Every year, corporates and public sector agencies tell us that we don’t charge enough, especially when compared to the 11-13% charged by IT recruiters or the cost of similar internship programmes.And every year smaller employers tell us we are too expensive, and that our placement fee is too much to pay on top of a students’ wage. Based on this feedback, we are making some pricing changes for the 2020 programme. From 1 October 2020, we will be charging:

• $1,000+GST per intern for organisations with less than 50 New Zealand-based employees (a 20% decrease from last year)
• $2,000+GST per intern for organisations with 50 or more New Zealand-based employees (a 60% increase from last year)

It’s always a bit nerve-wracking when making a price change, and I would love to hear your feedback - I’m on (021) 389-494 or at trent@summeroftech.co.nz. Rest assured that as a registered charity your money will be put to good use, increasing the impact we have to this wonderful country of ours. Thanks for your support,Trent 

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS*

 When was the last time you put prices up?The last major change we made to pricing was in 2018 when our internship placement fees went up from $1,000 to $1,250. We also brought our Jobs pricing inline with the internship fees last year, increasing the placement fee from $750 to $1,250. What about the registration fee, is that going up?No, registration fees will stay at $500+GST (which hasn’t changed since 2011). Sponsors and (hopefully) Callaghan Innovation student grant recipients will continue to get free registration. Why do you need to charge a registration and a placement fee?The main reason we charge a registration fee is that we want to avoid tyre kickers. We’d much rather have 100 serious employers on the platform than 1,000 employers, 900 of whom aren’t engaged. So we charge a small amount to register, at which point employers gain access to thousands of profiles, and the ability to search, shortlist and manage applicants. It also gives you a spot at our recruitment events, where you will meet hundreds of candidates in person.The placement fee is to pay for the running of the programme e.g. the salaries for the team at HQ, the costs of the big events, swag, our extravagant quarterly team-building cruises to the Maldives, etc. How did you decide on the 50 employees cut off?It was gut feel to begin with, and when we checked we found that about a third of employers will be charged more and two-thirds would be charged less. That felt about right. What are you doing with the extra money you make?We aren’t making a ton more money from this change, it’s more about ensuring that as many employers as possible can take advantage of hiring New Zealand’s smartest students.Any surplus we do make is re-invested in running and improving the programme. For example, as well as running bigger and better recruitment events, in 2020 we are also planning on:

• Improving employer profiles 
• Making it easier for you to find the right student for your role 
• Making it easier for you to interact with our systems and processes e.g. improving onboarding with a product walkthrough tool, improving the usability of the Meet Greeter app, making the Offers and Speed Interviews processes more intuitive
• Etc

 Are you doing discounts for sponsors?Yes. As part of their sponsorship package, every sponsor will only pay $1,000/intern (on top of free registration). Let us know if you’d like to find out more about partnering with us. Why “New Zealand-based employees”? We place all of our interns in New Zealand and only accept students who have studied at New Zealand-based tertiaries. It feels unfair to penalise multinational companies who might have a large overseas workforce, but whose local office is small. What happened to the discount when hiring multiple students?We’ve decided to drop the 20% “bulk buy” when employers hire 5 or more students. In a nutshell, we think it doesn’t make much difference to how many students an employer hires.  I’ve been a loyal Summer of Tech client for X years, but we have 50+ staff, what are you doing for me?First of all, thanks! Second, please don’t leave :-)If you know for sure that you’ll be hiring interns in the 2020 summer, and are willing to pre-pay, then we will stick to the $1000 if you agree to pay prior to 30 June 2020.  What about pricing for Jobs?From 1 April, the Jobs placement fees will also change to be aligned to the internship fee i.e. either $1,000 or $2,000 depending on employer size. * Of course, none of these questions have actually been asked, I’m just taking a guess as to what might be on your mind :-)