<p>My D has an unpaid internship with an organization that is part of the US Army this semester that definitely meets the criteria of illegal by the definitions in those links. They told her in her first meeting that their group would be covering work that would have normally be done by an Army employee. It is about 10 hours a week during the school year, no credit offered, and is an internship they posted through her school’s career center; they brought in several students to work on projects for the organization…</p>
<p>She has also had a couple of unpaid internships in DC (one for a gov’t agency, one for a Senator), and one of them was definitely doing work that they would had to do an employee do if they had not had her. Not wanting to turn the thread political, but DC (both government and non-government organizations) swarms with unpaid interns. I think it would cost a lot more to run our government than it does today without the work they do.</p>
<p>Is there some sort of “forced labor” part of this I’m missing? If it’s not worth it in some meaningful way to the student in question, why are they doing it?</p>
<p>I’m very surprised how many people on this forum have fallen into the trap of thinking an unpaid internship is “beneficial” or “necessary.” These are entry-level positions that should be going to recent grads and, considering the amount of work they demand, paying at least $12/hour or $30,000/year (which is, unfortunately, less than jobs a step higher pay currently). The system is setting up recent college grads to fail–forcing them to default on their student loans, live with their parents, or put off future career goals because they simply can’t afford to survive.</p>
<p>Belive me or not, we have a business web site which is NOT high on search engine and every year, we receve over a dozen applications asking for FREE Internship which we cannot provide.</p>
<p>A local congrass women limit free internship to 4 weeks and she hires 6 students each 4 weeks period, draws 1000’s of applicants and from schools of HYMPS, my friend’s DD was lucky to have the job this summer and she is only from Wesleyan! The work was very intense, over 10 hours a day. She got to know 5 others who were from mostly Harvard though.</p>
<p>We publish a small community newspaper. Every year I get a call from the head of the journo program at a nearby CC trying to place their students in an unpaid internship. Once years ago, we said yes. It was a disaster. The poor girl could not compose a grammatical English sentence. Never again.</p>
<p>Intparent- govt work is public sector.
Honied- why should any employer hire a recent grad with zero experience when they could hire an equal candidate with some relevant experience?</p>
<p>I worked for a large financial services company and we had top notch students begging us to let them work for free as interns. Unless there was a program where their colleges would give them credit for it, we had to say no. Frankly, I think it would have been a win/win in many cases, but HR wouldn’t run afoul of the law. FWIW, an intern on board would not have prevented the hire of an entry level person. It might have lightened the load of some existing employees (while increasing the load on others who would have to provide training and mentorship to the interns), but interns didn’t even play into the mix for permanent hiring decisions.</p>
<p>lookingforward: Recent grads have plenty of relevant experience in most fields (business, non-profit, publishing, government, etc.), and it comes from the work you do in college–conducting research, writing papers, working student jobs that actually pay. I would argue that more relevant experience is gained in this setting than in an internship itself, where many interns (especially for bigger organizations) simply fill out spreadsheets, answer phones, book travel arrangements, and make photocopies–tasks just about anyone could do. College graduates hardly have “zero experience”; this is what attending school is all about.</p>
<p>N.B.: There are indeed certain fields where “internships” or “apprenticeships” could be of benefit. Agriculture and most trades, for instance. But what we’re discussing here is an entirely different beast, and it certainly is not necessary or really that beneficial.</p>
<p>I worked an internship that was illegal and shouldn’t have happened. I worked 80 hours a week (for no pay) doing just the same as the paid staff. The people that hired me thought I was getting credit, they offered to pay my tuition but my professor told them they didn’t need to do that without asking me if I wanted to get credit or not. I didn’t learn anything and it was a massive waste of time.</p>
<p>The job scramble for recent grads isn’t much different than the admissions scramble for hs seniors: the better prepared bird is more likely to catch the worm. Why not take the smartest approach you can? </p>
<p>Maybe some people here are only thinking about STEM kids, who can work in a college lab for their student jobs.</p>
<p>T-brat, I have to wonder why you chose to spend 80 hours/week at something that offered no credit and taught you nothing?</p>
<p>You may want to check your math… $12/hour<em>40 hours</em>52 weeks is only$24960. </p>
<p>I was so upset when I had to do an internship that I had to pay the school over $2000 to go work for someone else. Luckily I was able to find a paid internship unlike my classmates… The school did nothing except type “internship credit” onto a transcript.</p>
<p>It was a summer internship away from my home state. My bosses said I was going to be working 40 hours a week max doing marketing. I get there and end up cleaning bathrooms and serving food most of the time and making copies the rest of the time.</p>
<p>hops_scout: This is supposed to mean at least $12/hour for a part-time position or $30,000/year for a full-time position with benefits.</p>
<p>lookingforward: Taking an unpaid internship is not smart for many students, who need paying work while in college to help support themselves or need to concentrate more solidly on their studies as they look toward future goals such as grad school. Just because college admissions and unpaid internships are both systems biased against lower-income students does not make this right or beneficial or mean that the system should be in place. I took an unpaid internship my last year of college. I lost a lot of money from not staying at my work study job, money I now wish I had as an unemployed grad. I cannot imagine what would have happened to me had I spent three years of my college career interning.</p>
<p>To those who say an employer would prefer a student who had “interned” (for free), I’d actually prefer to hire someone who had held a real job (even if it was work-study). Most employers are not stupid; they know what these “internships” are about.</p>
<p>At my workplace, until this year (budget cuts) we hired, with real money, at-risk high school youth who then got real experience, real evaluations, and real money (which many of them needed desperately.) And some of them got hired into real positions.</p>
<p>My son is participating in the unpaid internship this summer. I knew it was unpaid, but what a hassle to get it going. The company wanted the college to sign a document indemnifying them but the college refused. Eventually, I knew what was needed: tuition money. After that, it was smooth sailing. My son isn’t thrilled to be working without pay and that has been a big factor when his buddies and brothers are paid. I think the whole process stinks: is this real work or volunteer? Taking a job away from someone else? Is this necessary to get a real job today? </p>
<p>This particular company can more-than afford to pay at least minimum wage, yet they don’t. But I will say this, at least my son is doing interesting work and getting good exposure. At the same time, my oldest son–who didn’t have an internship while in college–struggles to find work. He applies to entry level positions, but every company wants to see applicants have worked in at least two internships.</p>
<p>I know it is rare, and specific to her field, but I can say my d2 had in internship that was a real internship. It was with an international accounting firm. In her region, they took three out of about 200 applicants, and interviewing took two days. It paid around $30/hour plus overtime; no benefits, though they did help with travel as needed. She was supervised closely by more senior staff, who took significant time out of their days to mentor her. There were special events (costly ones) just for the interns (including flying to another part of the country). Three different job assignments, at the end of each one of which there was a four-hour evaluation of her work (and she had to write her own self-evaluation. At the end of the internship, many of the interns were offered full-time jobs (starting a year later, after a year of graduate school or qualifying exam), at hefty salaries. Some were not. It is clear (to me) that the company lost significantly in the short-term in terms of funds to run the internship program, which they expect to make back in future dedicated employees whom they’ve already pre-qualified (and hence won’t have to recruit, or even accept, other applicants for entry-level employment.</p>
<p>I know this is rare, but I always thought that this is the way internships are supposed to work.</p>
<p>D2 also lucked out in that she’d had three other unpaid internships, two of them abroad, each of them with non-profits. The U.S.-based one was a real internship - clearly the organization put more into it than I think they directly got out. But I know so many internships that might look good on a resume, but in reality are just so much time spent at the copying machine.</p>
<p>I’ve hired and I tend to look at the quality of the experience and the relevance to my opening. I don’t diss an experience that was volunteer or unpaid- if it has that relevance. </p>
<p>The arguments here are geting strained. No one says take so much unpaid work that you can’t survive or pay bills. No one says take a poor, time-wasting internship over relevant other work experience. The key word is relevant. I don’t think most college work-study jobs offer real world entree- except in that the kid does work and presumably is timely and competent. I’m am butting out of this one. </p>
<p>Tbrat, sorry you were put in that position. Hope you can find a way to put a positive spin in it, somehow.</p>