Again, the original idea behind unpaid interns was that the “pay” was the real-life work experience. All the on-the-job training that you can’t get in a classroom was worth a lot more than the hourly wage. Plus, it allowed college kids a way to network and get a foot in the door at a good company. For example, many young people would happily work at Google, Amazon, or Microsoft for a few weeks for free. That resume bullet is priceless when you’re just coming out of college with a zillion competitors applying for the same jobs.
It’s exploitation, no question about it.
But in most places it’s temporary exploitation. As noted above, getting a foot in the door and getting work experience is the idea. It’s hard to get a job straight out of college (depending on the economy in the year you graduate, and the size of your graduating class nationally), and interns have a good chance in most places of being actually hired at entry level when their internship is done.
That said, I know some companies depend on interns for unpaid labor and simply get a new batch of interns every six months.
Definitely. The intern idea has really become a cheap source of temp labor for a lot of companies.
For example, a certain big box retailer I used to work at used to get 3-4 interns during the summer to come over and help set displays, restock shelves, and update signing. These folks were in MBA programs. Every single one of them would get there and quickly state that floor-level retail was most defintely NOT what they had signed up for.
I’ve always wondered what happened to the feedback that went to the university. They had to have complained.
I would have! Shit, that’s ridiculous.