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It's that time of year, college students everywhere are looking for internships. Talk about your experience being a literal slave or underpaid coffee fetcher here! Post about the process or the bullshit you have to put up with whatever. Oh, and share links to internships you aren't applying for! This is my first chance to get one and I've applied to about 30 places so far. The big names all require me to be a junior or senior though.
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Feb 26, 2014 10:38
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I got paid $10/hr for my internship and my boss even apologized for the company being so cheap and assigned me a bunch of "research" work so that I'd get some extra training to make up for the lovely (even by internship standards) pay.
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Feb 26, 2014 12:10
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$19/hr my first one, $20/hr my second one. Pretty par for the course in engineering. I think the lowest I saw of all my friends was $14.25/hr. This was back in the 06-08 time frame. Both jobs I had my own projects and did actual engineering and got really good experience.
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Feb 26, 2014 14:31
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I am in employer of unpaid interns in the non-profit sector in DC - happy to answer any questions. Yes, I do feel bad about it.
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Feb 26, 2014 14:46
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We have "interns" but they make a pro-rated entry-level Associate's salary without bonuses. Ends up being about 12K for the summer, I think. Unpaid internships are loving disgusting.
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Feb 26, 2014 14:57
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kaishek posted:I am in employer of unpaid interns in the non-profit sector in DC - happy to answer any questions. Yes, I do feel bad about it. DC is my dream location. I don't suppose you need a research/media/writing type slave?
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Feb 26, 2014 16:39
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kaishek posted:I am in employer of unpaid interns in the non-profit sector in DC - happy to answer any questions. Yes, I do feel bad about it. How does it feel to be almost breaking federal law?
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Feb 26, 2014 19:40
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Rime posted:How does it feel to be almost breaking federal law? Surely the unpaid intern is only recreating the work that a regular employee is doing... I don't understand how anyone gets away with claims they don't have to pay someone.
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Feb 26, 2014 20:10
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Rime posted:How does it feel to be almost breaking federal law? I wouldn't know. It is very much legal to employ unpaid interns as a non-profit, they are considered volunteers. The Department of Labor posted:"The FLSA makes a special exception under certain circumstances for individuals who volunteer to perform services for a state or local government agency and for individuals who volunteer for humanitarian purposes for private non-profit food banks. WHD also recognizes an exception for individuals who volunteer their time, freely and without anticipation of compensation for religious, charitable, civic, or humanitarian purposes to non-profit organizations. Unpaid internships in the public sector and for non-profit charitable organizations, where the intern volunteers without expectation of compensation, are generally permissible." In our case, interns very much replace what would otherwise be paid positions. In order to pay minimum wage to our interns we would need to expand our budget by something like 35% on top of what it currently is...interns outnumber paid staff. Now, I said that I don't feel great about this. I see the ways in which it perpetuates a cycle of continuous internships. I actively try to avoid hiring people who are out of school and who have had twelve internships or whatever just because one more internship with us won't help them. I do try to make sure they leave with useful skills and we provide training in some job functions that would give them a leg up in certain job fields. I also recognize, though, that if we didn't have interns we would have to gut all of our programs and would simply be unable to operate in the way that we currently do. If I had my druthers, I would say that the DOL should put up regulations for non-profits restricting internships for non-profits by saying you can only have a full-time equivalent (30 hours a week or more) internship if you are a student or less than one year out from finishing your most recent degree (BA or MA). To continue to allow people to volunteer for like, dog pounds and stuff, you make an exception for "volunteers" who work a few hours a week. Not perfect, but it tries to capture the distinction between what our interns do and what volunteers for Habitat for Humanity do. Arrgy, do you speak Arabic? PM me if you have questions about DC more generally.
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Feb 26, 2014 20:42
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They are legal everywhere as long as you meet the 6 rules put out by the DOL. Realistically everyone violates those rules but no one would sue because they will never get a job in the industry again. What you do in the public or non profit sector is claim they are volunteering, which is pretty much BS since you put out job openings. There is a Newsweek article showing that if you take unpaid work you learn less, are less likely to get a job after, and make less money at you first job. Really a lose lose lose for the employee.
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Feb 26, 2014 21:04
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spwrozek posted:They are legal everywhere as long as you meet the 6 rules put out by the DOL. Realistically everyone violates those rules but no one would sue because they will never get a job in the industry again. I'm in the odd position of here of explaining why what we do is fine even though I would like for things to be different. We do NOT need to meet the six criteria established by the DOL - being a non-profit makes us exempt from those regulations. So we are not violating any rules. We don't need to "claim" they are volunteering, they are volunteering. We are a registered 501(c)3 non-profit, and many non-profits have both paid and non-paid staff. Like I said though, I would like for things to be different. Without interns we would have to radically shift what we do. I do see a kind of willful blindness on the part of some interns or applicants - if I can just get this internship, I'll get a job. We are flooded with applications for people wanting to work for us for free. I don't like it. I try to be straight with everyone about their chances. There aren't enough jobs in this industry to go around.
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Feb 26, 2014 21:20
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I completely understand that. I won't derail the thread anymore.
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Feb 26, 2014 21:33
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spwrozek posted:$19/hr my first one, $20/hr my second one. Pretty par for the course in engineering. I think the lowest I saw of all my friends was $14.25/hr. This was back in the 06-08 time frame. Both jobs I had my own projects and did actual engineering and got really good experience. I had a pretty identical experience in the same time frame. Engineering does internships well.
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Feb 26, 2014 21:58
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spwrozek posted:I completely understand that. I won't derail the thread anymore. It's not a derail to discuss the pitfalls of internships at non-profits. There are a lot of bad things about them. Just want to make sure we talk about the right problems. The DOL has said they are "studying" regulations to apply to non-profit internships, which I would love and welcome. The industry will not reform itself - we are desperately reliant on interns as they give us the capacity to do things we otherwise would not be able to do and look good to our Boards and donors. Intern story: a previous employer suggested with a straight face that we focus on hiring interns from Ivy League schools, as they would most likely have rich parents who we could hit up for money...basically paying for your internship.
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Feb 26, 2014 22:24
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kaishek posted:It's not a derail to discuss the pitfalls of internships at non-profits. There are a lot of bad things about them. Just want to make sure we talk about the right problems. The DOL has said they are "studying" regulations to apply to non-profit internships, which I would love and welcome. The industry will not reform itself - we are desperately reliant on interns as they give us the capacity to do things we otherwise would not be able to do and look good to our Boards and donors. Yeah, I've never quite understood how a NYC internship can pay 2100 for an 8 week internship and get away with it. If you had to pay interns at least minimum wage how much would your organization suffer?
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Feb 26, 2014 22:29
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Bubbacub posted:I had a pretty identical experience in the same time frame. Engineering does internships well.
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Feb 26, 2014 22:53
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Arrgytehpirate posted:Yeah, I've never quite understood how a NYC internship can pay 2100 for an 8 week internship and get away with it. If you had to pay interns at least minimum wage how much would your organization suffer? Without giving away too much intern, I calculate roughly $17,500 per year per intern (35 hours per week times $10/hr times 50 weeks per year we have interns). There would also be some additional overhead in our payroll system from more than doubling our number of "employees." We have about 12 interns at the moment, so...$210,000 per year at current levels, out of a budget of maybe ~$1.25 million. We'd have to either reduce the number of interns we hire sharply, or change the scope of our programs (eliminate one program out of three). You could make the argument that this is a good thing, because it would force us to focus on specific areas of strength. You could also make the argument that it is a bad thing, as it would prevent us from creating provisional programs as we have in the past, staffing with interns and then hiring those interns into staff positions if we see that the program is working.
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Feb 26, 2014 23:55
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I completed a one year unpaid clinical internship for my degree, it was part of the school program. I was at a hospital training for a licensed position in the lab. It sucked because it was 40hr/week and they had me do a large part of the job except result verification, since I was not licensed yet. It was very difficult because I was not paid and I live in NYC. This is the standard for my field. Hospitals looooove free labor. I would've loved minimum wage 
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Feb 28, 2014 21:15
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BadSamaritan posted:I completed a one year unpaid clinical internship for my degree, it was part of the school program. I was at a hospital training for a licensed position in the lab. It sucked because it was 40hr/week and they had me do a large part of the job except result verification, since I was not licensed yet. It was very difficult because I was not paid and I live in NYC. This is the standard for my field. Hospitals looooove free labor. That sounds insane. How did you make ends meet? I'm thinking if I ever do an unpaid internship I'm going to have to take out student loans since the GI Bill only pays when I'm actually in school.
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Feb 28, 2014 22:07
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On the other hand, you have people self reporting ridiculous intern salaries in the bay area: http://blog.sfgate.com/gettowork/2014/02/28/palantir-interns-earn-7012/
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Feb 28, 2014 22:09
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Shadowhand00 posted:On the other hand, you have people self reporting ridiculous intern salaries in the bay area: The pharmaceutical industry also does this pretty well. My current intern is going into her senior undergrad year and gets $19 an hour plus a paid apartment (2BR, shared with another intern) and partial benefits for the duration of her stay. My last intern at a previous company was similar. For all our faults, we treat our interns damned well. EDIT: Sheesh - I didn't realize those were monthly intern salaries until I saw the GlassDoor article. Wow. Okay yeah, we're not even close to that unless you include the cost of housing. quote:BadSamaritan's unpaid hospital work I feel for you. I interned (unpaid) at a major Long Island hospital (not LIJ but the other one they merged with) during undergrad, and they very specifically used their intern program to push out the paid technologist staff. The flow cytometry department was staffed by one head doctor and six undergrad interns running samples all day. One of my co-interns quit because she couldn't afford the bridge tolls + gas coming in from the Bronx on no income. Then when our session was over, they refused to acknowledge any of us had interned there when we requested references. They didn't say we didn't intern, but rather that they "could neither confirm nor deny the work history of any interns in the Laboratory Development Program" or whatever bullshit they called it. Worst internship program I'd ever been in. gently caress that hospital. Sundae fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Feb 28, 2014 |
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Feb 28, 2014 22:19
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Arrgytehpirate posted:That sounds insane. How did you make ends meet? I'm thinking if I ever do an unpaid internship I'm going to have to take out student loans since the GI Bill only pays when I'm actually in school. Barely. Thankfully my small tuition was covered by grants, but it was a combination of sponging off of my grad student husband and a smallish student loan. It was a really tough year and our finances were slowly spiraling down the whole time. Thankfully I got a job right away or we would've been up a creek. Sundae, that really sucks that the hospital wouldn't vouch for their interns. Really defeats the whole point, doesn't it? I've heard lousy things about a lot of cytology departments, and it seems like the technologists hold onto those few jobs with a deathgrip so it's really hard to get into the field. The core labs are a lot less difficult, as long as you aren't gunning for day shift.
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Mar 1, 2014 03:49
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Can someone shed some light on what exactly an intern would do at company X? I would never be an unpaid intern and it boggles my mind that people actually do this. I'd rather work at a fast food joint because working for free (experience lol) is absolutely dog poo poo retarded. Never work for free - there's always someone out there that'll pay you to do something. I don't know how people can go work without seeing a paycheck and think that the "experience" they are getting is something substantial. We hire tons of temp employees fresh out of college to do really, really menial administrative work within each department but they can actually put that on their resume even if it's embellished a little while earning an income.
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Mar 2, 2014 05:21
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I'm with you HAND. While I've accepted that unpaid internships are a thing, I had a HARD time accepting people do anything for free. Personally , I wouldn't even get out of bed for "experience". When my wife and I were in college (06-09 for her, 06-11 for me), she was able to land internships relevant to her Psych degree for something like $10-12 an hour, and housing was subsidized. As a mining engineer, I got paid $17-24 with housing paid, and one case all meals paid for the entire summer. I understand "experience" is important, but I'd figure not all "experience" needs to be in DC or NY where you're going to getting ripped off. I understand I'm possibly wrong here, as I'm not in fashion or politics, but like said---I'd have a hard time rolling out of bed for no pay.
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Mar 2, 2014 14:14
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Add me to the list of STEM majors who was treated right by his internship. This was back in 2004-2008 before Palantir/Google were paying a ton, but I worked for a company in the Bay Area one year and then for a company in Cambridge for two who paid me $25/hour to do development work. When you factor in inflation/hours worked, I took a huge pay cut in my first job after med school (residency).
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Mar 2, 2014 16:12
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Hand of the King posted:I don't know how people can go work without seeing a paycheck and think that the "experience" they are getting is something substantial. We hire tons of temp employees fresh out of college to do really, really menial administrative work within each department but they can actually put that on their resume even if it's embellished a little while earning an income. It was my feeling that I'd rather get one of those menial administrative jobs during my summers off and right after graduating (I say feeling - really, I couldn't afford to be working for free, even with another part-time job) and while I don't regret it, I do notice about a two- to three-year lag between my career path and those of my former classmates who had the support systems in place to do unpaid internships. We're in a relatively small industry, and their internships allowed them extra networking opportunities, experience with specialized proprietary software, and the ability to apply to unadvertised positions. The gap is already closing, and I know I'll catch up eventually. I don't regret not taking an unpaid internship, as I think they're loathsome in principle, but there's definitely an advantage to taking one in the field I was educated in - or rather, an off-setting of the disadvantage of having a glut of qualified young applicants and no opportunities for entrepreneurship.
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Mar 2, 2014 16:37
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Shadowhand00 posted:On the other hand, you have people self reporting ridiculous intern salaries in the bay area: I got 6k + a 2.5k stipend for housing at Amazon. Most of those top tech companies also provide free housing, and those seem to be lower than what my friends are telling me they're getting.
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Mar 2, 2014 20:27
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My first internship was unpaid, an hour commute, and my boss was never in the office and was the only one with any actual web design/web development experience. The only things I learned there was anything I taught myself to do in the eight hours I sat around doing nothing else. It was not a happy experience for me. I only did it because I had had no luck finding an actual paid internship that was in house and not remote and my career adviser was a useless poo poo. Right now I am working a minimum wage ($7.40usd/hr) internship with a realty company just as a way to make money right now until I can find a full time position. I'm a web developer assistant, and most of my days are spent researching neighborhood/subdivision information about the homes and creating long rear end word documents full of this information to be put up as content on the new website, which has ridiculous expectations and a deadline that cannot be handled by two people alone who do not get paid enough. I also sometimes write blogs that I don't get to attach my name to on top of that. It sucks and I cannot wait to find a full time job. But, I have also been offered an opportunity to get an internship at Quicken Loans this summer for $11/hr and an opportunity to go full time. Supposed to be a great place to work so I may consider it.
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Mar 5, 2014 01:13
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I got paid for my sole internship in college because I asked. It was also checks cut from one of the unions that sponsored the 501c4 and came out of their general account in DC. God bless politics
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Mar 5, 2014 05:18
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I/O Psych internships do it right. I'm making $20 an hour at mine currently and would receive housing if I didn't live in the area.
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Mar 9, 2014 16:15
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Xcel energy has 4-5 intern openings for mechanical and electrical engineers. Check it out online, they will be fun jobs. In the Denver area.
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Mar 13, 2014 04:17
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This is not what "slave" means, hope that helps.
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Mar 14, 2014 05:35
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Maybe I've drank the Kool-Aid a bit, but I did an unpaid internship at an international non-profit and harbour no resentment about it having been unpaid. I got fantastic experience, applied knowledge directly gained in my degree, got written attribution on published reports, and ultimately landed my current (well-remunerated) position as a result of having the name brand on my CV. I also made great connections, my old boss is my first go-to for amazing letters of reference, etc. Honestly the whole episode was one of the richest (except in the literal sense) of my life. The caveat is that I was concurrently receiving a generous scholarship that paid all my living expenses, so I was in a position to be able to take on unpaid work. It is a shame that only those with an alternative source of income, be it scholarships or generous parents, are able to benefit from that particular internship scheme. At my current employer we pay interns £18,000 a year (last I checked). It's not terrific for those who take it on after graduating, but great for those who take a year out in the middle of their degree to get experience. I acknowledge that paid internships are better. But I didn't feel like a "slave" for being an unpaid intern.
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Mar 14, 2014 11:14
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I interned and now work at a large public accounting firm in tax. I got paid $27/hour for my internship, but I would have done it for free. With that internship on my resume nearly all of my interviews were the companies trying to convince me to work there.
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Mar 14, 2014 11:54
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Bloody Queef posted:I got paid $27/hour for my internship, but I would have done it for free. With that internship on my resume nearly all of my interviews were the companies trying to convince me to work there. That's exactly the problem. There are people who aren't in a position to work for free - because they have dependants, because they don't have family support, because they are facing other financial/housing/transportation issues - and it decreases social mobility in our society to make working for free the key to better future employment.
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Mar 14, 2014 16:54
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Giant Goats posted:That's exactly the problem. There are people who aren't in a position to work for free - because they have dependants, because they don't have family support, because they are facing other financial/housing/transportation issues - and it decreases social mobility in our society to make working for free the key to better future employment. I agree with this, but at the same time I don't see many practical solutions to it. I suppose you could legislate against unpaid internships, but the result might well be: (1) some organisations offering no internships full stop, as a result reducing the absolute amount of people getting the experience; (2) organisations paying minimum wage (not a huge improvement). Also, how do you legislate against volunteerism? I will unpopularly suggest that the onus is on the applicants themselves not to enter fields that expect entry-level workers to have experience that is often gained for free, if the applicants cannot afford to do this. Planning one's career this way doesn't so much limit social mobility as it encourages people to enter fields with more favourable labour demand/supply dynamics. This thread is evidence that several fields pay interns handsomely (accounting, engineering to name two).
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Mar 14, 2014 18:12
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Giant Goats posted:That's exactly the problem. There are people who aren't in a position to work for free - because they have dependants, because they don't have family support, because they are facing other financial/housing/transportation issues - and it decreases social mobility in our society to make working for free the key to better future employment. Is this D&D? I put myself through school without student loans by working my rear end off full time at a grocery store. Sure you can say I'm fortunate that I didn't get seriously sick (oh but I got a really bad liver infection that put me out of work/school for four weeks) or you can come up with a million reasons why it wasn't actually that hard for me. But the reality is, upward mobility isn't a lie. It isn't easy, but it shouldn't be. I would have taken student loans if I got a great internship and it didn't pay anything. So would the tons who graduate with a hundred grand in debt. E: quote:I will unpopularly suggest that the onus is on the applicants themselves not to enter fields that expect entry-level workers to have experience that is often gained for free, if the applicants cannot afford to do this. Planning one's career this way doesn't so much limit social mobility as it encourages people to enter fields with more favourable labour demand/supply dynamics. Exactly this. Don't expect to be upwardly mobile with your art degree. If you want to jump up in class, you need to be intelligent in your choices. This includes how you handle money, your major and career choice, and your work ethic. Sure all three done well aren't a guarantee, but it's the best way. Bloody Queef fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 18:32
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Some nterns where I work are paid, but very little. However, 95% get a job offer before they graduate from college to come work here, and at a higher than average salary compared to a non - intern. The 5% that don't make it are generally not ready to work professionally because of habits, attitude, and ethics. My point is not to validate unpaid or low paying internships, but rather the advantages the temporary hardship extends to those who are willing to put up with them.
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Mar 14, 2014 19:09
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Halisnacks posted:I agree with this, but at the same time I don't see many practical solutions to it. I suppose you could legislate against unpaid internships, but the result might well be: (1) some organisations offering no internships full stop, as a result reducing the absolute amount of people getting the experience; (2) organisations paying minimum wage (not a huge improvement). Also, how do you legislate against volunteerism? The counterpoint to this corporate style handwringing is that unpaid internships are banned in France and yet many organization still offer internships to college students.
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Mar 15, 2014 14:21
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Yes, let's look to France for examples of how to foster a competitive business environment. I don't see how suggesting young people are taught/appreciate labour economics and supply/demand is "corporate style handwringing".
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Mar 15, 2014 17:21
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