How to hire a product design internship

How to hire a product design internship, step by step

Here's a step-by-step product design internship hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a product design internship job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new product design internship
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   First, determine the employments status of the product design internship you need to hire. Certain product design internship roles might require a full-time employee, whereas others can be done by part-time workers or contractors.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A product design internship's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, product design interns from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   This list presents product design internship salaries for various positions.

   Type of Product Design Internship	Description	Hourly rate
   Product Design Internship	Industrial designers develop the concepts for manufactured products, such as cars, home appliances, and toys. They combine art, business, and engineering to make products that people use every day... Show more	$26-50
   Lighting Designer	Lighting Designers are responsible for developing and implementing electrical and lighting systems. They are responsible for conducting site assessment and analysis, liaise with clients and engineers to determine technical specifications, design lighting plans, create budget reports for a project initiated, track progress targets, install electrical and lighting systems and ensures installation adheres to local energy regulation as well as building codes... Show more	$16-39
   Interior Designer	An interior designer helps people decorate their rooms and spaces, creating the most functional and beautiful area as possible. They sit with clients to plan desired goals, visualize the space's functions, and sketch the design plan... Show more	$16-37

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Design Intern
   • Sketch
   • Product Design
   • Visual Design
   • User Research
   • User Experience
   • Prototyping
   • PowerPoint
   • Invision
   • UI
   • Graphic Design
   • Product Development
   • Facebook
   • CSS

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Develop environment to automate generation of control file for Fastscan ATPG using Perl.
   • Design front-end Java UI tools to automate localization process and solve invalid character issues.
   • Lead a group of 5 interns task with identifying a household problem, coming up with solutions, and prototyping.
   • Manage the website and twitter page, write the blog posts and attend numerous fashion shows and sample sale rooms.
   • Used bootstrap and Photoshop to generate detail specifications of final designs and production-ready graphics in HTML and CSS.
   • Create a PowerPoint presentation to present design options.

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your product design internship job description is a great way to entice the best and brightest candidates. A product design internship salary can vary based on several factors:

   • Location. For example, product design interns' average salary in louisiana is 48% less than in massachusetts.
   • Seniority. Entry-level product design interns earn 47% less than senior-level product design interns.
   • Certifications. A product design internship with a few certifications under their belt will likely demand a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for a prestigious company or an exciting start-up can make a huge difference in a product design internship's salary.

   Average product design internship salary

   $75,789yearly

   $36.44 hourly rate

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   Entry-level product design internship salary

   $55,000 yearly salary

   Updated January 23, 2026

4. Writing a product design internship job description

   A product design internship job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. To help get you started, here's an example of a product design internship job description:

   Product design internship job description example

   A World-Changing Company
   
   At Palantir, we're passionate about building software that solves problems. We partner with the most important institutions in the world to transform how they use data and technology. Our software has been used to stop terrorist attacks, discover new medicines, gain an edge in global financial markets, and more. If these types of projects excite you, we'd love for you to join us.
   
   The Product Design Team
   
   We help to achieve connection and understanding. Our users must create knowledge from data in our software, potential customers and candidates need to understand and relate to the story of our company and the awesome work we do, and it's our job to help tell these stories.
   
   Designers are highly valued in the company for our vision, our ability to learn and adapt, and our creativity and inventiveness. We're growing rapidly, yet focused on creating a tight-knit group of people that enjoy working together in an atmosphere that fosters trust, integrity, empathy, and growth. We rigorously share and promote our ideas and constantly incorporate feedback and critique.
   
   The Role
   
   As a Product Designer, you are a generalist who spans many design disciplines: user research, information architecture, prototyping, ideation, interaction design, and sometimes visual design. You will visit our users, listen, investigate, learn, and ideate. You know that form informs function and usability-that the surface layer doesn't exist in a vacuum.
   
   Sometimes we're out in front, exploring brand-new problem spaces, figuring out what to build, and sometimes you're deep in the details of micro-interactions, figuring out how to build it. You lead feature teams in design exercises ranging from day-long design studios to week-long design sprints.
   Core ResponsibilitiesWork with fellow Designers, Product Managers, Developers, and Forward Deployed Engineers to refine and evolve the quality of all Palantir software.Prototype with tools such as paper and pen, Figma, After Effects, Principle, and Keynote.
   What We ValueExcellent collaboration and communication skills with the ability to build great relationships with engineers, PMs, and other stakeholders, and convey and debate design rationale.High empathy and dedication to the user, striving to understand and empower them.Strong ability to iterate through the design process, give and receive critiques, and rapidly incorporate feedback. Experience with tools utilized by the team, such as Sketch.app, hand-coding, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Keynote, - or the ability to quickly adapt to them.Must be planning on graduating in 2024. This should be your final internship before graduating.Palantir is committed to promoting a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We value candidates from a wide range of backgrounds who can contribute/leverage their unique perspectives and lived experiences to help us achieve our best outcomes.
   RequirementsA portfolio demonstrating at least one software interface design project. If parts of your portfolio are password-protected, please include your portfolio password under 'Additional Information' when applying.
   Palantir is committed to promoting a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion and is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We believe that all Palantirians share the responsibility of upholding our commitment to these values and encourage candidates from a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences to join us in solving the world's hardest problems. Palantir does not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. Palantir is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. Please see the United States Department of Labor's EEO poster and EEO poster supplement for additional information.
   
   Palantir is committed to making the job application process accessible to everyone. If you are living with a disability (visible or not visible) and need to request a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process, please reach out and let us know how we can help.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are various strategies that you can use to find the right product design internship for your business:

   • Consider promoting from within or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to find candidates who meet your education requirements.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your product design internship job on Zippia to find and attract quality product design internship candidates.
   • Use niche websites such as dribbble, authentic jobs, working not working, coroflot.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting product design interns requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   You should also ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match the ideal candidate profile you developed earlier. Candidates good enough for the next step can complete the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new product design internship

   Once you've found the product design internship candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's also important to follow up with applicants who do not get the job with an email letting them know that the position is filled.

   Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new product design internship. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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