Professional Internship Program
Real work, real supervision, and a straight answer on the law.
Structured industry experience for students and graduates — and a low-risk way for Australian businesses to meet the talent behind the résumé.
- Interns placed
- 8,000+Interns placed
- Host businesses
- 3,000+Host businesses
- Operating since
- Since 2007Operating since
- Typical placement
- 12 weeksTypical placement
A degree teaches theory. Australian employers hire for practice. The Professional Internship Program closes that gap — placing capable, career-ready students and graduates into real workplaces, under real supervision, doing work that genuinely relates to what they have studied.
For businesses, it is a structured way to access emerging talent and assess capability in a live setting before making a hiring commitment. For interns, it is the Australian workplace experience that turns a qualification into a career.
The process
How the program works
We understand your requirements
We meet with your business to map the projects, skills and supervision you can offer, and confirm the placement is a genuine learning opportunity rather than a substitute for a paid role.
We source and screen candidates
We shortlist students and graduates whose field of study aligns with the placement, and you interview and select the intern yourself.
We document the arrangement
Every placement is covered by a written internship agreement and a structured training plan setting out learning outcomes, duties, hours, supervision and duration.
We arrange insurance cover
Placements are covered by insurance arranged for the program, so both parties are protected for the duration of the internship.
We stay involved
We check in throughout the placement, monitor the learning outcomes, and operate a documented grievance process if concerns arise on either side.
We support what comes next
Where a placement works well for both parties, we help convert it into a paid employment offer on ordinary terms.
Two sides of the placement
What you get out of it
What you gain
- Capability, assessed properly. Twelve weeks of working alongside someone tells you more than any interview round.
- Capacity for the work that keeps getting deferred. Research, analysis, documentation, process improvement — supervised project work that builds the intern’s skills while moving your backlog.
- A pipeline, not a one-off. Hosts who take interns regularly build a recruitment channel that costs a fraction of agency placement.
- Fresh technical currency. Recent graduates bring the tools, methods and software their courses taught last semester.
- Administration handled. Agreements, training plans, insurance and monitoring sit with us.
What we ask of you
A successful placement is not a free resource. Hosting an intern means committing to:
- Nominating a supervisor who is available to guide, review and give feedback.
- Providing work that relates to the intern’s field of study and delivers the learning outcomes in the training plan.
- Treating the placement as training, not as coverage for a role you would otherwise pay someone to do.
- Meeting your work health and safety duties, as you would for any worker on site.
- Giving honest feedback and a reference at the end of the placement.
What you gain
- Australian workplace experience. The single most common gap on a graduate résumé, and the one employers screen for first.
- Work that counts. Placements are matched to your qualification, so what you do is relevant to the roles you are applying for.
- A supervisor, a plan and a reference. You will know what you are meant to learn, who is responsible for teaching you, and what you can point to afterwards.
- Professional networks. Industry contacts, workplace culture, and the unwritten conventions no course covers.
- A genuine pathway. Many of our interns have been offered paid roles by their host business or by employers who valued the experience.
Your protections
- A written agreement and training plan before you start, so expectations are clear on both sides.
- Insurance cover arranged for the placement.
- A named contact at Study and Work throughout, and a documented grievance process if something is not working.
- A placement structured so the main benefit of the arrangement flows to you.
- Placements arranged consistently with your visa conditions, where these apply.
The legal position
Are unpaid internships legal in Australia?
Yes — provided the arrangement is genuinely a learning opportunity and not disguised employment. This is the question every serious host business asks, and it deserves a direct answer rather than reassurance. Under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), an unpaid placement can lawfully occur in two situations.
Vocational placements
A vocational placement is unpaid work experience that forms a required part of an education or training course, is authorised under a law or administrative arrangement, and is undertaken with no entitlement to pay.
Placements meeting this definition are expressly excluded from the Act’s minimum wage and entitlement provisions. Many of our placements are arranged with an education provider on this basis.
Unpaid work experience where no employment relationship exists
Where a placement is not part of a formal course, it can still be lawfully unpaid if no employment relationship is formed. The Fair Work Ombudsman assesses this on the substance of the arrangement, weighing the purpose of the arrangement, who receives the main benefit, the length and hours, whether the work would otherwise be done by a paid employee, whether meaningful training and supervision are actually taking place, and whether payment was expected or promised.
Interns may perform productive tasks. The law does not require them to observe passively. What matters is that productive work remains incidental to the learning, rather than the point of the arrangement.
The point every host business should understand
Whether an employment relationship exists is determined by what actually happens during the placement, not by the label on the agreement. A written agreement, on its own, does not make a placement lawfully unpaid — and no provider can promise otherwise.
That is precisely why we build each placement around a documented training plan, defined supervision, a fixed duration and ongoing monitoring: so the substance of the arrangement matches its description. If a proposed placement looks like a job rather than a learning opportunity, we will tell you, and we will recommend you pay for it.
For detailed information, please visit https://www.fairwork.gov.au/starting-employment/unpaid-work
Our record
Why host an intern through Study and Work
We have been arranging professional placements since 2007. Over that time we have placed more than 8,000 interns across upwards of 3,000 host businesses in Australia.
The Fair Work Ombudsman reviewed our internship program in 2010 and again in 2018. On each occasion the Ombudsman examined our placement processes and concluded that Study and Work was meeting its obligations under Commonwealth workplace laws, and took no further action. We hold no adverse findings.
We state this as a matter of record rather than as an endorsement: the Fair Work Ombudsman does not certify or approve internship programs, and no past review guarantees the compliance of any individual future placement. What it does show is that our processes have twice been examined by the national workplace regulator and found to hold up.
What we bring to each placement
- Nineteen years of placement experience across a wide range of industries.
- Documented agreements, training plans and insurance arranged as standard.
- Screening and matching, so the intern’s qualification fits the work on offer.
- Active monitoring during the placement, and a grievance process if it is needed.
- An honest assessment of whether your proposed placement should be an internship at all.
Modern slavery
Our commitment
Modern slavery is a serious crime and a violation of fundamental human rights. Study and Work has a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery in any part of our business, our supply chain, or the workplaces into which we place candidates.
We are not a mandatory reporting entity under the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth), which applies to entities with consolidated annual revenue of at least $100 million. We have adopted a Modern Slavery Policy voluntarily because, as a recruitment and staffing organisation, we hold a position of trust between workers and employers, and we consider it our responsibility to use that position to prevent exploitation.
What this means in practice
- We never hide who pays the facilitation fee. Registration and matching are always free. Where a host chooses for the intern to cover the one-off facilitation fee, the amount and who pays it are disclosed before you ever apply — never a hidden or unexpected charge.
- We never retain or take custody of identity documents. Your passport and visa documentation stay with you.
- Visa status is never used as leverage. Not by us, and not by a host business with our knowledge.
- Paid placements are at or above the applicable award. Unpaid arrangements are limited to genuine learning placements of the kind described above, and we will not describe a job as an internship to avoid paying for it.
- Everyone receives clear written terms before starting, in a language they understand.
- No one is prevented from leaving a placement, changing employer, or raising a concern.
- We take particular care where risk is heightened — temporary visa holders, international students, low-paid or seasonal work, labour-hire arrangements, and workplaces with limited English-language support.
What we expect of host businesses and suppliers
We expect the same standards from the organisations we work with. Where we identify practices inconsistent with our policy, we raise them directly and seek remediation. Where a client or supplier is unwilling to address a credible concern, we will decline or withdraw from the engagement and, where appropriate, refer the matter to the relevant authority.
Our due diligence
Proportionate to our size, we assess modern slavery risk when onboarding new clients, suppliers and labour-hire partners; include modern slavery obligations in our standard terms of business; check in with placed workers independently of the host employer; train our consultants and placement staff to recognise risk indicators early; and review our policy and practices at least annually.
Raising a concern
Anyone — employee, candidate, placed worker, client or supplier — who suspects modern slavery in connection with our business is asked to report it to Study and Work at service@studyandwork.com.au or 1300 79 80 69.
Reports may be made anonymously. No person will be disadvantaged for raising a concern in good faith, whether or not it is substantiated. Reports involving an immediate risk to a person’s safety should be directed to Police on 000. Suspected exploitation can also be reported to the Australian Federal Police on 131 237 or the Fair Work Ombudsman on 13 13 94.
Take the next step
Let’s talk about the placement.
Host businesses
Tell us what you need and we will assess whether a compliant placement can deliver it.
Students and graduates
Talk to us about a placement matched to your qualification and career direction.