Founders swear by hiring working students. Others call it a disaster waiting to happen.
The truth? Both are right. Here’s what most people miss.
A Filipino working student isn’t just someone working part-time. They’re juggling a full academic load that doesn’t care about your deadlines.
Their schools don’t lighten requirements for working students.
Engineering, nursing, accounting, IT all of these programs are brutal whether you work or not.
During exam weeks or thesis defense, their work capacity drops to near zero. Sometimes literally zero.
And here’s the part that surprises employers: many are running on 3-4 hours of sleep during peak academic periods.
If they’re working night shifts for US clients plus attending daytime classes, something has to give. Usually sleep.
Hiring a Working Student ?
Use our fully customizable application questionnaire to screen for fit and academic commitments upfront.
How Successful Employers Structure Student Work Hours
The employers who succeed with students do three things differently.
First, they cap hours at 10-20 per week. Not because students can’t work more, but because quality falls off a cliff beyond that.
Second, they structure roles around short daily windows. Two to four hours of focused work, not eight hours of “being available.”
Third, they plan around the academic calendar like it’s a holiday schedule. Because for students, it basically is.
The sweet spot? Tasks that are clearly scoped, don’t require immediate responses, and can be done in concentrated bursts.
Inbox triage works. Emergency customer support doesn’t.
Social media scheduling works. Live chat coverage doesn’t.
Research and data entry work. Mission-critical system administration doesn’t.
Best Tasks and Roles for Filipino Working Students
Let me get specific. Working students dominate in roles that match how they actually work.
Daily maintenance tasks (2-4 hours):
- Email inbox management and initial categorization
- Lead list building and basic research
- Data entry and CRM updates
- Content repurposing across platforms
Social-media management:
- TikTok and Instagram content ideas
- Basic video editing and graphic design in Canva
- Comment moderation and community management
- Managing Discord servers or online communities
Apprenticeship-style roles
This is where it gets interesting.
Some employers hire students as junior assistants and train them in one specific system i.e. marketing operations, e-commerce admin, basic no-code tools.
The student works part-time for a year or two, learning the stack. Then after graduation, they often transition to full-time at a higher rate.
You’re essentially growing your own specialist.
The Challenges of Hiring A Working Student
Unpredictability is the real expense.
A working student might be your best performer. The keyword here is “might be”. One way to see if they are the right fit is to give them a trial task (preferably paid) that mirrors the actual work.
If they can deliver quality work on time while juggling midterms, you know they can handle the role.
This isn’t malicious in any sense. You are still running a business after all.
Best Questions to Ask When Hiring Working Students
Most regrets come from not asking enough about the reality of their situation.
Here’s what to ask:
“What’s your current course, year level, and typical weekly class schedule?”
This tells you if they’re in first-year engineering (brutal) or fourth-year communication (manageable).
“When are your peak academic weeks (midterms, finals, thesis) and how does your work capacity change?”
Some students can still do 10 hours during exams. Others drop to zero.
“What other jobs or clients are you currently working with, and roughly how many hours per week?”
A student juggling three clients at 15 hours each is at serious burnout risk.
“What’s your internet setup and backup plan if there’s an outage?”
Home fiber, pocket Wi-Fi, mobile data, or access to a co-working space? This matters in a country where power outages happen.
The answers tell you whether this person can actually deliver what you need.
When you’re posting the job, add these as custom application questions. Get the information upfront instead of discovering conflicts three weeks in. You’re screening for realistic fit, not just skills.
Setting Them Up For Success
Let’s say you’ve decided a working student fits your needs. Here’s how to set them up to succeed.
Set a core overlap window. Maybe two hours per day during PH business hours for synchronous work. Everything else is async with clear deadlines.
Create detailed SOPs and checklists. When they’re exhausted or time-crunched, they need a path to follow, not problems to solve from scratch.
Build in exam-week capacity planning. Assume zero availability during midterms and finals. Either have backup coverage or plan lighter workloads those weeks.
Use project-based milestones, not hourly tracking. “Complete these five tasks by Friday” works better than “log eight hours this week.”
Pay slightly above entry-level rates. Not as much as experienced professionals, but enough to show you value their time. This buys loyalty and honesty about availability.
When You Shouldn’t Hire A Student
Be honest with yourself about these.
Don’t hire students for time-sensitive coverage. Live customer support, incident response, anything that needs replies in minutes, get a graduate or full-time professional.
Don’t hire students if you drop urgent same-day tasks regularly. They can’t pivot fast enough around fixed class schedules.
Don’t hire students if you want “set and forget” workers. They need more communication and accommodation than experienced remote workers.
Don’t hire students for mission-critical systems they’ll own alone. Junior tasks they can grow into? Great. Your entire backend infrastructure? Terrible idea.
If you need reliable 40-hour coverage at entry-level prices, you’re not looking for a working student. You’re looking for a graduate who needs experience.
Not Sure if A Working Student Fits Your Needs
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How Much Should You Pay Filipino Working Students?
Here’s what students say privately in online communities.
They know local wages are low. But they also know when they’re being exploited.
The smart play is paying slightly above typical entry rates for student-friendly roles. Maybe $5-6/hour instead of $3-4 for quality work.
In exchange, you likely get a student who sticks around because you’re treating them fairly.
Use clear payment schedules, twice monthly via Wise, PayPal, or G-Cash.
For students juggling tuition and living expenses, knowing exactly when they’ll get paid matters as much as the rate itself.
Automated payment systems with currency conversion eliminate the “did it go through?” anxiety that comes with manual transfers.
What Actually Works
The employers who love their working students are the ones who matched the role to the reality.
They’re not trying to squeeze full-time performance from part-time availability.
They’re not surprised when exam week hits and everything slows down.
They designed roles where a focused 15 hours of quality work beats a distracted 40 hours of mediocre output.
And they’re often building long-term relationships. The student who learns your systems part-time for two years often becomes your best full-time hire after graduation.
That’s the real opportunity here.
Not cheap labor that might flake out.
But a skilled professional you’re growing from the ground up, who understands your business because they helped build it.
Just know what you’re getting into first.
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