My problem with internships

I understand that a lot of people need experience, and sometimes people in school can get a leg up by taking an internship, but I'm starting to see something that I don't think was originally intended in the whole internship market. Businesses have been using internships as free labor, and they're getting pretty blatant about it as well.

While going to the University of the Pacific, one of the requirements they implemented in the second year I was there in graduate school (which means it did not affect me) was that political communication people were required to fulfill an internship. That's easier said than done as quite often people just don't have that kind of time while working an assistantship during grad school. But some people had to do it, and they did. In that context, I can understand the value of an internship. For those studying political communication, some type of job that involves political communication is a great internship to give someone experience in their field.

It's AFTER this process that I start to wonder about the whole internship thing. I look at a lot of jobs on Craigslist, and one thing I've started to notice is that really crappy jobs are often advertised as internships. I'm talking about the kind of jobs where you won't learn anything other than how to file papers and answer a telephone. Yet, they're wanting people with strong qualifications before they'll "hire" them as an intern who doesn't get paid. Think about this for a second. An internship is supposed to help you gain experience in your field, so you can go on to get a good job in that field. However, these internships want you to already have extensive experience ALREADY in the field, which means you probably had to have had an internship to get the internship.

This reminds me of the episode of The Office where Michael Scott attends a career fair where he is looking for an intern for their business. He doesn't like the one kid who seems interested, and then realizes after a short amount of time that NO ONE wants to work for his paper company, especially when his internship is a free internship. So towards the end of the day, he finds himself desperate and tries to win back the one kid who he shunned (which doesn't succeed).

This is what the whole internship thing reminds me of because I keep seeing companies that want people with tons of experience before they'll allow you to do an internship for them. And they're crappy companies! I'm not talking about Lucas Film deciding to let you intern as a film director's assistant. I'm talking about some social program reject firm that really wants nothing but free labor from young people, and they have no huge name recognition either. What exactly do they offer someone other than MORE experience than they already have, which they achieved by doing the internship before them?

This has been one of my observations of a crappy behavior since looking for a job. Businesses see the economy as bad so they decide to fill their actual jobs with interns rather than employees, and they wonder why their companies don't seem to be bouncing back. If this sort of thing continues, the recession is going to be very depressive.

Stumble It!