Archive for the 'Debate' Category

Eastern promise: interning abroad can be a better option

Published 03/30/2012 Debate 5 Comments
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I just want to share my internship/job experience working for NGOs in the Middle East…I know this is quite a specific field, but my story has some relevance to many of the issues you are discussing.  I have a vague ambition to work in International Human Rights, specifically with regards to the Middle East, and decided to take a year out of my degree and come to Cairo for a year to get some work experience.

Here, I had the rather shocking experience of, after a month, getting a salary from my current NGO, who insisted if I was working I had to be paid.  Soon later, I got a contract, as I asked for job security so I could plan my year properly. As you could guess, many NGOs in the developing world struggle with funding and have nothing like the resources available to private sector companies back in London.  (The coordinator for my organization hasn’t been able to give himself a salary for the past couple of months, making do with money from other consultancy work he does.) Yet many organizations here still manage to pay their interns/and or hire fresh graduates.  I have other graduate friends who are working or interning with NGOs in the region, who are even provided with accomodation. (My journalist friends, interested in foreign affairs, have had similar experiences here, being paid for their work and interning in English language newspapers, and due to the comparative lack of competition in Cairo, they have had work about the city published in national newspapers in London.)

In contrast, I have many friends back in London who have degrees, and masters.  They have been interning for human rights groups, think tanks and NGOs for months without pay, working in bars to sustain a living.  To those friends, and others who want to work in international development, I’d say brave the unknown and leave London and get experience on the ground for a few years.  You’ll find you’re presence is much appreciated, and it often shows in pay, actual job titles and respect.

I’d also say to those who want to work in international development, not to look for jobs on the internet from home, but to save up money for flights, take a risk and go out there.  Native English speakers are always in demand, and particulary in unstable countries where a lot of foreigners leave, internships often lead to job offers.  My organization and all my other NGO worker friends say they never look at applications coming from outside Egypt, due to a) the hassle of organizing interviews and b) the very real possibility that although an applicant might like the idea of working in the Middle East, in reality many people find the life difficult and quickly leave.  It is also crazy to take internships in developing countries that you practically have to pay for, i.e. volunteer tourism.  Again, I stress, if you actually get out there, there are many many organizations who would love to have someone work for free for them.  There is simply not the same internship culture to compete with.  I have now been offered a permanent job, but it is with regret, I will have to return to England to study…and continue my work experience unpaid, doing things that after a year of an intense job, I feel slightly overqualified for.

I just find it insane that most local NGOs here at least pay stipends to their interns, but back in London, organizations apparently can’t afford to.  Yes, there is a difference in living expenses; my £350 a month allows me to get by in Cairo, but even that amount would be better than nothing in England. I guess benefits to interns in other parts of the world comes from a society which finds the thought of unpaid work pretty confusing. And I think this is mentality we should re-adopt.

Fashion, fashion, fashion

Published 02/13/2012 Debate 1 Comment

After interning, Lauren set up a campaign…what a great idea!

My name is Lauren Briggs and I’m a third year Fashion Communication student at Northumbria University. It can be quite daunting to be faced with graduation this year when Fashion is known to be one of the most notorious industries for exploiting interns. The demand for work experience today is probably at the highest it’s ever been and I’m soon to be catapulted straight into the frantic internship system.

I’ve already dipped my toe into the industry as an intern. My one-month unpaid placement within the press office of a well-known high street brand opened my eyes to the real problems of internships.

Although my experience was an enjoyable and worthwhile one, the tasks set out to me were essential to the company and would have been carried out by a paid employee if I had not been present. I believe I should have been paid for the work I was doing. The travel expenses the company provided me and my own savings were just about enough to fund my month in London. Unfortunately therefore, I could not carry out the second placement I was recommended for by my supervisor at the time with a very well known PR company. This placement would have improved my CV considerably and perhaps led to a job opportunity.

The company I was with took on two or three interns every four weeks to carry out a list of day-to-day duties that were essential to the business. I worked alongside two other interns who, like me, were trying to get as much experience listed on their C.V.’s as possible and had already made their way through three or four internships in the past year. I asked them how they could afford to intern for so long without any pay and they both replied, “I can’t!”. 

Another thing I discovered whilst I was interning was the difference in respect I received. The employees I worked alongside in the office were all very lovely and treated me very well, however as soon as you are introduced to members of staff outside the office as “the intern”, you’re somehow immediately relegated to so many things – unnoticed, unimportant and unnecessary. It is understandable why the majority of people look at interns in this way; perhaps because we are there to learn and experience the industry and therefore carry no importance or relevance to the paid members of staff working hard at their paid jobs, however interns often work just as hard, if not harder than some paid employees. Think about it, interns are constantly trying to impress and forever trying to stand out and therefore get the job done to the absolute best of their ability.

The feedback I received from an anonymous intern in my own research on the subject validates this. She was working at a very well known fashion house alongside 11 other interns. There were only 6 members of paid staff. The interns worked 12 hour shifts with a half an hour break whilst the paid staff often went home hours earlier. The jobs the interns were given were more demanding, more essential to the designer and made up the majority of the workload.

I’ve heard the same kind of story from so many interns across the UK and I’m eager to see change. The action taken by HM Revenue & Customs is the first step towards change, but I hope this move will advance further and influence other industries to pay their interns.

My own experience as an intern has inspired me to start my own campaign, The Internship Project, www.theinternshipproject.com. The main aim of the campaign is to promote the enforcement of the National Minimum Wage and work primarily with interns, students, graduates and young people to make internships fairer. The campaign launches on the 16th February 2012 and I hope that I can gather as much support as possible to really make a difference.

Typical…

Published 01/24/2012 Debate Leave a Comment

Thanks to Kim for posting this!

Good experience at Shortlist magazine

Published 01/19/2012 Debate 1 Comment

We’re pretty sure this is written by a real person who interned at Shortlist, rather than their marketing team being sneaky…we’ve learnt to recognise the tone of those emails

A two-week placement from heaven. For starters upon arrival on the first day, the editorial assistant immediately came to meet me. And I wasn’t just sitting around twiddling my thumbs. Once they had set me a story and I proved that I could write, I was literally sourced out to other members of the team and actually got to write things that were published. And everything I wrote was assessed and critiqued by either the editorial assistant or the news editor, so you knew where you were going right or wrong.

 Yes, some days there simply wasn’t much to do, as a lot of the features were done in advance. But the people in the office were friendly. The most menial task I had to do was sort out the mail once a day. But to be fair, it helped me to learn everyone’s name and where they sat. And this placement involves putting you in the heart of things. Surreally enough, tea-making duties are shared out. So at one point, the editor made me a cup of tea! When the news team had a meeting for story ideas you were expected to not only attend, but to actually contribute and have ideas. And I was reimbursed for my expenses like travel and lunch.

Towards the end of my placement they put me into contact with another magazine that offered me a two-week placement on the basis of their recommendation. All in all, a good place to work for. And more freebies than you can carry, if you make friends with the reviews editor and the senior writer

Having read through all the things that people have said, yes, internships can be shit. They expect a lot of you, and some don’t even have the decency to reimburse you for your travel, let alone your lunch (cough cough, Wonderland). But for every shit one out there, there are a few good ones, where you will make good contacts. Keep on trying!!!

Making a complaint against your employer

Published 12/12/2011 Debate Leave a Comment

HMRC and Interns Anonymous have teamed up and prepared guidance for any interns who think they might be entitled to claim back the National Minimum Wage.

HMRC are responsible for enforcing the National Minimum Wage. Recently they have launched a ‘dynamic response unit’ (they are like a SWAT team of tax inspectors) to ensure that interns are paid the National Minimum Wage.

The guidance takes you through the whole process of claiming back any due wages. You can claim wages up to six years after you completed the internship. So even if you have moved on to a new job, you can still claim back wages.

If you have completed or are presently undertaking an internship and think you may be entitled to the National Minimum Wage, you can speak confidentially to the pay and rights helpline on 0800 917 2368.

Read it here.

Unspeak

Published 11/13/2011 Debate 4 Comments
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Ok sorry we haven’t posted much up blah blah, we haven’t even linked properly to our Guardian front page (oh by the way did I mention we were mentioned on the front page of the Guardian?)…in the meantime here is a link to a post we missed on a great blog ‘unspeak’, which unpicks the meanings implied and constructed by political language or articles in the press. The post in question beats the hell out of an article in the Economist, which was published in September- we really should have seen this sooner and for that we are truly sorry.

Battle of Ideas

Published 10/31/2011 Debate 1 Comment
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Yesterday I, Rosy, took part in what people call a ‘lively’ round table discussion. I was looking forward to the table actually being round like in King Arthur but unfortunately it was a regular oblong shape. The debate was entitled ‘Interns or Slave Labour’ although I like to think that none of the people who basically represented the ‘anti-exploitation/pro-social mobility’ side of things  (Susan Nash of Young Labour, Owen Jones of  ’Chavs: the demonization of the working class’ also that newsnight with Starkey) would compare unpaid internships to slavery. Because that would be wrong and also highly offensive to the memory of slavery (and indeed to slaves today).

The debate basically split along the following lines:

Rob Killick, CEO of cScape, was pro unpaid internships as a way for businesses to get free labour and interns to get a foot up into the job market. He also suggested that young people have been trained for the wrong businesses and that, more controversially, they are to some extent, spoilt, lazy and unwilling to work hard.

Stephanie Lis works for The Freedom Association, which is kind of like grass roots Thatcherism, basically promoting freedom of choice and small government. Her point was that if people want to intern unpaid, they should be allowed to.

Susan Nash, chair of Young Labour, stood against unpaid internships because they shut those from poorer backgrounds out of certain professions and she wanted to see the enforcement of NMW regulations

Owen Jones was the same, coming down harder against the ways in which internships reduce social mobility and setting this phenomena against the wider context of the change in employment practice in industries like journalism (ie. of the 100 top journos in the country, over half are privately educated- a big change from the 50s, when traineeships etc meant that more journos came from working class backgrounds)

And me, I wanted to add something to the debate by bringing in the anecdotal evidence we receive everyday- and basically confirming that the notion of free choice will only ever extend to those who can afford to take that choice.

Owen and Rob had a few heated exchanges about the class system in the UK and whether or not we should live with it or strive to change it; Rob blamed young people’s poor life chances variously on the economy, their own laziness and the work ethic of eastern european migrant workers and the Chinese; and the rest of us responded as the above synopsis of our views would suggest.

The audience, as always, were the most interesting element of the debate. And this is where y’all should comment- questions like…

What can young people do to create jobs?

Isn’t being young and trying to get a job supposed to be hard?

How can we compete in a global economy?

Were my parents wrong to work hard and pay for my University education, given its in the Arts and in many ways now appears to be ‘useless’?

If there are, let’s say, 10 internships and 5 are paid, 5 unpaid- and then the unpaid ones have to go because of a crackdown in the law, what’s the point of that? Isn’t that restricting opportunities?

Thoughts on postcards please…

Is Vancouver Fashion Week a complete scam?

Published 09/27/2011 Debate , Fashion 1 Comment
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We received the following from Canadian interns who want to expose Vancouver Fashion Week for the mass-intern-exploitation-event that it is- or seems to be. The more comments we could get about this the better, we want to know if any of you guys have heard about this or know someone who can back up their story. If all of what they say is true (it sounds depressingly likely) we also want to know what the good people of Vancouver are going to do about it!

Have a look at Vancouver Fashion Weak’s website. It has statements from many of us, and more will come. There are detailed explanations of peoples’ experience in their internship. The post was not intended to defame, this is clear abuse of the internship program and a backlash from the students.

We don’t know much about the legality of our situation but we know what is happening is wrong. Basically, we all became interns with Vancouver Fashion Week without realizing that the organization is structured in two parts, with one producer who incorporated the name Vancouver Fashion Week, and over 100+ interns.

There is no management or structure within the company, no accountants or budget, and we are given tasks beyond our capabilities and manage each other based on who interviewed first. Because of this, there is a turn around of interns daily and weekly, with many of us given the responsibility to ‘interview and hire’ another barrage of interns. Also, we are expected to recruit and take money from designers & sponsors without any information on even a location for fashion week this fall and we are all very worried.

We are in a position where we cannot even discuss these issues within the organization, because there isn’t one with employees who could help us except for the producer. A past ‘intern’ wrote her Masters thesis on VFW a couple years back, which will paint a clearer picture for you.

Internships are for the rich

Published 08/16/2011 Debate , Westminster 2 Comments
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We got this email from a non-intern- priced out of her chosen industry’s employment market…

Simply put, I believe internships are only a viable option for people from high socio-economic backgrounds. I cannot afford to do free work and I will be made to suffer for it as an employer will value the 3 month admin internship one student has completed, over my 2 years of paid employment in a retail environment, just because they could take the time and money to do it in the first place.

The counter argument may be that an employer will recognise my hard work and dedication anyway? However, in my experience companies demand specific kinds of work experience. You don’t get experience if someone does not give you a chance to learn but you guessed it, they won’t give you that chance without previous experience. Thus, I expect, this vicious circle continues to haunt many other young people like me.

My friend managed to get an internship in the heart of international politics, Washington D.C. I was of course very proud of her but at the same time envious she could afford it in the first place. She will have the edge over any other competitor in future job applications having had this fantastic opportunity, whereas I, being a mere political geek and fanatic, will probably get yet another rejection email. Or I may get ignored completely as “due to high demand we will only respond to applicants requested for interview”. A thoroughly sad and pathetic image of me eagerly refreshing hotmail for months on end as I remain totally nonethewiser comes to mind.

Companies like hiring free workers, (Well that’s no surprise) but the idea of free labour is absurd. However, our government is allowing them to get away with it! Even Nick Clegg has been criticised for getting an unpaid intern. (Come on Nick, haven’t you done enough to make young people dislike you?!) If a company needs the manpower then they should pay for the labour and not fob it off as ‘work experience’. Shame on them.

So to shape all my ranting into some discernable argument, internships are a way for companies to get free admin done and as a result, employers now give it a status on a young person’s CV that those that cannot afford to work for free, are penalized for not having.

Interns should get what they want or else walk out

Published 08/10/2011 Debate , Journalism , Westminster 5 Comments
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An anonymous contributor sent us the following article – the title might have unpleasant connotations but the intern in question is talking about getting a positive experience that will boost your CV…rather than a flat screen TV

As a complete nobody hailing from the arse-end of Nowhere, I empathise with those looking to do an internship, particularly those looking to get into journalism, public affairs and politics.

The principle of getting up in the morning and doing a full day’s work, often for protracted periods and for the sum total of zero pence is now so firmly entrenched in our economy that companies will factor in interns and rotate them as though they were permanent staff. The employer knows full well that there is no job for the poor sucker at the end of it, but the prize is dangled before them anyway. It can be soul destroying. But, done right, interning can also be fantastic. Allow me to elaborate.

 After graduating from university, I took on a piss-poor admin job. My boss was, to coin a swear, a knobjoy and the pay was appalling. Happily, the business folded and I found myself gainfully unemployed. With a few pennies (though not many) set aside, I decided I had nothing to lose and, accepting the dire state of the jobs market for mediocre arts graduates, threw myself into interning.

I haven’t eaten since, but I’ve met some genuinely lovely people, proved that I can dress myself, and gained experience that simply wouldn’t have been open to me if the internships hadn’t been there. That’s not to say, of course, that the experience hasn’t wildly differed with each employer. As with the real world, there are both terrible employers and fantastic ones, and the lot of the intern, in my view, rests on the understanding and dedication of the employer in making your time worthwhile.

My first internship was a two-week stint with a national newspaper. As I’ve said, I’m no one of any note, so a place on a paper seemed like a dream. I knew I would bankrupt myself, but it seemed too good an opportunity to turn down. Told to turn up in ‘smart casual’ and to ‘read up on my current affairs’, I expected to enter a professional working environment filled with vibrant, enthusiastic staff ready to make use of my in-depth knowledge of politics and forensic analytical mind.

 In reality, of the one and a half weeks I spent there, about three hours were spent doing anything of use. I didn’t have a desk, any tasks or indeed any kind of introduction to the permanent members of staff, things often seen as prerequisites for, y’know, helping a company in any way. I loitered like a cheap whore around the desks of writers I’d previously admired and fired out plenty of suggestive e-mails seeing if my services were required. Alas, it was not to be, and with each expenses-unpaid day I felt less and less like a human being.

Yet, while it would be easy to sob into my Tesco-own cereal (we interns dream of Jordan’s Crisp) about this state of affairs, I actually found the whole experience empowering. Seeing a disorganised sinking ship of a paper laid bare before my eyes shattered a certain myth in my mind about journalism. The knowledge that I was still young, (reasonably) clever and qualified and that this particular paper had stuck two fingers up to my offer of free labour, felt perversely liberating. As each wasted hour on Twitter ticked by, I figured it was actually their loss. In the end, I stopped turning up to the internship. No one even noticed I’d gone, while their inability to remember my name means I still get a reference, and don’t look back.

My next internship was definitely a gamble. But by financially ruining the people I love, and through a combination of putting on a posh voice and exaggerating my limited achievements, I somehow wound up as an intern for an established radio station. The new internship felt less like an extended, demeaning tour of an office and more like an actual, useful work placement. I was still earning nothing, but from day one I had a gut feeling that I would come away from the experience immeasurably more employable. Unlike the paper, I’d been sat down to a formal interview, been given a desk, a proper company e-mail account, responsibility, training and, heaven forbid, I was treated like a colleague rather than a massive inconvenience.

Within a week I knew the names of everyone in the office and they even knew mine. They respected my opinions, answered my questions and gave me serious responsibilities, not just menial tasks to keep me occupied. I got the genuine sense they understood the bargain we were making; as a graduate, I was ready to work hard for them, provided I wasn’t being taken for a ride.

 Let me be clear: in an ideal world, employers would risk taking on unproven graduates with raw potential. They’d spot your talent and invest the resources in training you up to be the best you can be. But we don’t live in that ideal world. We live in an economy where more and more graduates are competing with each other for lower and lower paid jobs. That’s an awful reality, but it’s reality nonetheless.

As an intern, what you really need to remember is that you are an equal partner in the experience: you owe them nothing, and the real reason that you’re doing this is for your own career. If you’re ignored, undervalued and treated like dirt by people, walk out. You will lose nothing but a few days, and your confidence will actually grow. If a company wastes your time, throw a spanner in their works and waste theirs.

If, however, a company seems willing to nurture your potential and is willing to take advantage of your generous offer of free labour, providing you with proper advice, the occasional dressing down and a glowing reference then, even if they can’t offer you a job, the whole experience will have been worth a punt.

 Nobody wants to work for nothing, so my simple advice would be don’t. If you’re making yourself skint, make sure it’s worth your while in other ways, and remember that not all internships are the same.

 

 

What should be done about internships? Let’s talk…

Published 07/12/2011 Coverage , Debate Leave a Comment
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Guardian Careers held an online chat with us as one of the ‘experts’, it was really interesting and I recommend you take a look at everyone’s comments. As usual some really negative and really positive accounts of internships and some in between. The main problem we have with unpaid internships continues to be that they are closed off to people who don’t come from rich backgrounds and who therefore can’t afford to live in London, Manchester, Cardiff or wherever for months on end with no wage. This has not changed and won’t until people who deserve a wage are getting paid a wage.

HOWEVER, we’ve been thinking in a different way about this lately and I wonder what you think- alongside representing all of the bad stuff about internships (which we love doing), we’re also keen to emphasise what you people can do to avoid the internship catch-22 situation- how you can think about the job search in a different way and take control of your own prospects. For example, Alex (IA co-founder) applied to his current really great graduate scheme job on the strength of the work he has done setting up and promoting Interns Anonymous. Other people we’ve been in touch with, have started up their small businesses after becoming exhausted and bankrupted by the internship treadmill. And someone else has set up her own mini-charity because she was fed up with interning as an office assistant- so she now works in an office for a wage and does what she wants to do out of hours.

We’d really like to get interns and graduates together- in person!- to think about different ways to find jobs, different ways to make money, different ways to get experience- which is why we’re in the early stages of thinking about a series of get togethers, which will feature an interesting speaker, hopefully free booze and a really sociable environment- so that you can talk to each other, come up with ideas and find out about opportunities that are not internships. Although we’re hoping to find sponsorship the events will probably have to cost something to cover venue hire, possible speakers’ fee- we’d like to gauge interest so please do let us know what you think.

Thoughts on a postcard or in the comments box please-and have a look at the Guardian comments and debates here.

Bright ideas welcome...

Interns save dog from drowning!

Published 07/12/2011 Debate Leave a Comment

I love google alerts sometimes. Here is a lovely story about some brave American interns in a national park who saved a dog which had got lost following severe storms. If you or anyone you know has lost a dog in I think the Indiana area then you could be in luck!

Answers to the name 'River'

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