When is an internship not an internship?
by Beatrice Karol Burks
Internships are about access, not just cash.
Nick Clegg blundered into the debate on internships yesterday, making it a symbolic pillar of the Government’s social mobility strategy. But the promise to end informal internships in Whitehall and put an end to the ability to get on in life being about ‘who you know’ has turned into a messy row about politicians’ own experience and practices, and who gets paid rather than who gets access.
The arguments against internships are well known and easy to make. They’re exclusive geographically and financially, they’re of varying quality, they’re a false economy, they often require an ‘in’ to get one. But lost in the bun fight about who benefitted from what and who exploits who, is an agreement over what exactly an internship is.
A commitment to pay interns is admirable (and a legal requirement if they’re doing work that would otherwise be paid for). But let’s not forget that internships are meant to be a two-way exchange – a lot of learning, where the employer passes down knowledge and experience in exchange for taking on inexperienced staff. Many of the organisations that proudly talk of their commitment to remuneration have very high standards for their ‘interns’ so high, in fact, that what passes as an intern in one organistion, is an entry level job at another. Those who get paid internships are the ones who have the fullest CVs and the most experience. They’ve probably done at least one internship already. And they go through an interview process just as tough as a job interview. One organisation I spoke to recently admitted that their highly-experienced, paid interns normally go on to get permanent jobs there, making their three month internship more of a drawn-out job interview than a chance to get a taste of a working environment.
I’m not defending unpaid internships. But the money part is just one bit of internships being exclusive. Demos’ research into workplace training in our report Access All Areas showed that who is able to do an internship is as much about aspiration and what level of education and experience employers are willing to accept as it is about making sure that people who live outside London and don’t have their parents bankrolling them can afford to spend a few months working for free.
Lack of flexibility with many internships means that disadvantaged young people, many of whom are NEET, can’t negotiate interning around benefits or part-time work. Reclassifying internships as training rather than employment, making them work for people who can only do 16 hours per week and making them available to people who don’t have previous experience will do much more for improving internship culture than paying middle class graduates who already have a clear advantage in the workplace.
Opening up internships means that employers need to be prepared to look beyond the pool of top quality graduates and go out of their way to recruit young people who need experience, as well as those who already have it.
Lisa
Come on, now - this is a bit disingenuous coming from a company with 10-20 interns at any one time, paying expenses only, and where the profiles of the current crop (admittedly I didn't look through them all) show a bunch of fresh-faced, majority white people with a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from redbrick universities.
Siobhan Flannigan
Once again Demos have missed the point of internships and stereotyped graduates. The same happened last year when you published a similiar paper on this topic. First of all not all graduates are 'middle-class', a stereotype that you keep perpetuating. Secondly it is increasingly difficult for graduates to find work - a common reason for which is lack of experience. This is evident in the graduate unemployment rate. Your solution is to remove one of gateways that graduates have to employment so that people whom are NEET get them instead? I appreciate that people who are NEET need help to find work, but I do not see why this should be at the expense of graduate routes to employment. There are many other employment schemes that could be initiated to help. I spent over a year looking for a job when I graduated and I am now currently in a paid internship. This internship allows me to live near my place of work, pay for food, learn and perhaps most importantly make the contacts that will be useful to me in the future when my internship is completed. I have had the priviledge of a good education, I worked hard to get it, but so did many other people who don't deserve to have one of their routes to employment (or perhaps, only route of employment depending on the sector) taken away from them because of some unfounded stereotypes and assumptions.
David Vinter
Now I fully realise the job situation for youngsters is difficult, as an employer in the past,there is schooling, and there is schooling. Would a farmer, that wanted a worker be inclined to accept someone with GCSE's in country dancing,and art? I doubt it! A more useful applicant might have, maths, english, and carpentry.
To be fair, I know very little about internships, and frankly I think the process evil. The idea that a youngster has to work---just for their food, if not already illegal, should be made so! The nearest I've ever heard of a similar situation, was that between the 1900s and WW2 farmers would swap their sons, to give them a differing years experience. But as they 'lived in' mostly they would be treated well.
Furthermore, internships, apply most in the 'glamour ' industries, there is I'm told, always a long queue of glassy eyed youngsters wanting to be pop stars and models, I wouldn't know. I cannot think that the 'economics of showbusiness' fits any normal model. But then I live 150 miles from London. Where many, 'useful' lads will plough through the night, given a modern comfortable tractor, complete with radio, heater and cooler, ----oh and for cash! But they're always village lads, where we often live in a world of our own!
Livy
Brilliant piece. Nail hit firmly on the head.
But let's be honest, this whole conversation is at least 5 years late, and when the notion of paying your 'minions' was first verbalised it was laughed out of every room in Westminster. And Quite a few eyes rolled when the IPPR later came out and said organisations were actually breaking laws.
How about some candour on this issue. An admission that this is now being discussed due to nothing other than pressure and craven political positioning.