<p>“entry level jobs have disappeared and internships are now a resume must”</p>
<p>Jobs, in general, have disappeared. And I feel very sad (as well as extremely worried for my own children) for newly graduated students because I do agree that in order to be competitive for the jobs that are available, they need to do absolutely everything in their power to make themselves appealing as candidates. I just fail to see how cutting off avenues to do that ends up being a plus for the students. Perhaps some more jobs will be formed if interns aren’t used, but it may be that these responsibilities will just be dispersed to others or just not completed or just never prioritized. </p>
<p>Regardless of what I think, it looks like we might find out exactly what will happen based on the recent legal ruling.</p>
<p>And it’s amusing to see you proclaim something with such authority without understanding the situation.</p>
<p>My company has refused unpaid internships for years because they are a time sink. As I said earlier, we took one this year only as a good will gesture.</p>
<p>I am the business sponsor for our company’s internship program. We pay them a fair wage and offer a real training program for them. We do it to recruit full time employees, use it as a marketing tool for the company (creating buzz when they go back to campus), and maybe getting some work out of them. I do it because I like working with young people and creating more paid internship for students.</p>
<p>It is a lot of work to have an internship program. We received 600+ resumes and ended up with 8. I had to schedule speakers and trainers, summer outings, weekly meeting with them, assign them to different department, find mentors for them…Most importantly, to get the funding approved.</p>
<p>My company doesn’t allow unpaid internships because they are against the law. Period full stop, and we didn’t need a court to tell us that- the laws about labor violations are exceedingly clear in the US (less so overseas but we are pretty consistent in our policies around the world.) We hire summer interns and pay them a fair wage- they learn something about how we operate, and we cherry pick the ones we want to make full time offers to upon graduation. Some of them are exceedingly productive in a short period of time (8-10 weeks) and some of them try very hard but even with a lot of training and supervision can’t get over the bar.</p>
<p>I would be very torn in advising a young person today re: unpaid internships. On the one hand, it is hard to break into journalism or arts management or politics without a “resume” or portfolio (and how do you get a portfolio without actually working?). On the other hand- that used to be what college was for- Freshman year you write for the college newspaper; Sophomore year you become features editor; junior year you switch over to production and ad sales, and senior year you are Managing Editor.</p>
<p>Thank goodness there are people like you, who go above and beyond to offer a real trainng program. (Please, I do not mean to insult others who also have coached and promoted internship programs.)</p>
<p>My son has had various internships since 2006: in research labs, start-ups, and now in a research lab in a large organization. I hope it helps to define his goals. One variable is how much mentoring he receives.</p>
Your company would not take interns if it was not benefiting in some way. </p>
<p>In this case, your company is getting an intangible benefit: building relationships & reputation with the party to which your company is extending its “good will”. That party will “owe” your company a “good will gesture” in the future.</p>
<p>From some of the job ads I see, there are a lot of small companies who want to initiate or expand their social media efforts. So they take on young interns who know more about Twitter, FB and blogging than they do, to perform that task. A friend of D’s who applied for such an unpaid internship was told she would train their current employees in social media. She said no thanks. I just saw a summer internship ad asking for “extraordinary IT skills,” as well as a list of “extraordinary” other skills. The pay? An $800 / month stipend. If someone indeed has “extraordinary IT skllls,” then they should be paid accordingly.</p>
<p>@blossom, aspiring journalists have many opportunities to build a portfolio writing for blogs or community publications or working pro bono for non-profits. If they are going to give away their time, there are ways to do it that are not exploitative. My son’s friend wants to be a music reviewer so all year he has been going to shows and getting his reviews posted on various blogs. I know this isn’t possible in all industries but there are more and more ways to gain experience thanks to the Internet, in particular. </p>
<p>My company hires design and writing interns and pays them a fair wage. They get real on-the-job experience and leave with portfolio samples and great contacts. We have hired a few of them permanently as well. The unpaid-internship thing only contributes to the race to the bottom, in my opinion. I’m glad my company doesn’t do it.</p>
<p>Sally, I am also glad my company doesn’t do it. I agree that there are ways for kids to build a portfolio without succumbing to the race to the bottom- but I think “back in the day” most of us snagged entry level jobs after graduation based on the stuff we did on campus and in our communities, not based on trailing junior executives at XYZ company for 10 weeks for no pay.</p>
<p>I think non-profits can be exploitative as well. I am on the board of a big non-profit in my community and those of us with HR experience are regularly counseling the Executive Director and the professional staff on how and when to use volunteers.</p>
<p>Our student landed a paid internship this summer–very last minute. However, had the job been “unpaid internship” I think we would have encouraged K1 to take it anyway because those slots are so valuable coming right out of college.</p>
<p>As far as Wash DC goes, one of my biggest regrets was to NOT take a low paying (practically unpaid) entry job in a Congressional office. I did fine in the long run however that would have opened doors and set me on another path. </p>
<p>As far as non profits–its very exploitive-- and even recently as a professional I have been asked to develop a full business plan etc and launch a new non profit…
there needs to be seed $ from those who want to launch it…
so I have to protect my time…</p>
<p>Sometimes it falls back on the “paying your dues” for the students and new grads…</p>
<p>Well, in the all out quest to make absolutely everything equal, I guess we need a law which regulates the use of ‘contacts’ and connections. No more behind the scene introductions of Junior to a family friend who happens to own a business or who happens to know someone who knows someone. How grossly unfair! We NEED A LAW!! And so it goes…</p>
<p>First of all, thank god I’m an engineering major. I had no idea unpaid internships were even this prevalent. All 3 of my work internships/co-op so far have been very well paid, especially the most recent one (I’m even salaried, not hourly). </p>
<p>Look at some of these responses. Music, art, film, etc. If your major isn’t in high demand or the supply is too high then tough luck. If your family isn’t financially we off enough to handle an unpaid internship then maybe majoring in Theater Arts/Women’s Studies/Journalism/etc wasn’t the best idea. Just getting a degree doesn’t guarantee a job. Not a majors are created equally or have the same demand. </p>
<p>Unpaid internships probably give these students more opportunities than there would be available otherwise. It also allows less prestigious companies to attract higher talent if they choose to shell out the money</p>
<p>The parties involved are not just employer and intern; one of the crucial tests about whether an internship can be unpaid is whether value is provided to the employer. If you are typing up memos, filing things, etc., you are providing a service to a company. If the company had no unpaid interns, they would have a paid employee who doesn’t need a college education. So while the deal may be just fine for you and your family, you are suppressing wages in general and taking the place of a paid employee in particular.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter how much value a student gets - the value I get from an internship is going to be different from the value that you get, but that doesn’t mean we should be paid differently. By that logic, you shouldn’t be paid for training, since you are clearly gaining a lot of value from the company.</p>
<p>This isn’t about giving kids opportunities. It is about paying a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. The law does not make exceptions for industries that have a high demand and low supply of jobs.</p>
<p>I have a pretty good idea of what is going on hebegebe. On behalf of my clients, I sue companies that violate the FLSA, collect double damages for the wages they should have been paid, and get myself a nice attorney fee, paid for the by the corproate wrongdoer. You guys can use whatever excuses you want for exploiting people, but in the end it always comes down to greed. That’s what corporations are all about these days. The executives profit at the expense of shareholders, their own workers, consumers and of course the tax paying public whenever possible.</p>
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<p>Well I suppose bringing on new employees is a “time sink” also? The management of your company doesn’t sound very competent to me. Maybe the Board should put new people in charge?</p>
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<p>Pretty amazing isn’t it? In my day there was no such thing as unpaid labor. You worked, you got paid. In the present, the educational industrial complex scams most of its students by charging more than $1500 per credit hour at times, convincing the student its worth it . . even as there are no jobs upon graduation, making student debt oftentimes unavoidable without the ability to pay it back, the Financial industry with the backing of Congress makes that debt non-dischargeable, even for private lenders (why not force the private lenders to be more cautious about whom they lend money to?), and on top of that, Corporate America has joined the scam by compelling recent graduates to work for free. Our country is going to hell very quickly.</p>
<p>That’s not at all what I meant. Like I said in my first lost, if you ate going to school as an Art Major or Gender Studies major I’m not going to feel sorry for you because your internships are unpaid or you can’t find a job. Not every major is equal. A BA in Underwater Basket Weaving isn’t a golden pass to employment.</p>
<p>No law, there are many law abiding companies (my own included) so you are painting corporate America with a very broad brush. I’ve had neighbors and friends plead with me to “find something for junior to do and call it an internship” but our Board, Management, and employees believe that obeying the law is both the right thing to do and good business.</p>
<p>And we are not alone.</p>
<p>I don’t think we are going to hell quite yet. And it only takes one visible lawsuit to get other companies in line very quickly (after the Microsoft lawsuit about “independent contractors” I know tens of thousands of “contractors” were quickly put on the books as full time employees. Literally-within weeks of the decision.)</p>
<p>Apparently not or there wouldn’t be so many. And if they do become illegal, then what? Are call of these companies going to bring these internships back but now pay for them? I doubt it. If the importance of that intern and internship was so low before that there was no need to pay then why bother now? At least with unpaid internships there are more opportunities to get your feet in the door to be a “Hollywood director” or whatever</p>
<p>Because college kids are held under as much scrutiny as a major company
Because students advertise their underage drinking </p>
<p>Making them illegal probably isn’t going to help these students. Why would a company pay for an intern with an iffy degree to do grunt work when they could give it to a more competent non-20 year old. I’m sure they wouldn’t all disappear, but geez </p>
<p>Free market. If there really was a blue for these interns it would show up</p>