Long hours on your feet waiting tables may not be particularly edifying, but they teach you that work is a routine of obligation, relieved by external reward, where you contribute value to a larger enterprise.Why aren't internships a "routine of obligation" that contribute value to a larger enterprise? As a former intern, I'm not going to be so bold as to put a value on my contribution to the larger organizations where I worked, but I can say that the days felt long and sometimes unedifying and I most certainly learned the meaning of routine obligations. And although the external reward didn't come in the form of a direct deposit, I do think the internships paid off, inasmuch as they led to other internships and, eventually, to jobish things. As a friend of current and former waiters, I agree that those jobs carry lessons and value, but as a friend of current writers, I think I can say with absolute certainty that writing for a magazine is better practice for writing for a magazine.
college interns do the jobs that everybody their age wants to do
Illegal immigrants make a perfectly rational choice and are nothing like unpaid interns; they're seeking much higher wages relative to what they can earn in their home countries. American college students might want to reflect on that.
Completely agree with your conclusion
If colleges want to give all their students a leg up in the post-grad world where internships are a requisite, why not step up their internship financing and accreditation? It's one thing to lament that fact that most internships don't pay. But it's just wrong for anybody, especially colleges, to pretend they don't pay off.]]>
I say that as an intern myself, just in the middle of his first day at a recording studio. The only recording or post production studio I can think of that offers a paid internship is the studio for NPR's This American Life, and it's less an internship and more a temporary job (since you are basically working 50-60 hours a week on a $3000 monthly stipend in NYC). While the audio engineering industry has been in decline, paying interns prolly wasn't in the cards in the first place, even in prestigious places such as Avatar Studios or Electric Ladyland. And it's not because they're too poor to pay their employees: It's just because interns, when not assisting in sessions, are basically receptionists and errand runners.
But, more importantly, I think I should note that, though I have enough money to get by, and work another job to pay bills and such, I am not exactly rich. But I still do this because I want to be a music engineer, regardless of the paycheck. I have a friend who is in radio broadcasting, and she gets paid shit in her salary, enough that she has to work at a coffee shop to cover her expenses. But she still does it because she loves being in radio. And the same could apply to those less fortunate who want to be in fashion magazines, art galleries, or print publications...they don't intern or do unpaid articles because of the paycheck but for the love.
]]>The short explanation: if you're contributing to a company, you deserve a salary. Call it an internship, a job, a contract, an assignment - it's all the same. If your internship is actually an apprenticeship where you're a drain on a company that goes out of its way to train you, it's legal.
Yes, interns gain valuable experience. But aren't all employees benefiting from their work experience? It leads to improved productivity, pay increases and promotions. Entry-level employees already receive a lower, entry-level salary for their lower productivity.
"I do think the internships paid off, inasmuch as they led to other internships and, eventually, to jobish things."
This illustrates well the collective action problem: some time ago you could get a job out of school, then to get a leg up, you would do an internships, then everybody does and you need two to get ahead, then everybody has two... This is where we are now. There is a law against it. It is just ignored because graduate students have little power in the job market and their internships are just a transition.
More questions are addressed at UnfairInternships.com. Thanks for talking about the issue.
]]>I wouldn't be as angry over the situation if it wasn't for so many companies that cheerfully advertise that they offer/require "credit" for your internship.. as if they're generously doing me a favor. Credits aren't free. What that means to me, the student intern, is that I then have to register for some 2-3 unit course at my university, at several hundred dollars per unit to work as an intern. It's bad enough to be an unpaid intern, but when you require "credit", you're forcing me to PAY (over a thousand dollars for those 2-3 units) to work, and to become an in-debt intern. How absurd is that?
]]>What has been striking to me in the last year or so is the demand for even fairly poor quality internships. My girlfriend has been working in various production jobs in the art industry for many years. The jobs were never particularly high paying, but she also never had a problem getting one. Lately though, the types of jobs that used to pay are now asking for (and getting) unpaid interns. Many times they are asking for people who already have 2-3 years in the industry, and are for new companies that are not established and aren't exactly prestigious. Yet they still seem to get hundreds of applications for every Craigslist posting for the unpaid position.
]]>There are few a stipend positions, but why pay anything when you can get free work? Most poor students would be willing for less than minimum wage to get experience, but they need something.
But minimum wage is for the benefit of the poor - or is it to protect the children of the rich from competition? If it applied to internships, I be would be more inclined to believe the latter.
Many students willing to work unpaid internships COULDN'T GET a paid one, whether because the primary factor was oversupply or low demand, the fact remains that given the supply/demand dynamics in their desired industry, many times they didn't have what it took to get a paid gig. Having been on both sides of that line, I can personally attest that this is sometimes (if not often) the case.
Out here in the real world, receptionists and errand runners get paid
]]>What happens is that these industries contain the sort of job titles people want say out loud at parties (magazine, radio, TV, etc.) and many young people desperately want one of those titles to help their sex life.
Individual companies take advantage of this by making the entry level jobs unpaid internships, which for the most part only the children of the wealthy can afford to accept. People who have done the internship have a big advantage over the people who haven't at better jobs in these industries.
So if you want to work in that industry and have a great sex life like every young person does, it helps an awful lot to have wealthy parents. And you'll find that these companies are full of trust fund kids who went to all the right schools and have all the right connections.
]]>So unpaid internships are destroying America because it helps rich kids get laid? :)
Can someone identify the types of companies that "hire" lots of unpaid interns BESIDES entertainment/communications companies with failing business models (i.e. radio, music, movies, newspaper, TV*)? I can't think of any. Which is not surprising because most companies in these particular industries can barely pay their paid staff at the moment (or their unionized benefits).
And if that's the case, how is this destroying America and not just hastening the death of newspapers?
*Although television has a sustainable business model at the moment, Hulu, Youtube, and Tivo have fundamentally changed the market.
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My experience is that these are the people in the office who appear to have all the right credentials, present themselves well but never actually contribute to the company's success because they have never actually had a real unpleasant job before (i.e. dishwasher, waiter, etc.). They are entitled people who will find their place in life as middle management at mediocre, slow growing companies big enough for them to hide from any real responsibility. Generally, they won't do work "beneath" them.
I've hired sales people and an engineer trainee as unpaid "interns", but only for a very short period of time. Their first paycheck would happen when they sold something and (in the engineer trainee case) paid their own transport from Germany and application fees for their work visa and accomplished something measurable and valuable. Both were outstanding and productive employees and they started collecting a paycheck within 30 days of showing up. If they hadn't become productive, I would have told them to "hit the bricks" because they would be distracting to the productive people at the company trying to get something done.
Intentionally not paying people because you can get away with it is dishonest and another kind of slavery. Then again, the communists found out that when you "lie about paying workers, the workers lie about working."
We hire them to establish a relationship - so we know what kind of work habits and attitude they have. So we'll have a few fresh graduates we know who will want to work for us after they finish school. Good software people are difficult to find, even during bad times.
But I can't imagine why industries like radio would actually pay interns. Radio interns, I suspect, have all the same drawbacks as the software interns, and the world is full of enthusiastic kids who want to be in that business - how hard is it to find good people after they graduate?
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