<p>I am reentering the work force in my 50’s and have done two internships with non-profits since October, one of which I am still involved in. I have gotten a lot out of both stints, in terms of reacquiring some skills that were rusty, and regaining confidence in skills that were current. I also learned a lot about a field in which I have been interested (public history).</p>
<p>For recent graduates, I think unpaid internships are a fine way to explore job options and get some real-world experience. The internship should not be more than 3 months, however, or it does become exploitative. Most skills gained in an internship are transferable. In a recession, this may well be one of the only paths available for some young adults, and if they can afford to intern, this path would seem to be much better than working in a fast food restaurant, or sitting at home.</p>
<p>I personally feel that the credit requirement in some places is a form of discrimination. Students who do not go to college could benefit from interning, as can older people, like myself, trying to reenter the workforce after some time out. The choice to intern should be up to the person: intern work cannot be exploitation if chosen by the worker.</p>
<p>Even among non-profits, many don’t give internship opportunities to anyone who is not enrolled in school. This is too bad, because such experiences could be inspiring to kids who are feeling unmotivated and have either dropped out or haven’t enrolled in college.</p>
<p>At a non-profit, you can just be called a volunteer, not an intern. Non-profits can always take volunteers, and many have regular volunteers that are able to get good experience, similar to an internship. Although I do think it can be exploitative. I spoke to somebody at a non-profit that wanted me to work full-time for no pay and be in charge of major projects. Their office was almost entirely staffed by volunteer “interns.” While it would have been good experience, I couldn’t take full-time work for no pay as a post graduate (and part of me felt like if they couldn’t staff their office, maybe they should work on getting some more money in). Anyway, I don’t think non-profits limit those opportunities to college students for the most part, although it can be approached differently. At a company that is not a non-profit, I think that the idea is completely exploitative. People get a lot of work out of interns, and they also save by not paying benefits – all of their workers should at least get minimum wage.</p>
<p>I don’t want to mention the industry because I don’t want the possibility of identifying my daughter to those who know her. Please just accept that it is extremely competitive, difficult to break into (it’s not a profession such as engineering or accounting which is an immediately marketable skill), and that most entry level employees are hired through internships.</p>
<p>For those wondering about unpaid internships being the norm in spite of the laws shared by calmom, I think it’s true that these laws have been much disregarded, but enforcement has recently stepped up with respect to them, and more and more employers (especially those with any kind of HR department) are catching on. My D, having finished 2 years of college, looked for work in a particular industry this past summer, and offered to work unpaid as she had no experience in the field. She had two places get close to offering her a position, only to have it nixed by the HR department. The third place called her to say, we know you offered to work for nothing, but we need to pay you $13 an hour!! Lucky girl. She had a great work experience there, but they got their money’s worth. They did not know how they would have gotten the work done otherwise.</p>
<p>If she needs an internship first, must it be an unpaid one? Many internships have a stipend. My kids have never gotten credits for internships. However, my kids cannot work for free as we do not support them when they are not in school. That is not an option. </p>
<p>One of my D’s just finished an internship in her field (she is a college graduate and has had two years of grad school so far), but it was overseas. It was not for credit and she is not enrolled in school this year. The company is international in scope and doesn’t pay the interns but I think maybe that is because it is non-profit. Many interns are highly qualified. My D certainly is. Anyway, the way she was able to take this internship was she secured funding from her previous grad school, amazingly as she is no longer enrolled there. Right before that, she had a research position also overseas and while it did not pay, she applied for a grant from a foundation that paid her entire way for that job too. So, maybe if your D does take an unpaid internship, she might have other avenues for receiving funding. But again, there are internships with small stipends as well. And college credit is not necessary.</p>
<p>Are ALL internships in your D’s field unpaid? In my D’s field, there are paid internships and she has done some of those too.</p>
<p>I would never take an unpaid internship. The first job I had (in college) I agreed to work for just enough to cover my expenses (including the purchase of a laptop) for the first week, but thereafter became a regularly-paid independent contractor for the firm.</p>
<p>When you work for free, that’s the value you assign to your labor. If you’re not even making enough to cover your own costs, then you’re paying the employer to work for them. Never worth it.</p>
<p>Chedva, sorry you are taking it on the chin. I know many kids who have needed unpaid internships to launch themselves- political consulting and some campaign management roles, TV production, film editing/any of the technical crafts, book or magazine editing- it’s a long list. I work in corporate HR and know that many companies routinely violate labor laws… but until someone blows the whistle the practices continue.</p>
<p>So to answer your original question- I am sure you can find a local community college which will let your D enroll; she will then be a student and can take the internship for “credit.” I see two problems with this scenario- one, you will need to pay tuition, and two, she will need to enroll in a program for a degree which she has no intention of completing. (A second bachelor’s degree in “liberal arts studies” maybe?)</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to talk to the career center at her current college. Since they have a person who signs the “this student is enrolled in a degree program and is getting college credit for working at XYZ television studio as a production intern”, that person is probably the best source of information as to how to work around the catch-22 your D has uncovered.</p>
<p>To all of my CC friends- yes, it would be a wonderful thing if Chedva’s D could get paid $25/hour to intern, or if she could go overseas for an unpaid internship and get a private foundation to pay for it. People- this is Chedva here, an experienced parent, and I am willing to bet you dinner that at some point she sat her kid down and said, “Gee, we’d rather you got paid $25 an hour for a 40 hour work week than work for free, OK, so just get off your duff and make it happen”.</p>
<p>Whether it’s legal or not- (most likely not, but I am not a lawyer), whether you would allow your kid to do it or not (and it seems that none of you approve), whether it’s a good way to launch a career or not- the fact remains, that all over the country there are kids working in unpaid internships in highly competitive fields since virtually the only way to get a paying job is to be sitting at your desk the day someone wanders by and asks if you have an hour to come interview for an opening in the department down the hall.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean my reply as critical of Chedva at all, more general frustration that companies are able to do this. (And that, as Chedva described it, the daughter has no choice but to go along with it. She can’t very well say “I don’t think unpaid internships are fair” if there are 10 resumes right behind her who would be happy to take it). I do think it’s completely exploitative that companies can set things up like this, but it is what it is. I don’t think Chedva’s daughter can do much about it, it just doesn’t make me think well of a company that they would be getting their labor like that.</p>
<p>And some industries are all unpaid internships. I majored in journalism, and interestingly enough, I know that the kids who worked at newspapers generally get an hourly wage. The kids who worked at TV stations did not, because there was a lot of demand for internships at TV stations. So if that was your career goal, you were just so lucky to be picked as an intern at ESPN that you should suck it up and take it (and probably pay for your housing and transportation).</p>
<p>I didn’t come away with anyone criticizing Chedva. I think people were looking at all the possibilities in addition to the one Chedva was proposing. I don’t know her D’s field. I know there are lots of unpaid internships and many college students do these during the summers. I don’t know many who do these post graduation, but I’m sure some do. My own kids simply can’t do unpaid internships in summers during college or after graduation as they must meet their expenses. So, I was wondering if there are any paid internships as one possibility or else if unpaid, if there was a way to secure funding as a stipend through another source. My kids have done both these things. They found their own internships and none were for college credit. Just throwing that out there. It may not be helpful but just looking at all the possibilities. Also, in Chedva’s D’s case, she fortunately has built a resume of prior internships and so this is not like she is looking for her first internship with no experience. Perhaps there are paid internships with a stipend and no need to be enrolled for college credit since she is a college graduate. These exist in many fields but maybe not her D’s field?</p>
<p>Well, putting aside people’s needs to do whatever they need to do to get by and flourish, which I both acknowledge and respect, I DO have a problem with post-graduate unpaid internships. It devalues labor - for all of us - it makes exploitation acceptable - it drives down the value of labor. I for one am very glad the Department of Labor has set reasonable standards, and am even happier that they are now enforcing them. </p>
<p>And, if they do so, fairly and across-the-board, new college graduates lose absolutely nothing. Either there is a job to be done that is worth paying for, or there is not. (After all, what is the minimum wage these days?</p>
If, as OP’s daughter told, the only path to employment in a particular company or “industry” is via an unpaid internship, it is by definition exploitative. It’s a company saying to prospective employees, “sure, we might consider hiring you for pay, but first you have to work for us for 3 months for free.” What’s the end goal of the internship in that circumstance? Education? or a job with that company? </p>
<p>And it hurts EVERYBODY. It shuts the door on employment opportunities for qualified individuals who are not rich enough to afford to work without pay. (My college graduate kids had to support themselves after they graduated – no rich mama in the background to pay an indirect subsidy to a company they wanted to work for). It provides the employer with a way to gain a pool of free labor, doing work which would need to be done by paid employees were it not for the presence of the interns. It allows the company to keep workers off of the benefits rolls for a longer period of time. (My kids had health insurance immediately when they were hired). And long term, the company gains a labor force made up of people who they know were once willing to work for free – even if they hire these individuals, they are essentially pre-screened to be the type of people who will probably be satisfied with lower wages over time. </p>
<p>And it also puts companies that are willing to skirt the law at a competitive advantage over companies that try to do the right thing by their employees. If company A gets all its entry level employees via the unpaid internship path, and additionally had the benefit of free labor from interns who do not end up being hired for permanent position – and company B wants to do right by all its employees an pay new college grads a competitive wage (and benefits) … which company has lower operating costs? </p>
<p>It doesn’t create jobs, because an unpaid internship is not a job. It simply undermines job creation – because without the unpaid internships, the companies would have to create paying jobs to obtain the same support and services they get from the interns.</p>
I certainly am not criticizing her daughter – Chedva posted that the company would NOT allow her daughter to intern without pay, unless it was for college credit – and I have been pointing out why the LAW requires that. In other words, it would be fruitless for the D. to try to persuade the company to make an exception in her case, because the college credit thing is a result of that company’s efforts to avoid getting into trouble with the Department of Labor (and possibly local state regulatory agencies, as states have their own wage laws).</p>
<p>(Even though the company is complying with the law as to the college credit thing, I’m still uncomfortable with the idea that they do all their hiring via such internships. I do think that is discriminatory, and it would be an indication that even the student internships are the type that should be paid. Again, one of the criteria looked at by the DOL to decide whether or not the person is an intern or employee is whether the internship is a lead-in to paid employment – so that in itself would be a risky practice for the business in terms of possible future liability). </p>
<p>But I do also agree with polarscribe’s statement about the value assigned to your labor. It took me a long time to learn that lesson - not only about working for free, but also about working for below-standard wages - and I think it is a problem that women in particular face. Somehow we tend to project less of an air of confidence in job applications and interviews, and are afraid to ask for what we really think we should get. So in a way, I think that the person who takes that route at a time when they should be in the market for full time paid employment is pretty much branding themselves as the company doormat, and that attitude/picture can be there for awhile.</p>