Something for nothing: internships
/ 01 February 2010
With budgets under pressure, Cath Janes asks whether hiring interns is an unbeatable way to offer valuable work experience or simply a case of graduate exploitation
Imagine working for an organisation that you’ve always admired. You get a 12 month contract, the promise of valuable experience and even the suggestion that you’ll bag a permanent position. It’s a dream, right? So what if you were also told that you’d get no salary while working daily from nine to five and that, 11 months in, the permanent position had been given to someone else? Welcome to the world of internships.
Increasingly internships are offered to graduates as an unpaid route into their chosen career giving them a chance to experience the sector and build their skill set. In return, the host organisation gets the equivalent of a new employee at little or no cost. They have been popular in the media industry for years but now it’s a trend that’s spreading rapidly across all industries and sectors.
In 2009, the government launched the Graduate Talent Pool initiative, which matches graduates to internships. This coincided with the recession which, by December 2009, had left one in five 18 to 24 year olds with a degree unemployed. Throw into the mix employers who want to recruit, but can’t afford to do so, and it sounds like a match made in heaven. But is it?
“Not always,” warns Heather Collier, director at the National Council for Work Experience. “There are those who run great schemes, who will pay interns salaries and expenses and allow them to put their education into practice. Then there are those who are tempted to be unethical by not offering remuneration or not giving interns the experience that they are meant to receive. We try to promote good practice so that companies can show that they are committed to workforce development or CPD (Continuing Professional Development) policies. It’s essential to not just how the intern is treated but how the company is perceived as well.”
Fresh ideas
There’s little doubt that, handled properly, internships are highly valuable to those companies that run them. They attract fresh blood, fresh ideas, the latest academic thinking and show graduates – your future employees – that your organisation is a great place to work.
What, then, makes companies treat interns poorly? Tales of long contracts with no pay or prospects are as common as high calibre graduates lured into making the coffee. Hardly sound business sense.
Alex Try knows all about it. He is the co-founder of Interns Anonymous, a website where interns share their experiences. “I have a 2:1 in history and got an unpaid internship with a think tank in London. I found that all but one person in the organisation were unpaid interns. After just one week I was made media director and worked nine to five, yet there was no job at the end of it.
“We set up the website because so many friends had similar experiences and we were deluged with horror stories as a result. I know graduates who spent three months photocopying. I also know a graduate who worked for a PR agency full time, yet unpaid, for seven months only for the job she had been promised at the end to be given to someone else. How could any employer think that this is a fair way to treat someone?”
Open to exploitation
Yet how employers treat interns is problematic on several levels. For example, many interns should receive the national minimum wage yet don’t, leaving employers vulnerable to accusations of exploitation. There is also the issue of graduates from less affluent backgrounds being unable to work unpaid, which leaves employers only able to recruit whoever can afford to work for them, not whoever is best for their business.
One organisation with an exemplary intern programme is Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, a not for profit company that manages council homes for Rochdale Council. It used interns for the first time in 2009. Clare Tostevin, head of business development, explains.
“We wanted to bring fresh thinking into the organisation and embark upon projects that we would otherwise have delayed. While they are interns, they are as much a part of our organisation as any employee. They get paid, they have a formal relationship with us and get training and support.
“We have two interns who are working on distinct projects and report to me, and as I am on the executive management team they can see how their work fits in at a high level. They are such a valuable addition to our organisation and it’s given us the chance to show them the careers we can offer. We feel like we’re helping to create our future leaders.”
Support is also available from the government. In the pre-budget report in November, it announced plans for an £8m financial support scheme for undergraduates on short term internships that will support 10,000 people a year. It’s a positive step, but is it enough?
Not according to Try. He said: “There needs to be a culture change and it has to start with government. At any one time the UK’s parliament uses 450 interns, 99% of whom are unpaid. They carry out 18,000 hours work per week. That’s where the change needs to start. Pay them, give them support and lead by example, something that the UK’s employers also urgently need to do.”