what it does. A fixed amount per qualified meeting booked is a non-discretionary bonus, which means it generally has to be folded into the regular rate used to calculate overtime for the period it covers, and it changes the incentive: an intern paid per meeting will book meetings that are not real. At small companies the cleaner structure is a slightly higher hourly rate plus a discretionary end-of-term bonus tied to the quality of the project deliverable rather than to activity volume. If you do pay per meeting, define qualified in writing before the internship starts, name who decides, and cap the exposure. Never pay a percentage of closed revenue to an intern who is not licensed or authorized to sell.
How do you onboard a business development intern at a small company?
Treat it as the same sequence as a full-time hire, compressed. Before day one: signed offer letter with term dates and rate, Form I-9 verification within the statutory window, state new hire reporting, payroll setup, confidentiality agreement, and handbook acknowledgment. Day one: tool and CRM access, a written schedule, and the data-handling and outreach rules in writing rather than as folklore. Week one: the named mentor, the weekly one-to-one, and the project brief with its deliverable. Then set the offboarding date in the calendar at the start, because access removal and final pay rules are easy to forget for a twelve-week hire. FirstHR runs that sequence with e-signature, document storage, and training modules. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
