You know, there oughta be a law about unpaid internships…and there is!
edited to add: take a good look at that 4th rule, folks.
One step that might help is some transparency. Any company using unpaid interns should be required to submit a publicly accessible record of how many unpaid interns it uses and how many are subsequently offered paid positions.
Well, not enough jobs and too many candidates. It’s vast gulf between the two that’s the problem, so as you say the market sets a value of 0 for the jobs. I don’t agree that everyone without special skills are in this category. Low-skill jobs with low opportunity for advancement (fast food, etc.) would still be paid (and probably not far off from the current rates). Interns work for nothing for the hope that it’ll turn into something else.
As you also pointed out, in the Bay Area tech industry (and some other places), interns get paid very well. I was paid the equivalent of $45k/yr back in '99 and I’m sure it’s over $60k now (with other benefits). Interns do real work and virtually all get invited back (only one intern in my group wasn’t invited back, and he’s now a convicted felon, so all in all the selection process worked pretty well). Demand for competent candidates is vastly higher than the supply and so the pay stays high as well.
“The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded;”
Hahahahahahaha.
That has got to be one of the most widely ignored laws out there.
I completely agree with this. My company pays our three-month interns. I think it should be mandatory.
That’s ridiculous. Almost every person who is seeking advice on a mid-life career change is advised to try unpaid internships. In some industries, the only entry-level jobs are unpaid internships.
Hey now! I’m 42 and it’s not like I have a guaranteed job. I would be in the same boat as a 20 year old if I switched careers (and in fact I’m in school to switch careers).
My bad. Because the article mentions his slew of degrees but no previous job experience, I just assumed he’d never had a paying job before. But I’ll concede that this is presumptuous of me.
I worked at a college where an internship was a requirement for graduation.
While there were a few examples of exploitation, for the most part those businesses were actively searching for full-time employees and used the internship as a “test” of sorts to try out the candidate. Easily a majority of those internships lead to offers of full time employment; granted, sometimes the intern didn’t want the job, but the offer was there.
The ideal internship allows both sides to test the waters. The employer learns if the intern is a flake; constantly calling in sick or incompetent or lazy. They might also learn the intern is perfect and highly motivated and an ideal candidate for the job.
The intern might learn the company isn’t what they thought it was and the work is different than they hoped. They get experience, but that experience lets them know this is not what they want to do. Many interns realize they need to specialize or look for a different kind of job instead.
Sometimes, even if an internship doesn’t lead to a full time job, the fact that you were working for a “big name” company will help on your resume to land a better job somewhere else.
Regarding “older” interns - well, if you graduate from school at an older age, internships are VERY good. You get a foot in the door where normally only younger applicants are invited, and despite the age, employers might be willing to give that person a chance based upon motivation and talent. I have seen graduates in their 50’s and 60’s taking internships and getting work, simply because they were good and fulfilled all the requirements the employer was searching for. These people would not have had a chance to find work simply by sending out resumes and waiting for a response - the internship made all the difference.
So yeah, there can and are abuses made in the process, but quite often an internship is really a foot in the door.
BTW, our students had to find their own internships. I would tell them to shoot for the stars and approach the biggest and best companies - someplace they would love to work if hired. Many took my advice and got internships at very prestigious companies and quite a few landed their ideal jobs! One contacted a few famous names and got three people accept them! One contacted a company in Europe and was called to work there! Several went to NYC or LA or other hubs of their particular industry and were offered full time jobs after these (6 week) internships. So I know from experience, sometimes things really do work out perfectly.
Forgot to mention that sometimes it is the people you meet during internships that might later come back and hire you when they move on and get a new job somewhere else and remember you - this happens far more often than you might think. Once again - networking helps and the internship allowed them to network with the right people in the right industry.
Unpaid internships are disgusting and exploitive and hurt the vulnerable–people who need experience or good graces because they lack experience. Why should they rely on family money to make ends meet while trying to get a career?
I feel the same way about volunteer work. It’s ridiculous what the public library systems can get away with in terms of exploiting workers and wages in the US because of volunteers.
Interns and volunteers hurt paid workers as much as they hurt unpaid workers.
I think outrage is justified. It seems to me like a weird loophole in minimum wage laws. You can’t pay employees below the minimum wage, but you can pay them nothing.
In U.S. law, there are criteria for unpaid internships:
[ol]
[li]The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;[/li][li] The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;[/li][li] The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;[/li][li] The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;[/li][li] The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and[/li][li] The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.[/li][/ol]
How many unpaid internships actually pass the first four of those?
If The West Wing is accurate, White House interns do not get paid. Perhaps Obama might like to lead by example?
It wasn’t long ago that unpaid internships were called slavery.
It might mean no previous job experience in that field. Most of the jobs I’ve looked at that I could totally do, require degrees and 3 years of experience doing exactly what they’re looking to hire someone to do. You can have all the job history you want, but if it’s not the right sort of job history, you might as well not have any job history at all.
That’s IT! You’re being shot from the cannon tonight!
You may be right about this particular fellow, but I think getting started in any career is pretty much the same, whether you’ve had one already or not.
I agree with a lot of the criticisms of these internships, but would eliminating them help these jobseekers? I see both sides.
One thing I didn’t remember reading from either of the articles I linked to were success rates for interns. How many of them end up getting a paying job from their “mentoring” companies and after how many months/years of service?
If most of unpaid interns end up landing their “dream” job, then I can see it being a worthwhile risk. If most of them don’t even get their foot in the door, though, then it’s not. I guess it’s too late to say either way.
The thing is, you often don’t know what the risk is. Some companies see internships as a hiring mechanism, others see it as a cheap alternative to a temp service. From the applicants perspective, it’s hard to know.
And, even if it works out, it’s still not a fair system. A half time temp for three months is providing maybe $6,000 worth of free labor. Is it fair for a company to say “give us $6,000 and we will maybe give you a job?”
Absolutely! Nobody is saying get rid of interns, just pay them.
In engineering, internships are common, and they probably get $20/hour. And a fair amount of them get a full time job offer after they graduate. Nobody is saying you should pay some inexperienced college kid the same as you would pay an entry level graduate, but you should pay them something. Minimum wage at a minimum.
Okay, I’ll play devil’s advocate: What if that means that they don’t offer the internship?
When I was in college I don’t recall a lot of internships, and we did fine.
The amount of paid work the company needs to do will be the same or more (not having free labor.) People with enough resources to work for free will no longer have an advantage. Companies can either hire the old fashioned way - interviewing new college grads and deciding who is best - or try some out while paying them. And since the number of interns will be reduced because of the pay, those who make it into an internship will have a better shot at getting a job than unpaid interns seem to today.
The only ones who lose are the exploiters.