I’ve been offered one too. I attended a job interview only to discover there would be no pay. I’d be working from home and using a dial-up connection, my connection at my expense. After a year I might have been offered a paid position. My response was to tell him I wanted to work with a reputable company and he was obviously not a reputable employer and lacked any sense of marality.

What this current generation of students need to do is picket the companies and organisations who are offering internships. You’ve got your education. It’s now time to stand up for yourselves, get yourselves some self respect and refuse to do it.
When sources of free labour dry up, they’ll pay you for your time. This is a nasty world. If you hand your self-esteem over to an organisation, don’t be surprised when you get hurt, when your self-esteem is crushed. Your self-esteem is precious and hard-earned. Protect it and never ever give it to an abusive organisation – and if they aren’t paying you, that is exactly what they are. Abusive. You wouldnt do it in a personal relationship, so why do it in a professional relationship?

Failing to stand up for yourselves means you have to take some responsibility too. No ifs, no buts. Establish your own companies, your own graudate recruitment companies. How many thousands of you are there every year? That’s a lot of potential demonstrators outside these companies and offices.