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The Bank Internship (BI) has been in existence since the early 1970s during the Summer. The Winter session of the BI was implemented in December 2001. The purpose of the Internship is to provide graduate students with a chance to gain exposure to the work of the World Bank Group in the hopes that some will be interested in returning to the Bank for a career after completing their studies.
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The advantage for the Bank in offering these opportunities to students is that we get temporary assistance from students who are typically very knowledgeable in particular fields. They bring a diversity of ideas from universities around the world.
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The job descriptions for interns vary. Some interns research particular projects while others actually help design projects and occasionally they participate in Bank missions.
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We typically receive about 5,000 applications each year for the Summer and 2,000-3,000 applications for the Winter. The number of interns hired for a given year are approximately 150-200, depending on the needs of Bank managers and their budget circumstances. Managers are usually asked to submit their summer vacancy information to our office by end-March and their Winter by mid-late November.
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Applicants must be full-time students, currently in their Master's or PhD programs and must be returning to school in the Fall in the case of the Summer Internship and returning to school in the Spring in the case of the Winter Internship. All applications received are downloaded into a database, which uses a powerful search engine to identify applicants who meet the particular requirements a hiring Manager is looking for to fulfill a Summer or Winter Internship position.
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There are no set quotas for the Internhip. Interns can be selected from any country which is a member of the World Bank Group, so the composition of nationalities and gender varies from year to year.
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The most common fields of study are: economics, finance, human development (public health, education, nutrition, population), social sciences (anthropology, sociology), agriculture, environment, and private sector development.
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Interns are paid on an hourly basis for the actual hours worked -- they are not paid for weekends or public holidays unless they actually work on those days. The salary is determined by a market comparison based on education and work experience and may change from year to year based on current market rates. The only variation in salary among interns is that U.S. nationals are paid a gross salary for tax reasons and foreign nationals are paid a net salary. Interns are responsible for their housing and subsistence from their salaries.
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Given the busy work schedules of managers, the deadline for the manager's selection for their vacancy is normally end-April for the Summer Internship and end-November for the Winter Internship.
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We do not send out any notice if you have not been selected. Unfortunately, given that we typically receive about 5,000 applications each year for the Summer Program and 2,000-3,000 for the Winter Program, we are only able to acknowledge that your application has been received. If you have applied on-line, this acknowledgment is forwarded to you as soon as your application is successfully transmitted.
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Unless you hear from the Internship office, we do not have any information to share with you. We will contact candidates immediately once a manager informs this office of their selection for a particular vacancy they wish to fill with an Intern.
