Interns Anonymous has been set up by two graduates currently working as unpaid interns. We want this website to be 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.
More and more people our age are trying to gain experience or footholds in an industry by working without pay – Westminster and the media would collapse without us. Yet, nobody knows how many of us there are, what we get up to and what we gain from our experiences. Some of our friends have spent three months photo-copying, been slaves for Chief Executives or, conversely, walked in the corridors of power, and published articles in national newspapers.
We want to hear from people who are, or have been, interns. We want to know if you found your experiences useful or demoralising, if you felt exploited or were treated well. Most of all we want stories, good or bad, that you are willing to share. Did an internship lead to a dream job or give you great experience? Or did you spend three months crying in the toilets of your organisation because your boss treated you like dirt?
This project is about finding out what interns are being made to do, and what they think of it. To do this, we need your help. YOUR contributions are the most important part of this site. We want you to send us blog posts about your experiences to internsanonymous@gmail.com – which we will post ANONYMOUSLY. You can contribute as often as you like, and your articles can be anything from a couple of hundred, to a thousand words long. You have the freedom to write whatever you like, and people will have the chance to discuss it in the comments section.
We will also host articles about internships from employers, journalists and policy-makers. We aim not just to be a discussion forum, but also a research base and a first port of call for anyone applying for an internship. Of course, as current interns ourselves, we know that an internship is all about experience and references for future employment. So, if you are willing to speak your mind we will keep your identity and that of your employer a secret. Like us, you will be interns anonymous.
