A forum for interns to share their experiences and discuss the ethics of unpaid employment. Most importantly, we want this site to be a place where YOU can tell us your story.
Does anyone feel they’ve been exploited through a recent work experience/internship? If so, BBC News is keen to hear about it. All info will be treated in total confidence. They are particularly interested in young people who’ve ended up doing unpaid work outside the world of media and politics.
If anyone wants to get in touch then please drop us a short email and we’ll pass the details on.
We don’t often put adverts on the site… but Thames Valley University are offering PAID placements for Graduates, so we thought we better tell you about it.
8 week placements, at places like O2… for £200 a week. Check out the flyer here.
Britain’s leading universities raised the prospect of a massive hike in student fees yesterday as the only means of maintaining standards in the face of public spending cuts.
Lord Browne, the former BP chief who is heading a government inquiry into student finance, is coming under increasing pressure to recommend a substantial rise to the current cap on tuition fees of £3,225 a year.
In one submission to him yesterday, the Russell Group – which represents 20 of the country’s leading higher education research institutions – argued in favour of lifting the cap altogether and allowing universities to set their own fees.
If a degree doesn’t prepare you for a job (anyone tried applying for jobs straight out of uni and had much success?) and it costs £20,000 a year to complete… what is the point?
Do tell us what you think…
Our friends over at Graduate Fog have just brought our attention to this shocking and scandalous story from the Standard and the Telegraph:
As part of an overhaul of police recruitment – to save millions a year in training costs – Scotland Yard is considering making new recruits in London work as volunteer special constables for at least a year before they can apply to become full-time paid Met officers.
This saving of £12 million a year reveals the shocking state of our public finances. Who are the next generation of police officers? Only those who can afford to work for free for a year! Incredible. Absolutely incredible.
One thing is clear. This is a sign of things to come. If you want a job in the public sector APPLY NOW before this becomes the norm.
It’s one thing for small think-tanks or charities to employ unpaid interns… but for an organisation as big as the POLICE FORCE do away with paid training. We are lost for words.
This is a story which will rumble on and on and on. We haven’t heard the last of this one.
There’s a shrine in the corner of my room, a collection of passes from all the newspapers I’ve ever done work experience in. I used to flick through them, trying to remember what I learned from each placement: how they’ve moulded me into a better reporter, the silly mistakes, the small triumphs. I used to be proud of them: they were trophies which marked the weeks of unpaid toil. Used to.
I’ve been trying to be a journalist since I was 17. I’m now 22. That’s five years of friends tolerating my idiosyncratic habit of reading five different national newspapers every day, and spending my summers and holidays in newsrooms (invariably without windows, why is that?).
But guess what? Trying hurts. I’m not going to stop, but it hurts. Work experience hurts. “Internships” hurt.
Rejections hurt. You will get rejected – knocked back, even for free work, as well as graduate schemes and jobs. Heartfelt emails will go unanswered, submissions ignored or outright declined (It took me a week to get over the first “No. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device”). If you’re trying to be a journalist, chances are at some point you’ll have your heart broken by a newspaper.
MPs have only just arrived back in the Commons… but already they are looking for some cheap intern labour.
Congratulations to blond bombshell Graham Stuart, Tory MP for Beverley and Holderness who increased his majority by 4500, and Julian Huppert, the new Lib Dem MP for Cambridge. They have the dubious honour of being the first MPs to place unpaid job adverts on the w4mp website. What about a new parliament and a new start?
Email Niki and Julian if you want an unpaid job, or to complain that interns should be paid enough to live on.
First of all I would like to say this website is great….for a not so great situation… well I have resorted to lying on my CV because I don’t understand how in order to be accepted on a internship I have to have ’6 months experience’ when no one is giving me any experience. Don’t get me wrong I do have some experience but I’m in a catch 22 situation because I REFUSE to do any more unpaid work experience. I am a 22 year old woman who has graduated from University not a 16 year old who has no idea of what it’s like to work in an office.
I am looking for EVERYTHING but still can’t get anywhere. When you get rejected for a Sales Assistant job in Boots you know times are hard. I have been to job courses, had my CV checked over a million times, but still getting pipped to the post…
However, I am really pissed off with one PR agency (time for a career in social work you say..?) basically I had an interview with the head of the department I was applying for and with another manager of some sort and after the interview I asked: “when will I be told of the outcome of the interview”. They said “within a week”… um it’s now been about a month. Within that time I phoned one of them who was conveniently ‘in a meeting’ and even spoke to a HR manager and was told they would get back to me so basically they are fobbing me off. I refuse to let this go because this is not the first time this has happened to me and I think it is highly RUDE the way I’ve been treated.
Regardless the search still continues but I think I’m through with this…need a career change ASAP! (i.e. where the money is at) I feel like University is one big rip off… we have all been conned… They are stooping us to unthinkable measures (i.e. Vicky Harrisson) Something needs to change……
I don’t even know what to do because I’m living with my mum rent free and I feel awful because I know she is struggling and feel like I should be doing something to help but no one wants to give me a job… I even tried to sign up with an agency (by the way I am signed up to 5 in which no one gives a shit) which was for admin work… they told me flatly I need 6 months experience to a years experience. I don’t understand because admin work can be done with your eyes closed…not exactly brain surgery….but I just don’t know anymore….I’m surprised I am not a crack addict/alcoholic yet…..it has been too long now… *sigh*
