Unpaid internships

[bigbadwolf]

Forgive me for being such a communist, I was only suggesting that people shouldn't be slaves by guaranteeing they receive a minimum subsistence wage. And so if you're as hard down by and hard-working as you appear to be, would you mind explaining to us/me how you were able to support yourself through your unpaid internships?

I'm not suggesting that unpaid internships don't add value - they do, and that's the problem. It gives people who have rich parents who can pay for them to do these things an unfair advantage. And guess what - other peoples parents work hard too! Not just your own, and they don't get shit for it. I saw my mum work 80 hours a week as a residential nurse just to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. Poor people don't necessarily have lazy parents. Another prejudice you seem to harbour.

For the sake of argument, suppose that unpaid internships were outlawed. The large firms are already paying for interns and will continue to do so. Those with rich parents who could afford to pay top whack for expensive educations at prestigious schools, and who furthermore have contacts with people in the big firms, will continue to get a disproportionate chunk of those internships. But the bright and ambitious youngster who perforce went, say, to a cheapo state school and whose resume gets promptly binned by the large firms has to look elsewhere: he hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell at these places. He can offer himself to the ten-man outfit but that outfit may not have the wherewithal to pay for an internship -- though they'd be more than happy to take him on for free. The youngster desperately needs work experience. And so to my thinking, insistence on paid internships actually ends up exacerbating class differences, makes it more difficult for the meritorious lower-class person to climb the ladder.

 

[Anthony DeAngelis]

1) I was not bell ringing. Considering that this post is about unpaid internships and I have done unpaid internships, I think my experiences were relevant to this post. Also, my "bell ringing" was in response to your inaccurate characterization of my past and life.

2) Unpaid internships are short term things. No one is working 40-50 hours a week, for years, unpaid. My internships were 10-20 hours a week and flexible. Non lasted more than 3 months. Also, you take these on while in school.

Unpaid internships are not needed for most jobs. Front office finance is different. It is harder to break in and harder to get noticed. This is why people are willing to work unpaid. If you don't want to work unpaid, fine, go get a paid internship. Paid internships are typically during the summer and full time. There is also a limited amount of them. Many unpaid internships are smaller shops and off cycle. I did mine during the spring and during school time.

Bottom line is that requiring firms to pay will dry up these opportunities. Minimum wage is not worth losing an opportunity to make the kind of money that you will make in finance. If you are poor, work at night while interning during the day. Maybe you have to take a job in back office and work your way to the front. Maybe you need a masters. Who knows. Everyone is a different circumstance. Poor people have to work harder to get where they want. Shorter people have to work harder to be successful in basketball. Blind people have to work harder at getting around than people with sight. We each have things that make our lives easier and harder. By overcoming obstacles we grow as human beings.

Life is friggin hard. Blows my mind. People in the USA complaining about life being tough. Go move to Afghanistan or some other undeveloped country. We have freedom, opportunity and plenty of government services. The rest is up to you. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

I am sorry if I still believe in personal responsibility.

 

[Anthony DeAngelis]

BBW hit the nail on the head. If you go to a lesser school you have to hustle more to break in. That's life. I mean do you think I liked working and commuting to school? I sucked hard core. But what was I going to do? I mean everyone has adversity in their life. You can either let it beat you or push forward. At the end of the day you need to work hard in life.

 

[Barny]

For the sake of argument, suppose that unpaid internships were outlawed. The large firms are already paying for interns and will continue to do so. Those with rich parents who could afford to pay top whack for expensive educations at prestigious schools, and who furthermore have contacts with people in the big firms, will continue to get a disproportionate chunk of those internships. But the bright and ambitious youngster who perforce went, say, to a cheapo state school and whose resume gets promptly binned by the large firms has to look elsewhere: he hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell at these places. He can offer himself to the ten-man outfit but that outfit may not have the wherewithal to pay for an internship -- though they'd be more than happy to take him on for free. The youngster desperately needs work experience. And so to my thinking, insistence on paid internships actually ends up exacerbating class differences, makes it more difficult for the meritorious lower-class person to climb the ladder.

The difference is that some bright poor people are able to get top educations, but a bright poor person can't do an unpaid internship. You suggest that they can offer themselves up to a ten-man outfit to gain some much needed experience, but how the hell are they going to do that without financial support? It's just not feasible.

What you mention about internships already happens. Those who got the best educations, and have the best contacts already get the best internships. By having unpaid internships, you allow those rich poor who aren't the cream of the crop to get a back door in, so the poor guys are just getting double screwed.

Personally I think the banning of unpaid internships needs to be combined with some other form of social inclusions, such as enforcing companies to take some large x% of their interns from poor backgrounds, for example.

 

[Barny]

1) I was not bell ringing. Considering that this post is about unpaid internships and I have done unpaid internships, I think my experiences were relevant to this post. Also, my "bell ringing" was in response to your inaccurate characterization of my past and life.

2) Unpaid internships are short term things. No one is working 40-50 hours a week, for years, unpaid. My internships were 10-20 hours a week and flexible. Non lasted more than 3 months. Also, you take these on while in school.

Unpaid internships are not needed for most jobs. Front office finance is different. It is harder to break in and harder to get noticed. This is why people are willing to work unpaid. If you don't want to work unpaid, fine, go get a paid internship. Paid internships are typically during the summer and full time. There is also a limited amount of them. Many unpaid internships are smaller shops and off cycle. I did mine during the spring and during school time.

Bottom line is that requiring firms to pay will dry up these opportunities. Minimum wage is not worth losing an opportunity to make the kind of money that you will make in finance. If you are poor, work at night while interning during the day. Maybe you have to take a job in back office and work your way to the front. Maybe you need a masters. Who knows. Everyone is a different circumstance. Poor people have to work harder to get where they want. Shorter people have to work harder to be successful in basketball. Blind people have to work harder at getting around than people with sight. We each have things that make our lives easier and harder. By overcoming obstacles we grow as human beings.

Life is friggin hard. Blows my mind. People in the USA complaining about life being tough. Go move to Afghanistan or some other undeveloped country. We have freedom, opportunity and plenty of government services. The rest is up to you. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

I am sorry if I still believe in personal responsibility.

To point 2) - it seems we've had a miscommunication here. What you've described is more part-time work experience than an unpaid internship. I'm from the UK - I don't know what the situation is like in the US, but in the UK, for industries other than finance, it has become the norm for people to work up to a year full-time and unpaid in order to get their break into an industry (media, fashion to name just two). So in the UK, people really are working 60 hours a week for 48 weeks a year for FREE. I think that is despicable, and it is impossible for poor people to make the sacrifices necessary to undertake that sort of work-experience. I have no problem with people working for 20 hours a week for a couple of months to gain some experience, but we're talking about a completely different ball-game altogether here.

I'm not debating that life is hard, and we all have our own individual disadvantages to overcome. What I'm saying is that unfairly and, most importantly, unnecessarily discriminating against poor people more than they already are is unfair. It's bad for our society to have such a defined class systems as exists in the UK, and the government should be doing everything it can to include those who are from poor backgrounds. I'm not saying that poor people should be given jobs for being poor. I'm saying bright, educated poor people should not be further disadvantaged by allowing less bright rich kids to gain the upper hand via unpaid internships.

 

[Barny]

BBW hit the nail on the head. If you go to a lesser school you have to hustle more to break in. That's life. I mean do you think I liked working and commuting to school? I sucked hard core. But what was I going to do? I mean everyone has adversity in their life. You can either let it beat you or push forward. At the end of the day you need to work hard in life.

Have you seen the reports from the Sutton Trust charity in the UK, which shows that privately educated people are far more likely to go to the UK's 30 most selective institutions than their state educated counter-parts even with identical A-level grades? UK society is far less meritocratic than people think. And as above, my comments were with regards to the UK (I believe the original post was related to Ireland).

 

[Anthony DeAngelis]

Let me clarify. My experiences and views are based on the US. If someone is working a year unpaid, that is complete crap. I have heard about that happening in Greece and other places and agree with you that it is impossible to expect someone to do that.

In the USA, from my experience anyway, unpaid internships tend to be more flexible and at really small shops. Places that couldn't or wouldn't want to absorb added costs. The nice thing about them is you can do them during the school year which helps because you are in school and your living expenses should be taken care of (in theory). Now this favors those who go to schools near major metros, but this thinking should play a part in everyone's college decision. Part of my decision to go to Villanova for a MSF was its proximity to Philadelphia.

All I am saying is that losing unpaid internships, in the US, would hurt poor kids the most. Rich kids will always get hooked up, but these unpaid internships allow kids from lesser ranked schools to get the experience that gives them a shot. Many people get a job in banking/trading/etc from normal, paying internships and on campus recruiting, but sometimes you need to go at it a different way. Offering to work for free to gain the experience is a very useful tool. I wouldn't be where I am today without it.

 

[Barny]

Let me clarify. My experiences and views are based on the US. If someone is working a year unpaid, that is complete crap. I have heard about that happening in Greece and other places and agree with you that it is impossible to expect someone to do that.

In the USA, from my experience anyway, unpaid internships tend to be more flexible and at really small shops. Places that couldn't or wouldn't want to absorb added costs. The nice thing about them is you can do them during the school year which helps because you are in school and your living expenses should be taken care of (in theory). Now this favors those who go to schools near major metros, but this thinking should play a part in everyone's college decision. Part of my decision to go to Villanova for a MSF was its proximity to Philadelphia.

All I am saying is that losing unpaid internships, in the US, would hurt poor kids the most. Rich kids will always get hooked up, but these unpaid internships allow kids from lesser ranked schools to get the experience that gives them a shot. Many people get a job in banking/trading/etc from normal, paying internships and on campus recruiting, but sometimes you need to go at it a different way. Offering to work for free to gain the experience is a very useful tool. I wouldn't be where I am today without it.

Well now you put it like that I mostly agree with you. A small amount of unpaid work whilst you're at Uni/during the vacations when you're already paying for your accommodation is fine, and would certainly be useful to poorer students.

As I said in the UK the situation is basically horrific these days. If you want to go into politics, media, journalism, fashion, marketing/advertising and industries like that then you need to do long stints of unpaid internships to get your foot in the door. And most of these are in London, which means your costs are astronomical too. Completely impossible for poor kids to do that, and I want the government to outlaw full-time unpaid internships. I have several friends who are currently following this path, all from well-off families, mostly not very bright and not very resourceful, quite lazy, think the world owes them something etc. who are going to get their lucky break over people far more capable just because of money, and that really disappoints me.

 

[bigbadwolf]

The difference is that some bright poor people are able to get top educations, but a bright poor person can't do an unpaid internship. You suggest that they can offer themselves up to a ten-man outfit to gain some much needed experience, but how the hell are they going to do that without financial support? It's just not feasible.

As you indicate in a subsequent post, it's harder for the poor than for the well-heeled to get into Oxbridge and the Russell Group of universities generally. It's not just in internships that the dice are loaded, that the playing field isn't level: inequality and inequity pervade all aspects of British society. And it's been getting worse for the last thirty years as the welfare state has gradually been dismantled.

What you mention about internships already happens. Those who got the best educations, and have the best contacts already get the best internships. By having unpaid internships, you allow those rich poor who aren't the cream of the crop to get a back door in, so the poor guys are just getting double screwed.

But the point is it also affords an opportunity for the poor to get a foot in the door. I think you're focusing on media and fashion rather than finance, and we've already made clear in prior posts that we're talking about finance. If a person from a poor background can get his foot in the door by taking on an unpaid internship with a ten-man outfit and this experience allows him to subsequently get a good paid job, is it not something to be applauded? The undeserving rich person, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, will not be able to parley that unpaid finance internship into a lucrative job: he won't have the brains. The poor person just needs a chance to prove himself and to pick up much-needed knowledge and skills. Why deny him that?

Personally I think the banning of unpaid internships needs to be combined with some other form of social inclusions, such as enforcing companies to take some large x% of their interns from poor backgrounds, for example.

These forms of social engineering don't work in practice, in my humble opinion. This is not say that society isn't rigged against the poor; it manifestly is. It's just that social engineering programs tend not to mitigate the problems of the status quo and instead create new evils on top of the old. For example in Norway there's a piece of legislation ordering companies to have at least a certain percentage of their directors to be women. Since there aren't enough qualified women around, a lot of underqualified women have been promoted to the board -- at the expense of more deserving men. Is this more equitable than what previously held?

 

[bigbadwolf]

As I said in the UK the situation is basically horrific these days. If you want to go into politics, media, journalism, fashion, marketing/advertising and industries like that then you need to do long stints of unpaid internships to get your foot in the door. And most of these are in London, which means your costs are astronomical too. Completely impossible for poor kids to do that, and I want the government to outlaw full-time unpaid internships. I have several friends who are currently following this path, all from well-off families, mostly not very bright and not very resourceful, quite lazy, think the world owes them something etc. who are going to get their lucky break over people far more capable just because of money, and that really disappoints me.

Part of this is because the job situation is complete sh!t in Britain these days. Even Oxbridge graduates are scrambling for jobs at the moment. The areas you mention have always favored people from privileged backgrounds but this has become exponentially worse because of the dearth of openings available.

 

[Anthony DeAngelis]

I am a big believer in unintended consequences. Before we start asking for more rules and regulations we need to be prepared for the ripple effects.

Everything really just boils down to parenting. That is the reason dirt poor immigrants can come to the US and be so successful. They teach their kids that education and savings are of the utmost importance. My parents would constantly nag me to read and my mom would always pick on me about not having a masters like she did (first in my family to go to school). Being poor sucks, but it isn't hard to break out of poverty as long as you have parents that set the right priority.

Problem is being poor is also usually followed by being a single parent, having uneducated parents, etc. It is hard to expect a working single mom to do everything themselves. How do you stop it though? When a kid is 18 and barely finished high school you can't change things. I don't think anyone wants to government dictating how to raise children. So you come to the conclusion that there really isn't anything that can be done. No one lists how poor their family is on their resume. But they sure as hell list that they went to college or didn't. Teacher have become quasi parents, a job that they are unprepared and ill equipped for.

My solution is to really just make grade school full year round and build more community colleges. A nations responsibility is to provide the opportunity to educate yourself, but it cannot force people to be all they can be. In my experience, the difference between success and failure, in all parts of life, is simply doing the little things right. Show up to class, study, be on time, work hard, save a little, get some exercise, eat junk food in moderation, little things.

Imagine if people bought slightly more modest house, spent a little less on their credit card, ate a little less junk food, studied a little more. Small changes lead to big improvements. Unfortunately, people don't do what they should and they make poor decisions. I think prohibition came from a good place. The world would be better off if people didn't drink, but they do and they will find ways around the rules.

 

[Barny]

As you indicate in a subsequent post, it's harder for the poor than for the well-heeled to get into Oxbridge and the Russell Group of universities generally. It's not just in internships that the dice are loaded, that the playing field isn't level: inequality and inequity pervade all aspects of British society. And it's been getting worse for the last thirty years as the welfare state has gradually been dismantled.

But the point is it also affords an opportunity for the poor to get a foot in the door. I think you're focusing on media and fashion rather than finance, and we've already made clear in prior posts that we're talking about finance. If a person from a poor background can get his foot in the door by taking on an unpaid internship with a ten-man outfit and this experience allows him to subsequently get a good paid job, is it not something to be applauded? The undeserving rich person, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, will not be able to parley that unpaid finance internship into a lucrative job: he won't have the brains. The poor person just needs a chance to prove himself and to pick up much-needed knowledge and skills. Why deny him that?

These forms of social engineering don't work in practice, in my humble opinion. This is not say that society isn't rigged against the poor; it manifestly is. It's just that social engineering programs tend not to mitigate the problems of the status quo and instead create new evils on top of the old. For example in Norway there's a piece of legislation ordering companies to have at least a certain percentage of their directors to be women. Since there aren't enough qualified women around, a lot of underqualified women have been promoted to the board -- at the expense of more deserving men. Is this more equitable than what previously held?

Agree with your first paragraph, though I'd still say it's perfectly possible to get into Russel Group unis if you're at least reasonably bright even if from a poor/state background.

I'm not against unpaid work experience. But the focus is on work experience. One month of unpaid experience? Fine, and if you want to stack several one-month unpaid internships the choice is yours. But allowing long-term internships and making them the norm and de facto standard for getting into a particular career is not right IMO.

I agree with your final paragraph. My issue is that given equal credentials, poor people are overlooked vs rich people. Employers need to recognise that someone graduating with AAA from UEA might be as good as someone graduating with AAA from Oxbridge, but just chose a different route because the odds were stacked against them or they felt they might fit in better somewhere else. The dominance that Oxbridge has in all of our best jobs is unfair, and causes a self-perpetuating cycle where the top jobs are reserved for the rich.

 

[Barny]

Part of this is because the job situation is complete sh!t in Britain these days. Even Oxbridge graduates are scrambling for jobs at the moment. The areas you mention have always favored people from privileged backgrounds but this has become exponentially worse because of the dearth of openings available.

I agree but for different reasons, I think. I also believe the job situation is shit. But I don't accept that Oxbridge graduates are special and deserve jobs over other people or that poor employment amongst Oxbridge graduates is an indicator of economic health. Having just graduated from Cambridge, I can tell you that some of the most disappointing people I've ever met are Cambridge BA students. On the whole they are arrogant, ignorant, and feel the world owes them something because they went to Cambridge. They also aren't anymore knowledgeable or skillful than students from the UK's other top universities, particularly compared to the students graduating top of their class at other Russel Group unis.

Without a doubt the most impressive people I met at Cambridge were graduates who had come from other institutions to do masters/phd's at Cambridge. None of the grads I've met have had problems finding jobs. Several of my friends are now going on to work in economic consultancies, non-profits like the UN, starting their own businesses which have been funded by VC's/PE, others are going to work in the city in hedgies/BB's, and others are working at engineering/tech firms. The rest (like me) are going on to PhD's. I can't recall a single person from my college MCR with a BA (not-cantab)/MA (cantab) that's failed to get a job or to move on to a PhD, the only people I know who're spending the next year twiddling their thumbs are those who did BA/MA (Cantab), and that doesn't surprise me one bit.

An anecdotal example, a friend of mine applied for several programming related jobs, having never done programming in his life. No surprise that he was unsuccessful at interview, despite having many, because he couldn't even answer why he was interested in programming or what languages he's programmed in (programming being one of the few jobs where you can get hands on experience without having to be employed). He often moaned in the pub about how "ridiculous" it was that they wouldn't employ "A Cambridge Maths graduate" because he "clearly has the intellectual capacity to learn and succeed at programming". This is the kind of attitude many Cambridge BA's have.

I would go as far as to say that, from my experience, if I were ever in a position of hiring candidates, I would actively discriminate against Cambridge BA applicants.

 

[atreides]

An anecdotal example, a friend of mine applied for several programming related jobs, having never done programming in his life. No surprise that he was unsuccessful at interview, despite having many, because he couldn't even answer why he was interested in programming or what languages he's programmed in (programming being one of the few jobs where you can get hands on experience without having to be employed). He often moaned in the pub about how "ridiculous" it was that they wouldn't employ "A Cambridge Maths graduate" because he "clearly has the intellectual capacity to learn and succeed at programming". This is the kind of attitude many Cambridge BA's have

I'm curious how this is possible?? Even biologist and chemists get to do some serious programming these days. One off case maybe?

 

[bigbadwolf]

I'm curious how this is possible?? Even biologist and chemists get to do some serious programming these days. One off case maybe?

Very easy to get a math degree from Cambridge without having done any programming.

He often moaned in the pub about how "ridiculous" it was that they wouldn't employ "A Cambridge Maths graduate" because he "clearly has the intellectual capacity to learn and succeed at programming". This is the kind of attitude many Cambridge BA's have.

As you say, Oxbridge grads have a sense of entitlement. The plum jobs go to them, the scraps to everyone else.

 

[Barny]

I'm curious how this is possible?? Even biologist and chemists get to do some serious programming these days. One off case maybe?

Cambridge Maths is very "pure". You can do a computing project in the 2nd year (not sure if it's compulsory these days) and that's it.

 

[alain]

What is Cantab? What is the Russel Group?

 

[bigbadwolf]

What is Cantab? What is the Russel Group?

The Russell Group. "Cantab" is a grad of the U of Cambridge.

 

[Barny]

Very easy to get a math degree from Cambridge without having done any programming.

As you say, Oxbridge grads have a sense of entitlement. The plum jobs go to them, the scraps to everyone else.

Not necessarily true. With the exception of McKinsey, you can get any job an Oxbridge grad can if you're a good candidate. My girlfriend is about to start work at a top city law firm, and they only have one Cambridge grad in their intake, the rest come from UCL, Durham, Nottingham, Bristol.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Not necessarily true. With the exception of McKinsey, you can get any job an Oxbridge grad can if you're a good candidate. My girlfriend is about to start work at a top city law firm, and they only have one Cambridge grad in their intake, the rest come from UCL, Durham, Nottingham, Bristol.

In theory you can. No-one says "Oxbridge only, and the rest of you can bugger off." But it's interesting how the fast-track civil service jobs, the plum Foreign Office jobs, the merchant bank jobs, the fast-track corporate jobs, the plum academic jobs, go disproportionately to Oxbridge. I don't know the stats now but let me cite rough figures from the late '80s: Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) hired 200 grads in a give year in the late '80s ('87 I think). Half came from Oxbridge and the other half from all the other universities (about 40 at the time?). Two hundred applied from Oxbridge, all of whom automatically got a first interview. Half of these were offered positions. Of non-Oxbridge, about 3,000 applied all told, of whom 100 were accepted. The odds were massively in favor of Oxbridge: even chances from Oxbridge and 1 in 30 chance otherwise.

I went to a Russell Group school myself (KCL). But I won't kid myself that the quality of my education was anywhere remotely comparable to Cambridge (i.e., leaving aside the cachet of the name).