While the concept of today’s graduates doing internships is a much-debated issue, a more worrying trend established in the US appears to be gaining headway this side of the pond: interns (or their parents) who pay large sums of money to secure unpaid work placements.
Yesterday (22 Sept), The Times published a letter from a number of groups arguing that all unpaid internships are exploitative.
Volunteer
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Vikram Sidhu is just coming to the end of his three months interning as a finance assistant. He reflects on his experience, and explains why he is glad he chose to do an internship.
Internships: they’re becoming the trendy next-step for graduates, and are a proven success in getting young people onto the career ladder. But as Julia Margo pointed out in her Sunday Times article, there’s one sure-fire way to ruin them, and it all comes down to money.
If the term ‘internship’ makes you think of tea-making and picking up the boss’s dry cleaning then think again – internships are now being hailed by the BBC as almost a ‘guaranteed rite of passage’ in the ever-competitive job market.
As a graduate or current student, the words ‘tuition fees’ and ‘student debt’ may make you shudder at the mere thought of them. You might want to add ‘graduate tax’ to this list, as the Government has revealed plans to totally scrap the tuition fee system.
There have been whispers in the media about the introduction of a training wage for all interns, proposed by the CIPD (The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development).
The recent news that “three quarters of employers ‘require 2:1 degree’†has come as a shock to many graduates who have only just received their university degrees, many of which fall below this grade. With the number of students still on the rise, the latest statistics issued by The Association of Graduate Recruiters reveal that job vacancies have decreased by 7%, a frightening percentage for any graduate on the hunt for a job.
