CAREER INSIGHT · INTERNSHIPS
Internships and pre-placement offers: what our listings promise, and what they leave out
An internship can be the easiest way into a company or two months of unpaid errands. The listing rarely tells you which, but a few lines in it usually do.
Only 2 of 23 internship listings said an intern might be offered a full-time role. How long internships run, what they pay, and how PPOs really work.
Zudu AI's internship listing in Chennai is unusually plain. It is six months long, the stipend is ₹8,000 to ₹15,000 a month depending on skill with ₹15,000 the maximum, and if you complete it and perform well, you will be offered a full-time role. CityGreens is just as direct and less generous: a three-month unpaid internship on site, after which interns who show ability and ownership are offered a full-time position starting at ₹25,000 a month.
Those two were the exception. HireSetu had 23 live internship listings in late October 2026, from Honeywell, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Airbus, Qualcomm, Dell, HPE, Lam Research, UBS, Tesla, Marvell, JLL and others. Only Zudu AI and CityGreens said anything about conversion to a full-time job. Only two stated a stipend amount, and one said plainly that it was unpaid. Durations, where given, ranged from three months at JLL to six months at Airbus and Zudu AI to twelve months for Honeywell's FP&A internship.
Three lengths, three purposes
How long internships run, and what each length is for
- 6 to 10 weeks, usually summer
Pre-final-year students between semesters. Large companies use these to pick who gets a pre-placement offer before campus hiring.
- 3 to 6 months
Final-semester or recent graduates. Airbus's software internship and Zudu AI's run six months; JLL's data compliance role runs three.
- 12 months
Industrial training or apprenticeship-style roles, such as Honeywell's FP&A internship for CA students at ₹40,000 a month.
Check the start date against your college calendar before you accept. A six-month internship that starts in January needs a final semester your college will release you for.
How pre-placement offers usually work
A pre-placement offer, or PPO, is a full-time job offer made to an intern before the normal campus hiring round or in place of it. Companies that run structured summer programmes often plan for it: they hire interns partly to choose future employees, and an intern who does well may receive an offer at the end of the internship or before placements begin.
What decides a PPO is usually not brilliance on one task. Managers who make these calls tend to look for the same few things: whether you finished what you were given, whether you asked good questions early and avoided struggling silently, whether your work needed redoing, and whether the team would be glad to have you back. The listing will not tell you how many interns converted last year, but the intern coordinator often will if you ask once you have joined.
What interns who get offers tend to do
- Agree in week one what "done" looks like for the internship, in writing.
- Send a short weekly update: what you finished, what is blocked, what is next.
- Ask about a blocker within a day and skip hiding it for a week.
- Document your work so someone can use it after you leave.
- Present what you built at the end, briefly, to the team and not only to your manager.
Unpaid internships and fees
Unpaid internships are common at small companies and startups, and some are worth it for the experience. Weigh them honestly: can you afford three months without income, is the work real, and is the path to a paid role written down? If all three answers are yes, it can be a reasonable step. If the company is vague about the end, the work or the pay afterwards, the risk is yours alone.
Questions students ask about internships
Does an internship count as work experience?
It counts as relevant experience on a resume, and many "0 to 2 years" listings read it that way. Some freshers-only programmes still treat you as a fresher after internships, since they were not full-time employment.
Can I take an internship and still sit for campus placements?
Usually, but check your college's placement rules. Some colleges restrict students who have accepted a PPO from sitting for other companies.
Should I accept a PPO or wait for campus offers?
Compare the PPO with what you realistically expect from campus and leave out the best possible outcome. A certain offer from a team that knows your work is often worth more than a chance at a bigger name.
When an internship listing is silent on stipend, duration or conversion, ask all three in one short email before the interview round ends. Interns who know the terms up front can decide calmly, and the answers also tell you how organised the programme is.
References and further reading
Background reading on the topic of this article. HireSetu is not affiliated with these organisations.
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