Internships, lets follow from The US shall we?
Advert Online Reads: "Graduate Wanted for exciting internship opportunity at a successful organisation".
In my opinion internships are modern day slave labour. I'm sorry but they are, big corporations and even our own Government exploit graduates who are in desperate need of industry experience, work them like dogs, pay them nothing and expect nothing but gratitude for offering such a wonderful opportunity.
A recent court decision in the US is paving the way to make unpaid internships illegal. Hear, hear I say. As someone who has done their fair share of free labour, I can't wait to see the back of them. An internship can be a great learning experience if carried out during the academic year as part of a course or for a few weeks in the summer between college years. But 6-9 month long stints in wealthy companies after you graduate, ah no thanks.
Being an unemployed graduate, I hear all the time "have you tried an internship?". Yes, I have, two in fact. I'm honestly, all interned out.
As much as an internship can provide experience, what it can't provide is money or job security.
Advert online reads; "Intern wanted: 6 months: may lead to full time position" Ahem, sorry no, bullshit again. I have dozens of friends who have completed internships like these, have worked very hard and made themselves an asset to the organisation. However, none of them have been kept on. Why not? because hiring someone when you can replace them with another slave (Sorry, intern, where are my manners) is bad business.
Furthermore, internships give a direct advantage to anyone who lives in Dublin. most internships are based here, with the occasional one in Cork, Galway, Limerick or Waterford. You're at a complete advantage to undergo an internship if you live in Dublin. For example, you can live with your parents, you probably don't pay rent or living expenses (bills, food) and you more than likely work every weekend in Gloria Jeans or Forever21 and the €100-150 you make there keeps you happy for the week, to spent as you wish on travel, lunches and nights out.
Contrast this to someone not from Dublin, someone from Clare or Sligo or Kerry or Wexford. If they are offered an internship in the Capital they can't take it. The average rent in Dublin is €430 a month, add onto that internet, electricity, heating, travel, food and other expenses and you're talking about €700-1,000 a month, if an internship is 3-9 months, you're at an eventual loss of 3-9 THOUSAND euro. And for what? you've no job, no money and are barely up the next rung of the career ladder.
I have loans, I didn't qualify for a grant and I live exceptionally far from the nearest third level institute #RuralProblems. To complete my degree and masters, I worked hard every summer and weekend and relied heavily on my credit union (who, to be fair, were very helpful). I have a loan repayment of less than €30 a week, which is very manageable. Unless you're not earning money, then €30 is a lot of money and can make a difference between eating that week or beans every night.
Naivety and youth are being exploited and these companies should be ashamed. I can not afford to take on another internship, even though I am expected to, I earn more money in my retail job. I am grateful to have a job, but not working in the industry I love and having bundles of education wasted is soul destroying at times.
From my experience the biggest perpetrators (or to use The Comment's favourite word to describe unsavory people) dickheads, who utilise interns for exploitation are those in the PR industry. Friends and Classmates of mine have worked in internships in the pharmaceutical, banking, finance, education and media world and have all received stipends of some sort, or a job at the end and the gratitude coming from the employer rather than the employee. Those who weren't paid were only required to work 1-2 days a week so they could find another job to ease their cost of living expenses.
However my buddies in the PR game have carried out 3-9 month internships, with no pay, long hours and general condescension from those they worked with.
PR firms offer unpaid internships for long periods of time, rarely hire their interns and offer terrible remuneration, at a stretch may offer travel expenses, but as I said, at a stretch. I have a friend who is a graduate of UCD and DIT. She's been playing around in the PR industry for a few years now and although now established she talks about the difficulty of a PR internship.
"It's almost as the boss and other employees are completely unaware that you're unpaid, they treat you like you're on top dollar and often reference how lucky you are to have this opportunity and how easily replaceable you are. It was horrible, I left there with no better understanding of the PR industry, without any new contacts and a heap of debt"
My friend now runs her own small PR firm in the UK. She provides a 3 month internship in which she pays graduates £160 a week. It's not a lot, but combined with a part time job will cover expense and rent. My friend says she could not rest easy having someone work for free for more than a week or two (She does take unpaid work experience interns but for No more than 2-3weeks and during the academic year, afterwards she provides them with contacts and references in the future)
Don't get me started on internships under the Jobbridge scheme. I'm sick of listening to Labour and FG whine on about what a great initiative it is! Try it yourself so if you're that fond of it. There are a wealth of jobs under the scheme that graduates cannot qualify for. You have to be unemployed on social benefit for 3 months. I couldn't survive on social benefit and am not going to give up my low paying, yet more than the dole, job, just at the chance that maybe at the end I could possibly have a job in my industry.....MAYBE.
Is it that Mr and Mrs Boss forget what it was like to be a broke graduate, just desperate to get a chance or a start? Or else they realise how desperate we are to gain experience and exploit that completely?
Unfortunately unpaid work is not a luxury I can afford. Even with 4 years experience in my industry I'm still struggling to find work. I do not want to emigrate ,this is my home, but another internship would break me, financially and emotionally.
I could not in good conscience ever take on an intern for a prolonged period of time. It's slave labour, pure and simple. If your organisation has fancy websites, big offices and well paid staff, is €200 a week REALLY going to financially cripple you.
"Graduate Wanted for exciting internship opportunity at a successful organisation".reads the advert.
"And great amount of debt, lost time, aggravation,lack of respect and general loss of self belief" The advert omits
