Internship certificate format for Indian employers

What this letter is

An internship certificate records that a person completed a fixed-term internship: the dates, the department, and what they worked on. It is usually needed for a university submission, so the dates and the duration in weeks or months matter more here than in any other letter on this site.

When to issue it

On the last day of the internship. Interns are usually students working to an academic deadline, and a certificate that arrives three weeks late can miss a submission date entirely.

Everything in square brackets is yours to replace. Read the section below on what this letter must contain before you send it, because the template is the easy half.

[COMPANY LETTERHEAD]

Date: [DD/MM/YYYY]

TO WHOMSOEVER IT MAY CONCERN

This is to certify that [MR/MS] [INTERN FULL NAME], a student of [INSTITUTION NAME] bearing roll number [ROLL NUMBER], has successfully completed an internship with [COMPANY NAME].

The internship was for a period of [NUMBER] [weeks/months], from [DD/MM/YYYY] to [DD/MM/YYYY], in the [DEPARTMENT] department, under the supervision of [SUPERVISOR NAME, DESIGNATION].

During the internship [HE/SHE/THEY] worked on [BRIEF FACTUAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT OR WORK, ONE OR TWO LINES].

[HIS/HER/THEIR] conduct during the internship was found to be [satisfactory/good].

We wish [HIM/HER/THEM] success in [HIS/HER/THEIR] future endeavours.

For [COMPANY NAME]

[SIGNATURE]
[NAME]
[DESIGNATION]
[CONTACT DETAILS FOR VERIFICATION]

What it must contain

• Full name of the intern and, where the certificate is for a university, the institution name and roll number.
• The exact start and end dates, and the duration expressed in weeks or months.
• The department and the person who supervised them.
• A short factual description of the project or work.
• The word intern, used explicitly.

The law behind it

India has no single statute governing employment letters. The obligations sit across state Shops and Establishments Acts, which differ from each other, and a handful of central acts that apply to some employers and not others. Each note below names its source and who it applies to.

• An internship is not employment, and the certificate should not read like an experience letter. Use the words intern and internship, name the period as a fixed term, and describe a stipend as a stipend rather than a salary.
• The substance decides the status, not the label. Somebody described as an intern who does the same work as a regular employee, on the same hours, for an indefinite period, may in a dispute be treated as an employee with the statutory consequences that brings. If the arrangement is really a job, call it one.
• Where the internship falls under the Apprentices Act 1961, that Act has its own registration, record-keeping and certification requirements, and a general internship certificate does not satisfy them. Apprenticeship and internship are different arrangements.

The mistakes that cost money

• Writing it as an experience letter with the word intern removed. That is precisely the document that later gets used to argue the person was an employee.
• Calling the stipend a salary.
• Rounding the duration. Universities compare the certificate against the dates in the offer and against their own minimum hours requirement.
• Issuing it late. The deadline is the university deadline, not yours.
• Leaving out the supervisor name, which is who the university will contact to verify.

Questions people ask

The letters that go with this one

Where the details for this letter come from

Half the fields in this template are ones you already hold somewhere: date of joining, designation, salary structure, leave balance, notice period. Shiftelio keeps them in one employee record alongside attendance and payroll, so the figures you type into this letter are the figures the payslip used.

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