by James Garton

Created on: April 16, 2009

You just landed a great internship with a company you hope offers future employment or opportunity to advance your skills and add experience to your resume. Your excited at the prospects of getting your foot in the door, and showing everyone what your made of. Then the cold hard facts of reality hit you. How do you pay for lunch, car insurance, rent, travel expenses, new work clothes? You need money for bills and daily living expenses but, your hindered by your internship, and school, so what do you do?

What I would like to do is share with you some practical tips so you can make money while working as an unpaid college intern.

1) Look for opportunity to earn in the company:

You have your foot in the door, the human resource staff are familiar with you, managers like your work, now use your popularity to make some money. Go to the company bulletin board and look for current job postings. See if you can apply for a position that will allow you to make money either after your internship hours, or transfer to a position that will still give you internship credit and pay you for your efforts.

An example of this would be a communications major that gets hired by a local radio station as a production assistant. Your duties as an intern is to attend live radio remotes and pass out fliers, and promotional items to the crowds. However, the company bulletin board has a job posted for a advertising account executive. The position offers you flexible hours, a salary, the opportunity to sell airtime and work with advertisers to produce their ad spots. If you get the job, your now going to learn as you earn.

2) Make money with your skills:

You will be surprised at how many small companies or non-profit organization still don't have a website. If your computer savvy then make the company an offer. Let them know that you will design and manage their website after your internship hours for a small fee. Now, you may not be computer savvy, but you may have other skills you can make available to the company for a fee. Freelance your skills, write press releases, brochures, grants applications, and earn money for your efforts.

3) Find a supplier and get paid a fee:

You may work for a company and a see that they spend a huge amount of money on a particular product or service,but you know of a supplier that can provide the same service or product for a lot less cost. What if you tried to become a independent agent, reseller, or affiliate with that supplier and make a proposal to the sell to the company your working for.

A supplier like Vista Print has a reseller program that allows you to make money selling business cards and stationary items that every company has a use for. If you see that the company your working as an intern with, spends a huge amount of money on stationary products, and you can save them money, they may be willing to order their supplies directly from you. The company saves money, and you make money not only now, but even after your internship is over with continued orders.

Working as an unpaid intern should not be a financial loss for you, but should be a challenge to see how you can earn a profit or gain an opportunity with the company your working for. The key to making money is to keep your eyes and ears open to opportunity for personal profit. Don't take on an attitude that your just a college student trying to earn credit, think like a businessperson. Look for ways to save money for the company your working for and in saving them money, figure out a way to profit from it.

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