I rarely disagree with your blog posts, but I think you are way off the mark here. #4 isn’t absurd at all. In practice, companies do things that do not help their bottom line all the time. May companies have a charitable donation team that literally gives their money away.
But even if not, it’s easy to make a business case for giving unpaid internships that are neutral or slightly negative immediate value to the company: it increases the value of your hiring pool for the next year. Some of your new hires will be your interns from last year, who will be able to hit the ground running and create value faster thanks to their knowledge of your company processes. And some of the most valuable former candidates may choose you over your competitors because they had a good time during the internship with you and made friends.
Seconded! Companies do engage in pro bono work and internships can be construed as part of it. (and I agree they are a way to develop semi-internal hiring pools).
But I also don't think the rule is that unrealistic, because interns require substantial spin up time and training to do anything useful, and when you price in the higher skilled supervisor time spent on this versus their usual work, it doesn't surprise me it can wind up zero or negative value.
When a company I was at was doing higher value work, we dropped out (lower paid) internship because we couldn't afford the staff time for rotating door helpers, even when they were skilled.
What are even worse than unpaid internships are ones where interns actually have to pay for the privilege. The longest-standing version of this scam is student-teaching, where new teachers must pay tuition to their university in exchange for going to work in a school. My wife's student teaching experience (she didn't end up becoming a teacher) was having her supervising teacher disappear for 'medical reasons' for nearly the entire semester, and no replacement supervisor was assigned. It was her classroom for months, for which labor she paid a significant sum. But this 'pay to work' arrangement has become more common in other fields as this is an reliable shield against being accused of breaking the unpaid internship rules and also provides money to educational institutions -- part of which can be used to provide kickbacks to the intern's 'employer'.
The practice of unpaid internships is present in just about all fields of work. A token amount to cover out of pocket expenses should be provided at a minimum. A simple matter of dignity and minimum level of gratitude and appreciation.
As a person who works for a for-profit and who has helped supervise interns, requirement 4 seems practical. Interns typically do low value work and supervising them takes time which means less of the more valuable work gets done.
Of course, supervising interns does give people like me leadership practice which is good for the company, but I still strongly suspect companies lose money on most interns unless they plan to hire them later
This boils down to whether people can make their own decisions and are free to enter a mutually agreeable working relationship. Our all-knowing carrying government says no. We are either too stupid or naïve, so we need their guidance.
I rarely disagree with your blog posts, but I think you are way off the mark here. #4 isn’t absurd at all. In practice, companies do things that do not help their bottom line all the time. May companies have a charitable donation team that literally gives their money away.
But even if not, it’s easy to make a business case for giving unpaid internships that are neutral or slightly negative immediate value to the company: it increases the value of your hiring pool for the next year. Some of your new hires will be your interns from last year, who will be able to hit the ground running and create value faster thanks to their knowledge of your company processes. And some of the most valuable former candidates may choose you over your competitors because they had a good time during the internship with you and made friends.
Seconded! Companies do engage in pro bono work and internships can be construed as part of it. (and I agree they are a way to develop semi-internal hiring pools).
But I also don't think the rule is that unrealistic, because interns require substantial spin up time and training to do anything useful, and when you price in the higher skilled supervisor time spent on this versus their usual work, it doesn't surprise me it can wind up zero or negative value.
When a company I was at was doing higher value work, we dropped out (lower paid) internship because we couldn't afford the staff time for rotating door helpers, even when they were skilled.
What are even worse than unpaid internships are ones where interns actually have to pay for the privilege. The longest-standing version of this scam is student-teaching, where new teachers must pay tuition to their university in exchange for going to work in a school. My wife's student teaching experience (she didn't end up becoming a teacher) was having her supervising teacher disappear for 'medical reasons' for nearly the entire semester, and no replacement supervisor was assigned. It was her classroom for months, for which labor she paid a significant sum. But this 'pay to work' arrangement has become more common in other fields as this is an reliable shield against being accused of breaking the unpaid internship rules and also provides money to educational institutions -- part of which can be used to provide kickbacks to the intern's 'employer'.
I worked for a private sector company in the Bay area, and did not like the idea of unpaid internships for two reasons:
- If someone in my team wanted an intern, I did not want him to think there are no costs involved, and focus on get value out of the interns work.
- From I own experience I remembered that I needed to make some money during the summer, and life in the Bay area is expensive.
That of course does not mean that the rules are not idiotic - they are!
P.S. We always paid interns.
The practice of unpaid internships is present in just about all fields of work. A token amount to cover out of pocket expenses should be provided at a minimum. A simple matter of dignity and minimum level of gratitude and appreciation.
I am curious about what John Stossel has to say, however the link is broken.
Link worked now when I just tried it. Not sure if Bryan fixed it, or if there are gremlins afoot.
Still does not work for me, but I noticed the date in the URL and found it.
Thanks!
As a person who works for a for-profit and who has helped supervise interns, requirement 4 seems practical. Interns typically do low value work and supervising them takes time which means less of the more valuable work gets done.
Of course, supervising interns does give people like me leadership practice which is good for the company, but I still strongly suspect companies lose money on most interns unless they plan to hire them later
I figure the point of unpaid internships is to filter for the children of the wealthy since no one else can afford them.
This boils down to whether people can make their own decisions and are free to enter a mutually agreeable working relationship. Our all-knowing carrying government says no. We are either too stupid or naïve, so we need their guidance.
I arranged to be paid (little) by having short hours. Of course, I worked a lot of unrecorded "overtime."
This happened to be LONG ago.